Does autism need a It Gets Better campaign?

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It doesn't get better. You are defective. Society doesn't want you or want to tolerate you. If it did then autism wouldn't be considered a mental disorder. No amount of self delusion, false hope or pity from others changes that fact. As a kid you might get some help and if you're lucky and learn to ape normalacy well enough to get an education and maybe a job, and possibly even avoid bullying in adulthood. If you can get happiness from just your work and hobbies and feel no need for human relationships, maybe you will be happy in your own little world. For the rest of us there's just an eternity of isolation and misery. Once you're an adult nobody cares. You're cast aside with the rest of humanities genetic detritus. You may as as well going by your own hand than letting nature do its slow work. I have resposibilities to my parents, but once they're gone, so am I. I hope I can last that long, most days I have doubts that I will.

Where I live there is lots of help and growing hope. People don't seem to dislike me for having autism or others. They are really nice. You seem kind of depressed?

Good for you. Have a nice life. In the real world where I live "autistic" and "aspergers" are bandied around as terms of abuse. If my work found out I might not get fired, but the references I need for my future career would be in jeopardy. I'm pretty sure my co-workers would make my life difficult. One moved out of her flat recently because her flatmate was a dirty, inflexible moron. Her conclusion and justification for the move? She thinks he has autism. Nobody saw anything unusual or disagreeable about this. Would they tolerate an autistic co worker? I think not. Luckily I don't have to socialise much at work and it's the kind of job where you have to work on your own for extended periods of time. When trying to socialise outside work I have heard people discussing relationships/babies expressing their wishes to avoid partners who have autistic people in their families in case they pass it on to their kids, and wishing there was a prenatal test for it. These views are seen as normal and healthy. When people believe someone acts a certain way because of a fault in their biochemistry/ brain structure, as opposed to something that happened to them such as a traumatic event or even demonic posession, they become a lot less sympathetic and will ostracise that person. This article covers some of the studies showing this http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magaz ... ted=1&_r=1 Start on page 4 if you want to get straight to it.

As for being depressed, why the hell wouldn't I be? When I was diagnosed I tried hanging out with others on the spectrum. Hated it. Being around others manifesting traits that I hate in myself makes me miserable. It also took away the one belief that had kept me going through childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, the belief that things would get better as I'd get older and that if I just tried hard enough I could be normal, fit in effortlessly and have a full, happy life. Friends, a partner, maybe kids (non-defective ones who'd have the same chance at a happy life as their peers and who, normal or otherwise, wouldn't end up traumatised by incompetent parenting)- you know, the things most people want. Seeing other, older people on the spectrum made me realise that I'd always be a freak, and that my chances of finding someone to share my life with without having to make huge, possibly impossible efforts to try to maintain my pretense of normalacy, and/or accept a very raw deal such as an abusive or otherwise maladjusted/defective spouse, are remote. It also put paid to my hope that *somewhere* there was a place or peer group that I would want to be a part of that I could be a part of without constantly struggling. I went along to a centre in my city, which is one of the best in my country for autistic adults, to see if I could get some kind of counselling or other psychological help. Nothing. I could go along as an object of pity and charity and make paper chains in a craft group with a bunch of teenagers and misfits (not exactly something someone with a BSc and PhD is likely to consider as a fun social activity!), but that was about it. The staff and volunteers talked to me and to treated me differently from how they talked to and treated my mum, like I was younger than I am or some kind of "other". Words cannot describe how much I hate that. Eventually they started a late diagnosis group for people diagnosed as adults, but I'd already got a job in another town. Things in this town are a bit better because I have a job, don't have to live at home and know some normal people from my university days who I can hang out with (I despise spending time with autistics). But things are still pretty miserable. There's no garuntee that I'll still be in work a year from now and even if I did get a permament job, the rest of my life would still be miserable. I do my best to survive, that's all I can do. Please don't start some kind of "it gets better" campaign, nothing is more cruel than false hope.

ES, it seems to me that your problem doesn't stem from being autistic, but rather from self-hatred.

Of course you're going to be unhappy if you hate yourself, but to say that every autistic will hate themselves for the rest of their lives just doesn't make any sense.

I hope that soon you will learn to see yourself with loving eyes, and realize that, even if people don't speak up in defense of autistics, they don't all hate us.

Furthermore, it's not a matter of being part of the majority, or what the majority sees as right. It's about actually being right, whether they see it or not.

Difference is NOT defective. Normal is NOT perfection. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

It seems a lot - not nearly all, but a good number - of people on the spectrum's problems stem from public ignorance and stigma. We learn to value ourselves less, to lower our expectations, to question or even abandon thinking that we are inherently worth as much as non-autistic people. THIS is exactly why we need an It Gets Better campaign - not only would it serve autistic people well to see older people who have faced their same or similar challenges and made it through okay, but it would go to show everybody that Autism Speaks and its ilk's dire predictions for us don't have to be true. Would it change things on a huge scale instantly? Unfortunately not. That being said, convincing some people on the spectrum that their lives are valuable and that they are capable, and convincing some parents, teachers, mental health professionals and other people in charge of helping people with autism that the people in their care can do well if things go right for them, would at least make for some victories.

Also - ES, I am sorry to hear that things don't go well for you. However, I live in the "real world," too, and have found that some people can be helpful, and that things can go well for people on the spectrum. I've been in other places in this same "real world" where things haven't been as good, but I don't think that those experiences have been anymore real than the good ones I've had. Equating the "real world" with hopelessness only legitimizes the decisions on the part of individuals who could choose to do otherwise to act carelessly or based on prejudice, and I don't think they deserve that excuse.

I think the campaign needs to be more amongst people with autism and to focus on positivity in spite of challenges.

Two completely different groups... with one very similar need. My roommate at college happens to be gay, and is a very close friend of mine. From knowing him, I have grown to realize that much of the issues I faced as a child (the lack of confidence, the feeling of standing out etc...) were also faced by him. Children with Aspergers need to realize that things will get better as they mature, and discover what they wish to do with their lives.

Confidence building differs from cure research for those that need a great deal of help and who cannot otherwise function without specialized adaptive assistance and training for independence.