Why so much hate?

Post Reply New Topic

I was having a discussion the other day with the director of a mental health agency about how people on the autism spectrum view autism. Being someone involved in autism advocacy, and someone with a diagnosis myself, I immediately told him that we prefer to view it as a difference, and not a disability.

However, after thinking in it a moment, I corrected myself to him. While the small percentage of political ones feel that way, the rest would rather have friends and jobs, and maybe move out of their parents' house someday. He found this very interesting.

I found when I got home, I had to correct myself again. Most people on the autism spectrum want to be able to have basic independent functioning skills. On places like Wrong Planet, we only see the sort of person who has the communication skills to post on the Internet. This is a minority amongst persons on the autism spectrum, many of whom struggle with daily issues such as eating, and putting clothes on. It's just that we don't tend to see these people, and with the brilliant autism advocates in books and television, we like to think that people on the autism spectrum can do anything.

Lately, there has been a very small, but growing, movement that persons with autism are superior. I suppose you can say this is merited, so long as you ignore the majority of persons with autism who cannot connect meaningfully with the outside world and need constant direction and supervision to accomplish anything.

I cannot help but feel that we have become so sensitive to discrimination that we forget our problems. The fact that so many persons with autism are invisible, staying at home or in residential care, and only communicating with a small handful of people, that we only see the shiny brilliant ones, only exacerbates this. I know many persons with autism who constantly scream and hit people. They would starve to death if you didn't directly put food in front of them even when they are at home, lacking the skills to realize they are hungry, go to the kitchen, and put some Hot Pockets in the microwave even as adults. The Temple Grandins and John Elder Robisons of the world would do well to recognize the struggles of the majority of persons who are not brilliant and realize that autism is disabling for the vast majority of people.

Autistic superiority only works if you only consider people who are both autistic and superior. When I come here, I feel such a combative atmosphere towards people who are not autistic that it can be, at times, stifling. Persons with autism who are also otherwise effective in daily life are such a small segment of the population, and, while there are plenty of exceptions, as a general rule make such a small effort to fit in with others, preferring to demand that others accept them, it's difficult to fault people at large for not immediately accepting it as a cultural difference, as it's purported to be. I've taken great steps to fit in with other people as a person diagnosed with Asperger's and found it to make the lives of myself and others around me a great deal easier. Demanding that other people accept me while I continually miscommunicate and make them uncomfortable did no good for me, and I imagine it does no good for anyone else or the advancement of persons with autism as a whole.

I guess what I'm asking, in a roundabout way, is this. Why do we have such a difficult time, particularly in this forum, recognizing the disabling effects of autism? Our lack of social graces makes most people genuinely uncomfortable. Why do we hate them for that rather than try to fit in, like nearly every other person? I don't see bitterness and hate towards anyone, be it the general population, "curebies" who would like an easier and more satisfying life for themselves and their friends and families, or any other group of people taking us anywhere.

I always try to be a good person and I almost always try to act properly in social contexts (sometimes with success and sometimes failure) despite it making me tired. I don't need to cover up my differences with my bf and Mum, so I don't.

Despite all my efforts my extended family don't accept me as an adult, capable of making correct decisions in my life, as a result I cut them out of my life because their behavior damaged my feeling of self worth. Despite all my trying, they never tried to accept me. Despite all my trying, I've still been bullied for being different. I get angry at people who look at me as something to be cured, I don't fit in all the time but I'm a good person.

Personally, I feel that 'curebies' take efforts and finances away from other services that could benefit all of us. Social skills training for example, if we could use the money for social skills training from a young age, so many of us would be far better able to get some form of work. Coping strategies as well, research into effective coping strategies would be better than trying to remove us from the gene-pool.

i dont think most people here think autism is not a serious disability.people here feel under estamated by the world,like people assume you cant do anything.so they use this forum to brag about there sucesses.i think the hostile reaction to people with autism expressing there sucesses is blow out of perportion.if you are always assuming someone cant do something your just baiting them to brag

Here where I live there are day programs for skills development and so on. I am not sure why people want to stop research other then the abortion issue. Treatment advancements are a human right. Also with regards to how others perceive individuals with autism and even other related disabilities I find that within programs they seem to always be positive and supporting. However there are times individuals underestimate difficulty as well. I think the people who accuse people of being curebees as if it's a negative thing when it is a wholesome human right out to be talking to their elected figures and non-profits. I think allot more is possible with private funding and proper use of already existing government funding. Folks should not take it out on others human rights for treatment advancements just because they see that succeeding when they could focus on other needed aspects themselves. Just because someone has a form of autism I don't think it entitles them to collect treatment research funding for their skills development or inclusion.

I'd venture to say that most of the hatred towards NT's comes from the severe bullying and ostracizing that most Aspies are subject to. It is perfectly natural for a victim of torture to hate their torturers and oppressors, to reject them and not want to try to be more like them.

It seems to me that the severe cases of Autism where the person can't even feed himself must have co-morbid mental retardation of some kind.

Not necessarily. Some people with autism are so overwhelmed by their senses that it would make sense that they might not think to feed themselves.

I have to agree with the OP. I don't like autism supremacy at all. I live in a residential home with people who are never going to get anywhere further than the home. That's not to say they are bad people or 'ret*d' (God I hate that word), just that they need a higher level of support than some of the people on this site. The majority of the people I have met with autism (and that's quite a lot of people) have severe impairments, regardless of what end of the spectrum they are on.

I would guess that autism supremacy stems from bullying during childhood. Maybe that person has been beaten down so many times that they try to delude themselves into believing that they are better than everyone else. I went through a small stage of this, but this just alienates you further from life and is not healthy. I prefer to accept myself in the sense that 'yes I am autistic, yes I have defecits and gifts, but above all I am only human'.

I'm sorry to hear that you have been bullied. I experienced a lot of that, as well, growing up, and still have trouble being taken seriously at times.



Surely services to cure issues outright could be just as helpful as skills training; a pill to cure clumsiness would be nicer than many hours of expensive and difficult physical therapy.



This makes a lot of sense. I spent my teenage years being mad at the world and wanting to cut ties with it rather than learn to work to make things better. As you can imagine, this never made me anny happier.



A great number of persons with autism cannot reliably feed, clothe, or bathe themselves without daily support or considerable training. For an unfortunate number of people, the training never helps, and they rely on other people to do everything for them their entire lives. They are simply too engaged in their own world to enter the real world where they are faced with the real, pressing needs of daily survival.

I agree with most of the OP although, I haven't seen any statistics on the division of LFA and HFA. And I know people dislike those abbreviations but I do think the distinctions are important. With the all inclusive DSM criteria looming in the future there wil lbe no distinction and I see potential problems with that. I think it is important to know how many with autism are capable of independant living, how many would thrive with supported living and how many need in home constant care. Much of the derision in the autistic community seems to come from people who assume that their side of the spectrum dominates (statistically) when I'm just not sure we have those actual numbers to support either assumption. And there is a huge grey area in the middle of that as well.

I think much of this issue comes down to mistaken assumptions - on all sides. IMHO one of the most pervasive and toxic of those assumptions is that the psychiatric community, charged, by and large, with caring for the autistic population maintains such low expections of those in their care. I think perhaps, more of the autistic population could do and acheive more with a more inclusive and understanding education model.

I can't even begin to tell you how many parents and teachers have had lightbulb moments when I simply suggested that their childs more annoying behaviors are attemtps at communicating - and that the current education model seeks to STOP and ignore these attempts as 'unwanted behaviors'. How many educators and parents do not know what meltdowns and shutdowns are or why they happen. How many misunderstand what sensory sensitivies are and why they may not be able to teach them to 'just get used to it'. I think there needs to be a renaissance in autism education and I think we are in the very beginning stages of that. We needs Temple's and John's - those high functioning on the spectrum to help translate and lead the way for those that cannot advocate for themselves.

On this forum in particular, it does seem to be mostly Aspies - at least the outspoken ones. But there are people of every persuasion here. I think a very noisy and young minority , who have been subjected to this system of low expectations and mistaken educational interventions, who want to lash out and get back at a systems that has failed them. In general, I find that the majority of posters are much more even tempered and cognizant of the challenges of others. Many of the older Aspies don't even feel they need help since life taught them many lessons already. What I would give to see a mentoring program set up to connect one generation with the other. Our social disability is what actually defines us all - it is the one trait we all share to one degree or another. I think everyone recognises that. And, I think alot of people come here to vent that frustration because there really is no where else to vent that where other people will understand.

I have read on other autism forums, several posts of how much an NT parent dislikes WP because it is all 'disgruntled Aspies'. Yet, most of those that I have read are also of the mind that they need to find a cure for their child becasue who their child is is currently unacceptable. It is an ugly feedback loop. The voices of reason need to prevail.

What i would suggest and in fact if you had bothered to go to my site or look at the argument in my post is that the higher functioning help the lower functioning to become more independent. That would solve the problem because autistic people would sympathize with the lower functioning autistics better.

The issues are part of what developed me as a person, without the difficulties that I have faced I wouldn't be me. I feel that humans shouldn't go down the route of culling that which does not match everybody else. I feel that if such is done, society will become less and less tolerant of those who are different in every conceivable way (because the viewpoint would be "Why don't they just take a pill?").

Also, I feel diversity is important regarding humanity.

In addition, if any of the people who are researching listened to anyone on the Spectrum, I probably wouldn't be against those who say they want to 'cure' us but generally they don't. For them a cure would be us exactly the same as them or being able to test for us as a fetus so we can be aborted.

I like most of my differences, if I ever have children I would like them to have my beneficial differences. I'd prefer that they didn't get my less beneficial differences but I don't get to pick.

First of all of course autism is very disabling and I would not deny that. For example if I took a calculus math class I would probably barely pass the class with a D and may even fail the class. A smart neurotypical person would probably ace the class with ten times less effort. So how can I believe in autism supremacy. Because the fact is that the smart neurotypical may be able to ace the calculus, on the otherhand it is the autistic Isaac Newton himself who invents the calculus. Now think about that for a moment and what that means when someday we truly know how to judge intelligence which is not how fast the computers central processing system runs but rather implementing the standards of the artificial neural network which is the most interconnections between the neurons.

Now about hate. Once autistics are elevated to celebrity status like Einstein was does it make sense to hate your neurotypical fan base? In the meantime it may not be acceptable to hate individuals but rather to hate their actions which is constant discrimination.

Hate is not necessarily bad anger is an energy!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8szRgIcYlY&feature=related[/youtube]

This is probably how some aspies feel, yes.

I mean look how they treated Thomas Edison when his teacher told him to quit asking stupid questions and then had him fired from school because he was considered a ret*d andnot worth the time it takes for instruction.

Just keep passing through the phases without getting stuck.

There is no way to pass through the phases because neurotypicals have all the power.