I reject the whole premise

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Unless you happen to be one of the people who needs some kind of help to live. Without help, I would be unable to get a job and earn enough money to buy the property to live in the woods. For that matter, I don't have the executive function you need to actually produce everything I need by myself. Many NTs would have trouble doing that--now try it if you are scattered and easy to mentally exhaust to the point that it takes three hours to cook spaghetti, and you only get to eat it if the delays and disorganization occurred during the "getting out ingredients" or "putting together the meal" phases instead of the "leave it on the stove until cooked" phase... I depend on supermarkets and easy access to food that can be made easily, and that's just for one basic necessity. (Oddly enough, I am more capable of making my own clothes than my own food...)

Sure, nobody can hunt me down like a dog; but realistically, me on my own, without support, outside of society, is me with a very short lifespan. And I'm considered either "high" or "mid" functioning, on most days, for most definitions of "functioning". There are other people who need a lot more than I do. They don't have a choice. The problem of being vulnerable because you depend on a society that doesn't like your brain type isn't exclusive to people in assisted living situations, you know. It only takes one significant weakness, and suddenly you've got to do what society wants, or else end up in a seriously bad situation. In my case, if I lost my SSI or Medicaid benefits, lost access to assistance at school and at work, or was kicked out of my apartment, I would be in serious trouble--probably to the tune of, "Do they still have beds at the homeless shelter, and if not, would it make sense to say (most likely honestly) that I am suicidal and go to the hospital?"

For the record: I spoke on time and did not have a developmental delay. I have been living on my own for two years now. People have called me "amazing" for doing such things as learning to drive and passing college classes. As far as autism goes, I'm considered to be doing pretty well. The fact that I have this same vulnerability, in milder form, as people who need 24 hour assistance, should really speak for unity. No, my issues are not the same, but they're similar enough that they will most likely come under the same laws.

Thanks, DW!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqvcmud3LFQ[/youtube]

The lyrics to this one also speak to some of the issues brought up by the OP of this thread.

Floyd really spoke/speaks to our suffering and confusion... I still want to have David Gilmour's babies! What a genius!

Last edited by Feyhera on 28 Jul 2009, 7:29 am, edited 3 times in total.

LOL... Like Bud and Bud Light.

Even as strong-willed and determined as I was to make it, in the end, I couldn't do a completely independent life (off-the-grid) either. If you look over at my avatar, you'll see that I'm no longer slogging away back in VT. I left. I had to -- it was just too hard. I found I needed society. And in some ways, society needed me, too.

Your living situation exemplifies the reasons why I'm trying to appeal to the OP that life in this "failed" society may be almost unbearable, but there are worse alternatives. I definitely can't imagine living back in the Neolithic times when babies born with obvious disabilities were left out for the wolves, or if there was a HFA guy in the tribe and he got distracted by a special focus and wandered off, no-one would necessarily go looking for him. It was eat-or-be-eaten and the survival of the genes that produce some of the disabilities we see in humanity today were all "allowed" to continue on in the gene pool because somewhere along the line some "powerful" NTs cared about people like my husband and sheltered them. And not always because they were a da Vinci and had something to offer. Sometimes, just because the headman/lord had the compassion and humanity to live and let live. To scoff at the same "power" that has also created the morass that is modern society is to scoff at the chance to be here having a life with possibilities. Don't lose sight of the natural way of things in human instinct: We (all of us, not just NTs) are not exempt from the exact same impulse to cull the weak as the "lower" animals tend to do (I have found plenty of aspies here lauding the superiority of "their kind"). But as a species, the vast majority of us have found our souls and as a society have overcome that cold amygadalan perception of our fellow man. I myself am a product of that "benevolence" and the developments and innovations that sprang from it: I should have died at age 9 from appendicitis. But modern medicine AND service to others saved my life. Again, at 22, I contracted bacterial meningitis. Antibiotics AND service to others gave me a second chance. I may hate the negative aspects of the power base that gave rise to those medical procedures and services which allowed my life to continue this long, but because of that power base, not in spite of it, I am here today to speak my mind and try to offer others some counter-intuitive hope that might give a few some measure of peace... or even joy whenever possible. So, maybe the world is a better place by a factor of 1 because I was offered a chance, by others, to go on and live.

In closing, I think everyone here is right. Life does suck for most people on the planet. And there could be some changes made that would improve things for everyone. But, it's better now than it's ever been before in Man's history. Think about it. And we do have a chance to make things better for those who come after us by constantly working TOGETHER to find solutions to the things which we find intolerable in our world. And aspies/HFA have done much to shape our world already. For the better. It only stands to reason that many of you will contribute to the better world to come. And it won't necessarily require huge feats of math or science or reasoning. The work done here at WP, for instance -- where people of different walks of life come together and try to bridge the gap -- everyone who is involved in that, in some small way, is making the statement that they haven't quite given up yet. "Hope and Love" (yes, Love, big "L" -- to differentiate the force that binds all men together in a world community from romantic/relational love) is the answer to every question asked in the spirit of hope and love. But it takes Hope and Love to get the ball rolling, and Angst and/or Indifference helps no-one, especially those who are indifferent and/or angsted.

Just my take.