In recent times, there's been a push to reclassify certain disabilities from .. disabilities, into "neurodivergence." in an attempt to destigmatize certain disorders, and cast them in a new light as part of human evolution.

The idea that life is a min-maxing situation comes from the "just world fallacy", the fallacious belief that all good and evils "must balance out". Someone born with some profound disability might have no overarching heartwarming lesson for society to learn, and life might just be about abject cruelty.

I don't know if the community appreciates or hates that change, but, I've seen autism go from being called something quite hateful (/r) in the 1990s, to becoming a spectrum, to people working with autistic people and just calling them "different".

The romanticization might come from movies like Rain Man, and the few high profile savant cases (on ASD), e.g: I recall speculation that Bill Gates and Elon Musk both had Asperger's Syndrome.

What's your take on this?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I think it's definitely had the positive effects that you mention. People are far less cruel, more understanding, and also WAY more willing to go seek help with these types of problems than they used to be.

The negative effect is that anytime something becomes romanticized, it's human nature for people to adopt it as an identity, which introduces a lot of noise to the conversation, and we lose some of our objectivity toward it, as now there's an emotional attachment to the label itself. For example:

Back in the day (early 2010s?) of tumblr, when people first started collecting mental health labels like personal trading cards.
Or now, with the plethora of pseudoscientific misinformation about mental health on tiktok: random people are just making up terms or symptoms and pitching them in a nearly universally relatable way like horoscopes.
If you offer people a label that makes them feel part of a group, supported, and potentially explain why a bunch of things in their life are hard, it's in our nature to gravitate toward that.

All that being said, I still think it's a net-positive effect. This is just what happens anytime something clinical enters the mainstream conversation.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

it's human nature for people to adopt it as an identity, which introduces a lot of noise to the conversation, and we lose some of our objectivity toward it, as now there's an emotional attachment to the label itself.

I've noticed this in LGBQT culture as well. I'm a gay older Millenial and I've noticed that zoomers make their sexuality a much bigger part of their identities than qeer folks my age and older do as it becomes more accepted. For me, I don't want to be "special". I want absolute equality- I wish being with my boyfriend was seen as normal and ordinary.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You are one of the reasons lemmy is great.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Thank you for the kind words <3

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I got my very own meme from The Picard Maneuver!
<3
<3
<3

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I hate it. Sure. Being called a retard isn't great, but having people claim ASDs are just a different way of thinking is downplaying problems. Oh how quirky we are!

If I wasn't retarded, I would have been able to study properly instead of relying on hyperfocus and high ascociative thinking. I would have graduated. If I wasn't retarded, I would have been able to do things consistently and perseveer. Instead, I lose and gain weight over and over. I'm going to develop diabetes at this rate. Going to a 24/7 open gym is the only chance I got at staving off the problems caused by depression and my dopamine hunger induced eating disorder. If I wasn't retarded, people would have appreciated me more. Instead, I am too much. Say too much. Exist too much. Even when I predict something, or suggest something that people think was good, they believe someone else in the group thought of it.

Furthermore, downplaying the issues could have people mistake just how capable people with autism/ADHD are. People shouldn't think that starting a family with someone autistic is just "going to be a little different." People seriously ought to reconsider marrying someone lacking theory of mind skills. And autists should seriously reconsider whether or not they are suitable parents. Baby cries? Can't have a meltdown. Baby needs consistent care? Better not have exec. dys. inhibiting your jobsecurity and energy management. Need to be able to get on the level of the child, make the child feel heard and understood? Sucks for the kid if the parent lacks that ability too. Both my parents are autistic/AD(H)D, and were downright neglectful and one abusive. They have no real friends. They struggle with emotional regulation and communication. I've been working my ass off to become better than them.

I don't care what people call having multiple mental disabilities. What's important is helping children on the spectrum. Early detection could have spared me further brain damage and subsequent stacking of developmental problems.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Retarded is a synonym of mentally underdeveloped. If that's not the case, then it's just used incorrectly.

Usually because of social disdain for your behavior, and intended to degrade you into a lesser person than them.

Usually starts when your position on something irritates people who don't have any arguments other than your condition.

You've literally described how people around you make mistakes and put their weight on you. You are trying to reach them, but they are not trying to reach you. That's just wrong kind of people. I have friends and even neighbors not like this. Don't try to be good enough for some filth.

I don’t care what people call having multiple mental disabilities. What’s important is helping children on the spectrum. Early detection could have spared me further brain damage and subsequent stacking of developmental problems.

I care about both, but it's correct at least that people with such conditions should know about them as early as possible, to help with the challenges presented.

People shouldn’t think that starting a family with someone autistic is just “going to be a little different.”

Where I live people overthink that a lot. Somebody who had a few abusive relationships still thinks that one with an autistic person is worse because they are disabled or because they are crazy or some other ignorant caveman shit.

But you are right that for an autistic person a relationship with someone not conscious of all this is an idea that will fail without doubt. Because such people don't even know that one can think about relationships, it all works instinctively for them. They react to any diversion from the usual path the same way a Windows user reacts to a BSOD. They don't even see that nothing particularly bad has happened, are afraid to think and just run away.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Thank you for reading. I agree with you.

Unfortunately. AD(H)D does impact brain development. People have brains that are and wothout care remain underdeveloped in a few regions, as well as the connections between these regions. So the use of retard is correct.

I can't blame people for not wasting energy on a child that needs a lot more structure, support and training.

As for relationships. They do ask things that people on the spectrum struggle with. From being able to put oneself in the other's shoes, to being aware of how they feel themselves about a situation. Struggling with emotional regulation can also cause problems, while not being aware that what they said or did wasn't okay.

Take my dad for example. He destroyed family ties between my mother and his side of the family. He compartimenalized me as part of "mom's" side. Reducing what little family connection I had. All because of hypersensitivity and not wanting to be around "too many people" once a year for christmas. So to this day he has two christmas parties. With his family, and us. Even though everyone on "his side" is on the spectrum and would have understood if he communicated about getting overstimulated. No one bothered to ask why, or what my sister and I thought of it. As after all, they struggle with theory of mind.

With such carelessness or lack of awareness, I cannot blame someone for not thinking and just running away. If someone is seemingly shortsighted, unreliable or uncaring, why stay with them? Or starting a relationship with them with no certainty things will improve? It's wrong to believe you can change or fix someone, it is foolish to try when you don't.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I can’t blame people for not wasting energy on a child that needs a lot more structure, support and training.

Nah. Just different choices in all of these. I have ADHD. Most of the problems are not about trying to achieve the same things as others do, but trying to achieve them the same way others do. After solving that there are still downsides, but these are not qualitative.

It takes very little to notice which things don't work and don't try them again. A parent who doesn't care about this is a bad parent, and an educator who ignores this is simply malicious. At least in my experience people would very easily change their approaches.

Including very traditional-minded people and those denying the condition itself ("you don't have a disorder, you just need to do things your own way" is ignorant, but really better than using others' conditions to attack them, and I've heard this really often ; definitely better than "oh, it's so sad, I really hope everything will be good with you, I really like your imagination and hope you'll give it more attention, but it seems you won't change, we are too different, don't write me anymore", said in 20x the amount of words, in relationships).

Those who wouldn't were either insulted by some perceived lack of respect and tried to prove that I'm stupid, needless to say that lack of respect became genuine then (like a few school teachers and university professors, but not all of them ; or peers of the "dumb and uninventive, but proud of being capable of stealing something" kind), or ignorant idiots of the Soviet generation afraid of anything connected to mental health (like my dad, what's even dumber I'm confident he was autistic too).

With such carelessness or lack of awareness, I cannot blame someone for not thinking and just running away. If someone is seemingly shortsighted, unreliable or uncaring, why stay with them? Or starting a relationship with them with no certainty things will improve? It’s wrong to believe you can change or fix someone, it is foolish to try when you don’t.

Humans have invented words to discuss all those things. If it's about spending possibly the rest of your life alongside someone, being reluctant to talk is just strange. Yes, if the other person thinks they know better and this shouldn't be discussed in detail, then no chance.

Unless that other person is too autistic, ha-ha. Then that particular kind of problems one can just write off.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

I understand what you mean! What I (and probably most of us) want is the balance between "treat me like a normal person" (as in, with the same dignity and less condescension) and "don't set expectations too high". I believe portraying persons on the spectre as savant geniuses as in "Rain Man" or ADHD as a "superpower" skews the balance to one side and we just need some disclaimers to even it out.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

As a low support / "high functioning" (which feels like a toxic phrase for "good at masking and compensating") autist, it's easy for me say "I'm just different" and blame my disadvantages on a society that fails to accomodate for that divergence. I often stay away from spaces where I know I won't be comfortable, I miss out on events I fear may overwhelm me, I retreat when I don't feel like I can handle navigating the minefield of social interaction. I'm excluding myself from things, because I know (or fear) those things won't cater to my differences, but I'm not universally unable to participate, so it feels less like a disability to me (more on that later).

That most certainly doesn't hold for people whose "functioning" is more severely impaired. If you respond to unexpected changes with anxiety attacks because you can't adjust quickly, that certainly presents a disability in the literal sense and a challenge in dealing with everyday occurrences.

I feel like the shift away from calling it a disability is partially due to the stigma of treating people with disabilities as lesser, partially because it's not always a visible physical disability and I've seen people argue that it's not a real disability. Both of those are bad, but instead of engaging them, It's sometimes easier to sidestep. Instead of arguing whether I'm disabled or not, I'll call it a neurodivergence, because my brain being different is something that's beyond argument.

There is also the opposite to disdain or dismissal: Pity or praise. Instead of treating me as defective or overdramatic, some people have responded with some form of "oh you poor thing, that must be hard" or "you're so strong, making your way through life despite those challenges".
The first one may be half-right, but it just feels like something you'd say when you don't know what's appropriate and are trying to play it safe with the empathy angle.

The second feels hollow, because I don't feel stronger. I struggle far more than I could even express, because expressing thoughts in itself is a struggle. I spent forever writing this comment. To consider myself stronger than others would require me to somehow quantify my difficulties and weigh them up against theirs. I don't think that's productive. I think it will lead to some form of "suffering olympics", which is a mindset I'd like to avoid.
And really, what else would I do? Sit in a corner and cry about the injustice of the universe? Might as well curse the sun for being hot, it doesn't change anything. Better to look for shade instead of dwelling on the problem.

I don't want people to treat me like I'm subhuman, nor like I'm superhuman. I don't want people to invalidate my difficulties, nor make a point of dwelling on them. I want people to acknowledge that this is how I work, to understand if I'm doing something "wrong" or have difficulties, possibly help me if it's reasonable.
I don't need a lot of accommodation, just some patience, understanding when I express myself poorly or do things a certain way that suits me more and maybe someone to handle difficult communication on my behalf. So I wouldn't describe myself as disabled, whether or not that would be accurate, because of the social baggage that word carries. I'd rather leave the relevant help resources for those that need it more.

That's not to discount anyone else's self-description. If you feel like "disability" fits your condition, I'm not going to invalidate that. You know your experience better than anyone else. In fact, I can see an argument that my self-exclusion as response to my difficulties presents some degree of disability to participate.

I'm still fighting my own preconceptions on that, and it probably is part of the reason I don't feel like disabled is an accurate description for msyelf. I've grown up with a certain set of convictions and prejudice that I've deeply internalised. I've mostly managed to expunge them when it comes to others, occasionally still catching myself in some judgmental train of thought and then consciously derailing it, but I have difficulties accurately and productively reflecting on my own self-perception. In a way, it's both the least outwardly toxic, yet most self-destructive form of hypocrisy, and I don't know how to deal with it.

As for the romanticisation, I feel like that might be the result of efforts to fight the stigma having overshot their goal due to survivorship bias. Yes, people with ASD may have unique talents too. Yes, we're not all entirely disadvantaged. Yes, ASD doesn't automatically make us strictly less capable.

But most of us aren't some insane genius. You just wouldn't make a big deal out of the average, so the media report on the extraordinary instead. And if someone's only contact with the topic is through media that show the savants, it's easy to forget that what they see isn't representative.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

This is just a misunderstanding of statistics. Something being true for the average doesn't mean it's true for separate points.

But in average that's a bit like calling homosexualism a disability.

I like the border between disability and just neurodivergence to be drawn where it needs to be cured with medicine or you turn into a vegetable or can't survive. Like with schizophrenia, or maybe BPD. With autism and ADHD most of the problems are from trying to follow procedures for people who are different and imitate them, and most of the solutions are about teaching people with these conditions to drop those imitations and know themselves. I mean, medicine helps, but the problems it solves are too mostly about network effect.