People—brains—differ. Why do so many people equate different with “inferior”? I have two kids on the spectrum and suspect I am as well. I can’t tell you the struggles we encountered as people/schools tried to shove these square pegs into round holes. Isn’t diversity about differences?
I don’t understand you. The main problem in autism debate is that everyone wants to be autistic, diagnostic criteria are diluted, people protest against diagnostic process.
People are frustrated with the diagnostics and assessment process, yes, for many reasons. But we don’t want diagnosis of autism to stop. The waiting times for assessment are huge which means genuinely autistic people are waiting too long to access support, and innocently misinformed people who are not autistic are taking up space in the queues. Lots of people resort to Self Diagnosing instead and not putting themselves forward for assessments. The more people who self dx, the more the face of autism changes and more and more non-autistic ppl start self dx’ing based on other self dx’ers they’ve seen. Which inturn, changes the face of autism further, which means more people relate to non-autistic self dx’ers and start either self dx’ing themselves or taking up space in the assessment waiting lists, pushing more actually autistic ppl out. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.
“Neuro Affirming Care affirms that you are your neurology and doesn’t try to “fix” it, instead it embraces acceptance”
Wait are you saying this is something you agree with? You *are* your neurology? I strongly disagree. And I also strongly disagree that a person shouldn’t try to change their bad or unhelpful behaviors. And I also know it is possible to change how your brain works, or at least, how you engage with your brain.
Brains, unlike sex, are not immutable. Brains are neuroplastic which means they can change, such as they can repair themselves after injury/trauma, we can LEARN and expand and create new neural pathways etc. However, we cannot for example stop being autistic. Nor can someone turn into an autistic person. Nor should we ever deny a patient's autism when helping them. We ARE autistic neurologically and that cannot be changed. My words on this image are in reference to neuro affirming care for autistic ppl which works WITH your autism, not against it. Autism therapies used to be based on helping you be more neurotypical (as in, less autistic) which was harmful to autistic ppl. This is not talking about therapy for things like overcoming trauma, unlearning bad behaviours, help with OCD, etc. The only way you can help your brain is by accepting it, understanding it and working with it to get better. We wouldn’t deny a depressed person is depressed. We wouldn’t deny an autistic person is autistic. We work with reality and grow and expand from there. Gender affirming care goes against biology and affirms we are not our biology - which is harmful. At no point ever has a person biologically changed sex. They are not plastic like brains with the ability to change like that - just like you can’t change from autistic to not autistic. If a schizophrenic person took medication to stop their symptoms, they are still schizophrenic, they haven’t changed. This is a comparison to Gender Critical. And a very apt one!
The comparison with schizophrenia is inappropriate. To start with, it's a pathology. Secondly, someone on medication can effectively have no symptoms and have eradicated their scz-ness... What does it mean to still call someone who is totally normal, scz? Thirdly, lots of people with scz never have another episode even without meds, so the issue is whether we should call a totally normal person who had a mental issue at one point in their life scz. If the label describes something that happened years ago, why not acknowledge that the person is recovered? What that highlights is psychiatry's unwillingness to allow its patients recovery, and just because people who are totally asymptomatic have the label... That has no relevance to autism, unless you're trying to tell me that people with autism recover and no longer have any symptoms and have totally normal typical brains, they just still have the label and the accommodations etc as a hangover from the autism episode they had years ago!
The schizophrenia analogy may not work that well, I wondered if that was right after I wrote it as I've heard some ppl have had "temporary" schizophrenia before in childhood and then never again. I was thinking of ppl who need lifelong medication bcos they can't lead a well life without the medication and would slip back into ill mental health and hallucinations/delusions.
I wonder if it could be similar to how ppl say "once an alcoholic always an alcoholic", and "I can't drink because I'm an alcoholic" - even though they never drink again. Perhaps, like you say, it could be unfair to refer to them as alcoholic when they've given it up after all. But they often refer to themselves as alcoholics still.
I suppose in both cases it may come down to individual preferences on how they think of themselves.
I don't understand your jump to saying "recover from autism". My point is that you cannot stop being autistic. There is no recovery or cure for autism, it is not a temporary neurological state, it is life long. Sure, some people take medication to help with some symptoms/traits, but that doesn't stop them being autistic, or pause autism, it can just help with some symptoms the person may be struggling with.
Like if you have auto immune hypothyroidism and take medication to replace your lost thyroid hormone, your body is still that of an auto immune hypothyroid person even though you are medicated and well. Some people will be temporarily hypothyroid but others are life long due to auto immunity that causes it.
People—brains—differ. Why do so many people equate different with “inferior”? I have two kids on the spectrum and suspect I am as well. I can’t tell you the struggles we encountered as people/schools tried to shove these square pegs into round holes. Isn’t diversity about differences?
I don’t understand you. The main problem in autism debate is that everyone wants to be autistic, diagnostic criteria are diluted, people protest against diagnostic process.
People are frustrated with the diagnostics and assessment process, yes, for many reasons. But we don’t want diagnosis of autism to stop. The waiting times for assessment are huge which means genuinely autistic people are waiting too long to access support, and innocently misinformed people who are not autistic are taking up space in the queues. Lots of people resort to Self Diagnosing instead and not putting themselves forward for assessments. The more people who self dx, the more the face of autism changes and more and more non-autistic ppl start self dx’ing based on other self dx’ers they’ve seen. Which inturn, changes the face of autism further, which means more people relate to non-autistic self dx’ers and start either self dx’ing themselves or taking up space in the assessment waiting lists, pushing more actually autistic ppl out. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.
Love your words ❤️
“Neuro Affirming Care affirms that you are your neurology and doesn’t try to “fix” it, instead it embraces acceptance”
Wait are you saying this is something you agree with? You *are* your neurology? I strongly disagree. And I also strongly disagree that a person shouldn’t try to change their bad or unhelpful behaviors. And I also know it is possible to change how your brain works, or at least, how you engage with your brain.
Brains, unlike sex, are not immutable. Brains are neuroplastic which means they can change, such as they can repair themselves after injury/trauma, we can LEARN and expand and create new neural pathways etc. However, we cannot for example stop being autistic. Nor can someone turn into an autistic person. Nor should we ever deny a patient's autism when helping them. We ARE autistic neurologically and that cannot be changed. My words on this image are in reference to neuro affirming care for autistic ppl which works WITH your autism, not against it. Autism therapies used to be based on helping you be more neurotypical (as in, less autistic) which was harmful to autistic ppl. This is not talking about therapy for things like overcoming trauma, unlearning bad behaviours, help with OCD, etc. The only way you can help your brain is by accepting it, understanding it and working with it to get better. We wouldn’t deny a depressed person is depressed. We wouldn’t deny an autistic person is autistic. We work with reality and grow and expand from there. Gender affirming care goes against biology and affirms we are not our biology - which is harmful. At no point ever has a person biologically changed sex. They are not plastic like brains with the ability to change like that - just like you can’t change from autistic to not autistic. If a schizophrenic person took medication to stop their symptoms, they are still schizophrenic, they haven’t changed. This is a comparison to Gender Critical. And a very apt one!
YES!!!
The comparison with schizophrenia is inappropriate. To start with, it's a pathology. Secondly, someone on medication can effectively have no symptoms and have eradicated their scz-ness... What does it mean to still call someone who is totally normal, scz? Thirdly, lots of people with scz never have another episode even without meds, so the issue is whether we should call a totally normal person who had a mental issue at one point in their life scz. If the label describes something that happened years ago, why not acknowledge that the person is recovered? What that highlights is psychiatry's unwillingness to allow its patients recovery, and just because people who are totally asymptomatic have the label... That has no relevance to autism, unless you're trying to tell me that people with autism recover and no longer have any symptoms and have totally normal typical brains, they just still have the label and the accommodations etc as a hangover from the autism episode they had years ago!
The schizophrenia analogy may not work that well, I wondered if that was right after I wrote it as I've heard some ppl have had "temporary" schizophrenia before in childhood and then never again. I was thinking of ppl who need lifelong medication bcos they can't lead a well life without the medication and would slip back into ill mental health and hallucinations/delusions.
I wonder if it could be similar to how ppl say "once an alcoholic always an alcoholic", and "I can't drink because I'm an alcoholic" - even though they never drink again. Perhaps, like you say, it could be unfair to refer to them as alcoholic when they've given it up after all. But they often refer to themselves as alcoholics still.
I suppose in both cases it may come down to individual preferences on how they think of themselves.
I don't understand your jump to saying "recover from autism". My point is that you cannot stop being autistic. There is no recovery or cure for autism, it is not a temporary neurological state, it is life long. Sure, some people take medication to help with some symptoms/traits, but that doesn't stop them being autistic, or pause autism, it can just help with some symptoms the person may be struggling with.
Like if you have auto immune hypothyroidism and take medication to replace your lost thyroid hormone, your body is still that of an auto immune hypothyroid person even though you are medicated and well. Some people will be temporarily hypothyroid but others are life long due to auto immunity that causes it.