Most autistic people, despite everything, actually like being autistic.
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Most autistic people, despite everything, actually like being autistic.
Not all, of course. But most of us.
And I don’t just mean ‘making peace with it’.I mean: it's bound up with who we are.
A thread 🧵
1/11
(refs at the end)
#Autism #ActuallyAutistic #Neurodivergent@KatyElphinstone I like being autistic, even though it is very difficult. I don't want to be "cured".
Same thing: I like being trans. My life is better for being trans than it would have been if my parents had given me a detrans pill when I was a toddler.
Same thing: I have psychotic experiences, and I have tried so hard for so long to cure them. But I realize now that the real problem was my war against the experiences - the rejection of them, the fight to be "sane", the insistence on seeing myself as broken.
Diversity has value - both for society and spiritually for the individual.
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@GreenRoc @KatyElphinstone amen to that. I feel you because I am the same, but more and more I just tell people that what I do or don't is because of that, then they stopped doing whatever they did that was annoying.
@tursiops Yeah, I feel better if I am accepted.
Unlike your situation, I tell someone to stop something, and they double down and do more of it. Meltdown of sensory overload then happens.
My two friends will stop what they are doing if I ask them to, and they also warn me when they are about to make some noises, and tell me what a noise is if I ask, "what was that?" good friends
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If autistic people are saying ‘this is part of who I am’ and the response is to continue to fund ways to reduce and eliminate autism, while making very sure our voices are not heard.
That isn’t neutral.
It's chilling.
11/11
End of 🧵
Refs in link below
@KatyElphinstone A cure isn't possible. That would be death.
I hate my anxiety, and EDS. I hate delays processing my emotions, and difficulty recognizing them...
But I like me, and wouldn't change that for anything, and I am autistic.
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@KatyElphinstone I'm autistic. I like being autistic. I have skills that most people dont have.
What hurts me is the distain most people have for autism, and try to change me, boss me around, and do anything they feel will motivate me to be doing something I dont want to be doing, because "everyone does it"
I am not like most people.
I want people to appreciate me for who I am, different, not deficit.Society's general perception of autism is the problem, not me.
@GreenRoc @KatyElphinstone yes! couldn’t have said it better – problems with my autism are overwhelmingly the problems other people have with it and insist on inflicting on me.
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There is, quite literally, an Autism Investor Summit – where autism services are discussed in terms of market growth and M&A.
So yes.
Autism is also a business model.
(refs at the end)9/11
@KatyElphinstone Often called the ‘Autism Industrial Complex’.
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That idea – that there’s a separable ‘pure self’ – is basically not one that's shared by us.
But it's very popular elsewhere!
Many millions are poured into #autism research every year, in the areas of treatment, intervention, prevention, and the hunt for biomarkers.
3/11
@KatyElphinstone
I don't think of my deeper self as autistic, but it isn't NT either.
Kinda like, underneath their small talk and their fibbing, NT people can have a deeper self that isn't NT. -
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@KatyElphinstone I like being autistic, even though it is very difficult. I don't want to be "cured".
Same thing: I like being trans. My life is better for being trans than it would have been if my parents had given me a detrans pill when I was a toddler.
Same thing: I have psychotic experiences, and I have tried so hard for so long to cure them. But I realize now that the real problem was my war against the experiences - the rejection of them, the fight to be "sane", the insistence on seeing myself as broken.
Diversity has value - both for society and spiritually for the individual.
Thanks for sharing this, it's beautiful.
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@KatyElphinstone Often called the ‘Autism Industrial Complex’.
Indeed! I'm glad you've seen this.
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Oh yes!
Though I learned to accept this over the decades I know that this - at least for me - is a real disability because success in society is bound to connection much more than to technical skill or talent. I can literally tell the countless situations where I was either too „shy“ or „cold“ or too „arrogant“ and a whole future disappeared. (I have experience of 60+ years …)
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@tursiops Yeah, I feel better if I am accepted.
Unlike your situation, I tell someone to stop something, and they double down and do more of it. Meltdown of sensory overload then happens.
My two friends will stop what they are doing if I ask them to, and they also warn me when they are about to make some noises, and tell me what a noise is if I ask, "what was that?" good friends
@GreenRoc as a good oversharer I do that via email with all possible details, I remember I sent my old boss the equivalent of a two pages email and only got back a it’s all very clear now, or something like that. So there’s that
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Indeed it is! My daughter's geography teacher told her yesterday that humans aren't animals. Er...
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@KatyElphinstone @lispi314 It's weird, yes, but also easily explained. At least in the West, people have believed for two thousand years that they were meant to rule over the animal kingdom, not be part of it. Says so in the bible!
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Most autistic people, despite everything, actually like being autistic.
Not all, of course. But most of us.
And I don’t just mean ‘making peace with it’.I mean: it's bound up with who we are.
A thread 🧵
1/11
(refs at the end)
#Autism #ActuallyAutistic #Neurodivergent@KatyElphinstone I would give away my ADHD but I'm clinging onto my Autism and would defend it with my life.
I really like being autistic.
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@jmcclure @KatyElphinstone Similarly, I wouldn't want to change my general brain operating system - or perhaps more accurately can't imagine what it'd be like to have a different one! - but wish I didn't get so easily overloaded by light and sound
@shinybat Same for the overloaded part + for my specific situation, my risks of having 7 different kinds of cancerS (already got the same two times) as everything is linked to my rare genetic mutation.
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@shinybat Same for the overloaded part + for my specific situation, my risks of having 7 different kinds of cancerS (already got the same two times) as everything is linked to my rare genetic mutation.
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@KatyElphinstone I would give away my ADHD but I'm clinging onto my Autism and would defend it with my life.
I really like being autistic.
Autism without ADHD is like lemon ice cream without chocolate sauce.
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@KatyElphinstone As I was mentioning in my answer yesterday autism is my DNA…
The rare mutation genetic I have probably inherited from my dad, as I have like him macrocephaly, can also be linked to autism amid others things like the cancerS risks. 🫣🫠
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PTEN Gene and Autism: Genetic Underpinnings and Neurodevelopmental Impacts
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If autistic people are saying ‘this is part of who I am’ and the response is to continue to fund ways to reduce and eliminate autism, while making very sure our voices are not heard.
That isn’t neutral.
It's chilling.11/11
End of 🧵
Refs in link below
@KatyElphinstone
I've never heard from to an autistic person who wanted a "cure" who didn't seem to lack self-awareness or at least a nuanced view on autism.It's one thing to suffere from a sensory experience so much, that you'd rather be a different person than to continue suffering, the same goes for loneliness, but some people act, like between autistic and allistic, there is a secret third option, or worse, they'd rather be the kind of person they complain about for others.
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