Most autistic people, despite everything, actually like being autistic.
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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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@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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@KatyElphinstone
Complaining about how allistic people act, but then wishing to become one of them means wanting to just be on the other side of mistreatment and opression.
Just wanting to be the perpetrator instead of the victim.It's likely partially that lack of self-awareness, that makes people like this so "unpopular" and to many unlikable, not just the autism.
People like that would probably still be miserable and self-hating, if they could become allistic.
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@lispi314 of course humans are animals.
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@KatyElphinstone
Complaining about how allistic people act, but then wishing to become one of them means wanting to just be on the other side of mistreatment and opression.
Just wanting to be the perpetrator instead of the victim.It's likely partially that lack of self-awareness, that makes people like this so "unpopular" and to many unlikable, not just the autism.
People like that would probably still be miserable and self-hating, if they could become allistic.
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@KatyElphinstone
If you could "change your neurotype", people like that could become the equivalent of people who become addicted to plastic surgery, because it's never enough and the problem lies somewhere else (at least until they could change the part of their brain that makes them lack self-awareness and makes them narrow minded).But it is this lack of self-awareness, that makes a productive discussion impossible, so I usually don't try to change their view on the matter.
3/3
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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 You have once again nailed the subtext of the research. Unfortunately.
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Because a ‘world without autism’ isn't abstract.
It's a world without autistic people.
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️There’s also a deeper issue here.
Autistic people aren't believed about our own experiences. Or we don't get asked at all.
#UtaFrith said it would be unscientific to do so. More on her views here: https://mas.to/@KatyElphinstone/116206483353899881
5/11
@KatyElphinstone Have you seen this response to that whole line of thought? "Anti-ableism and scientific accuracy in autism research: a false dichotomy" (Morton Ann #Gernsbacher is one of the authors):
Anti-ableism and scientific accuracy in autism research: a false dichotomy - PubMed
It was recently argued that autism researchers committed to rejecting ableist frameworks in their research may sacrifice "scientifically accurate" conceptualizations of autism. In this perspective piece, we argue that: (a) anti-ableism vs. scientific accuracy is a false dichotomy, (b) there is no id …
PubMed (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
