5 ms·

Show me any adult that doesn't "have issues". NT people are so broken in your own ways: relationships with parents, relationships with spouses, relationships w

Show me any adult that doesn't "have issues". NT people are so broken in your own ways: relationships with parents, relationships with spouses, relationships with children, relationships with the environment: you don't get any of them right. You are all so broken and unhealthy! Why are you all on anti-anxiety meds, why are you all on anti-depressants? Every NT person I know makes so many weird decisions, against their own interests, against their own emotional health. You are broken in this world. But for some reason it becomes so important that ASD people just "act more normal". Whatever.

derefr 7y ago
I don't know if there's a different meaning of "neurotypical" in the ASD community, but under the general definition, anyone who is on anti-anxiety or antidepressant medication (presumably prescribed) is, by definition, not "neurotypical." A neurotypical person is a person with a complete lack of issues recognized by the DSM-V. But, putting that aside: these problems you're describing are all things that ASD people also have to deal with. People with ASD have strictly more problems than people without it, since they have all the "normal" problems, and then some other ones that only they suffer from (like the aforementioned sensory hypersensitivity.) The only differences that exist stem from people lowering their expectations of how people with ASD will perform on e.g. social tasks. Those tasks still need to get done; people on the spectrum just don't get the choice to be the one to do them, because other people make that choice for them. (Just like nobody asks a deaf person to transcribe audio for them, or asks a paraplegic to deliver a package for them.) > But for some reason it becomes so important that ASD people just "act more normal". I don't think anyone wants people with ASD to "act" any way that's hard for them. The point of the development of ASD treatments is to enable people to have the opportunity to choose how they want to be, rather than being locked into one part of behavior-space without having had such a choice. To put it another way, by analogy to another community of sufferers: people with hearing can choose to put in earplugs. Deaf people cannot choose to put in hear-plugs. Because of this, being able to hear is a strict improvement over being deaf: you can choose to use it, or not, at any point.
throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
I don’t have any issues. But more importantly... nobody is asking ASD people to act “normally”. It’s just being noted that they tend to act in particular ways and suffer from particular stimuli and are generally more difficult for NT people to relate to.

derefr 7y ago

I don't know if there's a different meaning of "neurotypical" in the ASD community, but under the general definition, anyone who is on anti-anxiety or antidepressant medication (presumably prescribed) is, by definition, not "neurotypical." A neurotypical person is a person with a complete lack of issues recognized by the DSM-V. But, putting that aside: these problems you're describing are all things that ASD people also have to deal with. People with ASD have strictly more problems than people without it, since they have all the "normal" problems, and then some other ones that only they suffer from (like the aforementioned sensory hypersensitivity.) The only differences that exist stem from people lowering their expectations of how people with ASD will perform on e.g. social tasks. Those tasks still need to get done; people on the spectrum just don't get the choice to be the one to do them, because other people make that choice for them. (Just like nobody asks a deaf person to transcribe audio for them, or asks a paraplegic to deliver a package for them.) > But for some reason it becomes so important that ASD people just "act more normal". I don't think anyone wants people with ASD to "act" any way that's hard for them. The point of the development of ASD treatments is to enable people to have the opportunity to choose how they want to be, rather than being locked into one part of behavior-space without having had such a choice. To put it another way, by analogy to another community of sufferers: people with hearing can choose to put in earplugs. Deaf people cannot choose to put in hear-plugs. Because of this, being able to hear is a strict improvement over being deaf: you can choose to use it, or not, at any point.

throwawayhhakdl 7y ago

I don’t have any issues. But more importantly... nobody is asking ASD people to act “normally”. It’s just being noted that they tend to act in particular ways and suffer from particular stimuli and are generally more difficult for NT people to relate to.