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As someone with mild autism I don't want people celebrating it. We should support autistic people but I don't want people celebrating a condition that causes my

As someone with mild autism I don't want people celebrating it. We should support autistic people but I don't want people celebrating a condition that causes myself and others significant difficulties in life. I'm worried that once we start "celebrating" autism, researchers will be scared to study it in fear of getting cancelled. This is important because there are studies that show, for example, that gut microbiome can affect autism symptoms. I might be downvoted for saying this but we should be trying to prevent autism, not celebrating it. Ultimately I'm pessimistic. I don't think normal people will ever truly understand and accept autistic people, merely tolerate them. This notion of celebration is just feel-good, wishful thinking. What'll actually happen is we'll pressure normal people into putting up a facade of acceptance. But privately, I think normal people will still want to avoid autistic people when possible. Will autistic people get invited to social events more often? Will normal people want to date them more? I don't think so.

crazy_horse 5y ago
There is an overenthusiastic, uncritical way of looking at it, but there is a cynical way of looking at it, too. I realize now that I'm older that I'm a creep I'm a weirdo (I'm not a creep) and it is because I had a ton of undiagnosed neurodivergent behaviors that I didn't really figure out how to handle (or even have diagnosed) until I was in my 30s. Would I ask for my disorders? Would I want them on anyone? Hell no. It sucks, I've felt out of place more than once, not noticed obvious social clues more than once, and not wanted to exist for days on end more than once. I'm not going to throw a party over it and when people pat me on the back it annoys me. We're all fucked up, some more than others, and some more aware of it than others. However, I don't know about you, but to function in my mid 30s I'm pretty aware of my mental state. I know that I can be really, really wrong. Nobody has to tell that to me. I know how this machine runs and how it breaks down. I also know that a lot of people never ever figure that out because they don't have to. I think the part of this "divergence" that is absolutely, absolutely critical is the ability to see the world from different perspectives. We're slowly understanding the importance of that as a society through notions such as representation, but the way some people will look at you when you admit you are in one of these categories - you know we still have along ways to go. But be proud of yourself, things will continue to improve and most importantly, you've got a lot of wisdom you can share if you wish.
- Y_Y 5y ago
  What the hell am I doing here? I'd just like to point out among certain groups, like programmers, the behaviour you describe is not so weird. Maybe that's one of the things that attracts us to fields like this.
  - snek_case 5y ago
    Could also be tangential. I think you need to be a certain amount of obsessive in order to be a programmer. Seems a lot of people just get frustrated and give up quickly. Lots of people seem to also not really have the ability to decompose a problem into parts recursively. There's this old story about into to programming classes, with 50% of the class doing great and the other 50% failing. It's not a myth IMO, I've taught a class with 70 people and I've seen it myself. If there's a biological explanation for that, it's going to be unpopular for sure, because it would go against the notion that anyone can be trained to do anything if they just put in the work.
    - whatshisface 5y ago
      There are a lot of neurotypical programmers too. It's not so much that autism makes you better at cognitively loaded tasks as it doesn't make you worse at them.
      - serverholic 5y ago
        In my experience the neurotypical programmers tend to be less exceptional. Obviously not a rule but it's something I've observed.
        snek_case 5y ago
        We're all speculating without hard data, but just for fun, another pet theory explaining something like this could be as simple as: neurotypical programmers tend to enjoy socializing more than neuroatypical programmers, so they generally spend less time on the computer, and are less proficient at programming, on average, simply because they have less practice. That doesn't preclude someone who is neurotypical from enjoying computers and programming and bucking the trend.
snek_case 5y ago
It's tricky. I have a colleague that I'm pretty sure has a condition on the ADHD spectrum. He's spread very thin between many tasks, gets very excited about new projects, but often leaves tasks unfinished. He's older, very eager but disorganized. I've been kind of wanting to ask him if he's been diagnosed, not to push medication on him, but just to say "hey, you know, there are management tools that maybe could help you, like todo lists, etc." But I'm too afraid that he would be upset, or even that my manager or HR might come after me for saying something that's considered insulting, for labeling someone. I think I have some kind of "condition" too. I have a mood disorder of some kind. I can get very depressed from time to time, and it has no obvious connection to real-life events. It just comes and goes. It's just never been severe enough to really justify taking medication that comes with huge side-effects, so I cope as best as I can. Ultimately, I hope that if I ever got really depressed, the company I work for would show understanding and support. But I also think what we really need is more science. We need a much deeper understanding of the brain. Some conditions are clearly genetic, not explainable by past trauma. I don't want depressive tendencies to be celebrated, I want to understand exactly what causes them, so we can help people like me and many generations to come.
- AuryGlenz 5y ago
  I have a friend that (I’m 99% certain) has undiagnosed ADD. He’s basically a textbook case, he’s been in college since 2006 and still doesn’t have his bachelor’s despite being fairly intelligent. If your experience is like mine you’ll explain it to him, he’ll think it’s a good theory, and then due to his ADD he’ll never actually get around to going to a doctor about it. It’s frustrating because his life could be so much better. He had to feel like a failure, and to lose years of your life to something “fixable” is rough.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- stronglikedan 5y ago
  I'm sure I'm not the only one reading this and thinking you may be one of my colleagues describing me! Even self awareness doesn't always help. I know those management tools could help me greatly, but it still requires an immense amount of mental energy to even focus on using the tools. E.g., I have reminder notifications that remind me to check my reminders periodically throughout the day. That said, I do try, and thankfully, I'm one of those that does get by.
guerrilla 5y ago
> As someone with mild autism I don't want people celebrating it. We should support autistic people but I don't want people celebrating a condition that causes myself and others significant difficulties in life. As someone with autism, I'm proud of it and I suffer from it. There are many aspects to it and some of them are great and some of them are terrible. For this reason, I don't think there should be any problem in both having pride in the good and wanting medicine for that bad. I don't see them as necessarily mutually exclusive. We may find out they are, but there's no reason to assume that at this point. For now, I hope for a future where I can keep the good and get rid of the bad.
- serverholic 5y ago
  I don't think they're mutually exclusive for most people. Take transgender people for example. On one hand acceptance has gone up but it's also caused a minefield for scientific researchers and medical professionals. I honestly don't think most people are capable of the nuance you describe.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    I haven't seen any clear indication that acceptance has gone up. Voiced acceptance? Sure, but that's not a great measure of what people will in action.
    - guerrilla 5y ago
      Oh I've definitely seen acceptance go up in my circles in the last couple of years. Maybe it depends on who you know or where you are.
  - guerrilla 5y ago
    > I honestly don't think most people are capable of the nuance you describe. It doesn't seem like they are to me either, but I hope that's something that can change. I think a lot of what's going on right now is a fad and everyone's going to wake up in the morning with a bad hangover at some point.

crazy_horse 5y ago

There is an overenthusiastic, uncritical way of looking at it, but there is a cynical way of looking at it, too. I realize now that I'm older that I'm a creep I'm a weirdo (I'm not a creep) and it is because I had a ton of undiagnosed neurodivergent behaviors that I didn't really figure out how to handle (or even have diagnosed) until I was in my 30s. Would I ask for my disorders? Would I want them on anyone? Hell no. It sucks, I've felt out of place more than once, not noticed obvious social clues more than once, and not wanted to exist for days on end more than once. I'm not going to throw a party over it and when people pat me on the back it annoys me. We're all fucked up, some more than others, and some more aware of it than others. However, I don't know about you, but to function in my mid 30s I'm pretty aware of my mental state. I know that I can be really, really wrong. Nobody has to tell that to me. I know how this machine runs and how it breaks down. I also know that a lot of people never ever figure that out because they don't have to. I think the part of this "divergence" that is absolutely, absolutely critical is the ability to see the world from different perspectives. We're slowly understanding the importance of that as a society through notions such as representation, but the way some people will look at you when you admit you are in one of these categories - you know we still have along ways to go. But be proud of yourself, things will continue to improve and most importantly, you've got a lot of wisdom you can share if you wish.

Y_Y 5y ago
What the hell am I doing here? I'd just like to point out among certain groups, like programmers, the behaviour you describe is not so weird. Maybe that's one of the things that attracts us to fields like this.
- snek_case 5y ago
  Could also be tangential. I think you need to be a certain amount of obsessive in order to be a programmer. Seems a lot of people just get frustrated and give up quickly. Lots of people seem to also not really have the ability to decompose a problem into parts recursively. There's this old story about into to programming classes, with 50% of the class doing great and the other 50% failing. It's not a myth IMO, I've taught a class with 70 people and I've seen it myself. If there's a biological explanation for that, it's going to be unpopular for sure, because it would go against the notion that anyone can be trained to do anything if they just put in the work.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    There are a lot of neurotypical programmers too. It's not so much that autism makes you better at cognitively loaded tasks as it doesn't make you worse at them.
    - serverholic 5y ago
      In my experience the neurotypical programmers tend to be less exceptional. Obviously not a rule but it's something I've observed.
      - snek_case 5y ago
        We're all speculating without hard data, but just for fun, another pet theory explaining something like this could be as simple as: neurotypical programmers tend to enjoy socializing more than neuroatypical programmers, so they generally spend less time on the computer, and are less proficient at programming, on average, simply because they have less practice. That doesn't preclude someone who is neurotypical from enjoying computers and programming and bucking the trend.

snek_case 5y ago

It's tricky. I have a colleague that I'm pretty sure has a condition on the ADHD spectrum. He's spread very thin between many tasks, gets very excited about new projects, but often leaves tasks unfinished. He's older, very eager but disorganized. I've been kind of wanting to ask him if he's been diagnosed, not to push medication on him, but just to say "hey, you know, there are management tools that maybe could help you, like todo lists, etc." But I'm too afraid that he would be upset, or even that my manager or HR might come after me for saying something that's considered insulting, for labeling someone. I think I have some kind of "condition" too. I have a mood disorder of some kind. I can get very depressed from time to time, and it has no obvious connection to real-life events. It just comes and goes. It's just never been severe enough to really justify taking medication that comes with huge side-effects, so I cope as best as I can. Ultimately, I hope that if I ever got really depressed, the company I work for would show understanding and support. But I also think what we really need is more science. We need a much deeper understanding of the brain. Some conditions are clearly genetic, not explainable by past trauma. I don't want depressive tendencies to be celebrated, I want to understand exactly what causes them, so we can help people like me and many generations to come.

AuryGlenz 5y ago
I have a friend that (I’m 99% certain) has undiagnosed ADD. He’s basically a textbook case, he’s been in college since 2006 and still doesn’t have his bachelor’s despite being fairly intelligent. If your experience is like mine you’ll explain it to him, he’ll think it’s a good theory, and then due to his ADD he’ll never actually get around to going to a doctor about it. It’s frustrating because his life could be so much better. He had to feel like a failure, and to lose years of your life to something “fixable” is rough.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
stronglikedan 5y ago
I'm sure I'm not the only one reading this and thinking you may be one of my colleagues describing me! Even self awareness doesn't always help. I know those management tools could help me greatly, but it still requires an immense amount of mental energy to even focus on using the tools. E.g., I have reminder notifications that remind me to check my reminders periodically throughout the day. That said, I do try, and thankfully, I'm one of those that does get by.

guerrilla 5y ago

> As someone with mild autism I don't want people celebrating it. We should support autistic people but I don't want people celebrating a condition that causes myself and others significant difficulties in life. As someone with autism, I'm proud of it and I suffer from it. There are many aspects to it and some of them are great and some of them are terrible. For this reason, I don't think there should be any problem in both having pride in the good and wanting medicine for that bad. I don't see them as necessarily mutually exclusive. We may find out they are, but there's no reason to assume that at this point. For now, I hope for a future where I can keep the good and get rid of the bad.

serverholic 5y ago
I don't think they're mutually exclusive for most people. Take transgender people for example. On one hand acceptance has gone up but it's also caused a minefield for scientific researchers and medical professionals. I honestly don't think most people are capable of the nuance you describe.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  I haven't seen any clear indication that acceptance has gone up. Voiced acceptance? Sure, but that's not a great measure of what people will in action.
  - guerrilla 5y ago
    Oh I've definitely seen acceptance go up in my circles in the last couple of years. Maybe it depends on who you know or where you are.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  > I honestly don't think most people are capable of the nuance you describe. It doesn't seem like they are to me either, but I hope that's something that can change. I think a lot of what's going on right now is a fad and everyone's going to wake up in the morning with a bad hangover at some point.