Sav

Any community which has the expectation of total agreement across a broad range of subjective single issues can only be a community of people who have given up thinking or actively engaging. Bitter and angry people trying to enforce a self-created orthodoxy is rarely a good sign for them or anyone else.

How ironic and sad that the loudest people in the fight for acceptance of unconventional minds should be so concerend with policing dissent, heresy and wrong thoughts. ‘Neurodiversity through puritanism!’ is one of the worst rallying cries I’ve heard in a long time.

I might be being too optimistic but we seem to have a tendency to swing backwards and forwards between less and more tolerence of individuality in society. Perhaps we’re due a correction soon.

Bryan

Hello 🙂 I am a queer, fairly liberal ND person. I have found that many in the ND community are toxic bullies. There is this demand for narrative purity. If you don’t say the exact right words or believe exactly what they believe you will be publicly shamed. There are some who take things to the extreme. Extremes are not healthy or factual. This is not everyone of course, but a certainly loud and tolerated group of folks in this community.

Nícia Cruz

Non-austic parents can’t talk about their autistic child because they can only see the behaviour, and do not know what leads to that. They don’t know how it feels to be autistic. So they can’t also chose ABA therapy for their children, because they are choosing it without their consent. ABA only tries to make ND people more similar to NT. We have our own culture, our own way of being, which isn’t wrong, just different. We need to be accepted exactly as we are, we don’t exist to meet expectations. We don’t tell a person in a wheel chair to learn how to learn how to walk: they can’t! We also can’t be like NT’s. ABA just makes us mask, and that takes a huge toll on us. It isn’t the same as a deaf person using a cochlear device (that device affects positively that individuals life), masking does the exact opposite and that’s why there are so many suicides in our community.

Chris

I as an autistic have seen such destruction by some autism groups it is unbelievable. we all have differing opinions and experiences, and I found in attending some autism groups that there is cruelty, secretive mocking, ruthless gossip where lies are told, misinformation and alienation. It’s heartbreaking and something I knew nothing about when first learning I was autistic. People are targeted for social problems, for saying the wrong thing and simply for being disliked. Those in the groups are being misled. My experience was the group makes things worse. On every corner of internet there are people posting about what’s happening. ,

Just a Visitor Who Agrees

I stumbled upon this post by accident. I am someone who has ADHD, and there’s a possibility I might have autism. Regardless of that latter point, I can identify with your message, but with other segments of the population that I am a part of.

For instance, I am someone who is LGBTQ+, but frankly, I feel incredibly alienated by the vocal part of the population for several reasons. While I could tell you those reasons until I am blue in the face, it ultimately boils down to how I’m frustrated that this segment of the LGBTQ+ population acts as if the entirety of the LGBTQ+ population should act as a hivemind and to hell with anyone who dissents on anything, no matter how small. Funny thing is, I find that those who jump on me and others who are in similar predicaments don’t want to accept that I very likely share more in common with them than they assume I don’t. But even then, if that isn’t true, that still shouldn’t make people in my spot pariahs of sorts. For me, it often feels a lot more comfortable around straight cisgender people than other LGBTQ+ people!

You see this mentality with so many social groups as of late, and it is incredibly frustrating. Sure, there are certain views and experiences that tend to be more widely shared within such groups over others, but that does not mean that everyone in those groups acts the same way and believes in the same thing, and frankly, I think it would be frightening if everyone did, especially considering that we live such different lives from each other, period.

And by the way, yes, I did use “have autism” in the first paragraph. I used that because I don’t agree with the line of thinking that a lot of people who prefer “autistic” state. While I agree with them that autism is something that has a profound effect on your entire being and life, I don’t agree with the mindset it is who you are. I am someone who can be described by many adjectives due to all of my traits and experiences, and just some of those things are a bigger part of me than others, it still doesn’t negate those smaller things, and it also doesn’t negate that all of those things make up one unique whole that cannot be easily described into one label. (To be honest, I see basing your entire identity on one factor regardless of what it is as a sign of someone very likely not knowing themselves well.) I’ll respect that others want to be called “autistic” and call them as such, but I think that shouldn’t mean that I should negate how I would want to be referred if I learn that a diagnosis of autism is actually applicable to me.

I also get tired of the whole mentality that someone who is outside of a social group cannot speak for and about that group. I certainly agree that these people lack the sort of insight that those within that group have due to not living that experience themselves. But it does not mean that these people are woefully ignorant and never can develop some form of understanding of the issues at hand. I find that those who shut down these allies tend to forget that, sometimes, people who see things from periphery aren’t blinded by certain bias that those of that group may have or perceive, as anyone can have bias of some form. And those on the periphery may consider pertinent points that those in the group may simply had not considered. Yes, allies, should be well-educated and not speak over those who they are supporting, but that does not mean that they are pointless. And, really, antagonism perpetuated groups in the minority and at a disadvantage is still antagonism at the end up the day–being in such groups does not give you a pass to treat others poorly and just ends up confirming the bias of those who are against those groups. (Though, there certainly have been instances of minority groups and the disadvantaged fighting back, and having that dismissed as being “antagonism,” when it actually wasn’t.)

But even though I bring up all of that reasoning in my last paragraph, I do agree that there is so much unnecessary hand-wringing over terminology and symbols, and that time and energy really should be spent on more taxing issues at hand. Frankly, I think the best approach is allow for nearly all terminology and symbols to still be in use, but educate people as to why some people use some of them, why other people prefer others, and express that people should try to be mindful of how these are used on an individual basis.

I’m hoping this period of tribalism and authoritarianism will soon pass. I’m not advocating for people to just be and do good for the sake of themselves and to hell with noone else. But I wish that people in general would stop this whole us versus them mentality and also the habit of groups destroying themselves from within due to not allowing for any dissent.

TheAutisticRBT

Thank you for this. I am a RBT and I am diagnosed as AuDhd. Both my autism and adhd were diagnosed as an adult and the autism part was actually inspired by my clients seeing a much more diverse representation of the spectrum than most people are exposed to, I realized I may actually be autistic. Turns out I am.

I left a comment on a video recently about ABA saying I was cautious about what I head heard but had not experienced the things they listed as abusive at the company I work for. I also mentioned that I was autistic.

Their response was something like “oh he** no! Don’t come in here as a nuerotypical telling real autistic people that ABA is not abuse, you should listen to real autistics for once!” They were so foaming at the mouth once they heard I’m a rbt to read and realize that I too am autistic. It’s like they completely shut down when I politely gave my personal experience, even saying that nothing I have observed or experienced invalidates the experience of anyone who has experienced abuse.