A rant on neurotypicals

[fugue]

I know that most of you in this forum are neurotypical, but where else am I going to rant on this topic?

I just got told that although I specified in a post that I had Asperger's syndrome, that I was wrong when I told a responder that I had said I had a neurological disability. I had said I had a "social behavior disorder." I tell you, if thoughts could kill, that NT would fallen to the ground, writhed in intense pain for a few minutes, and died screaming! I'm the one with Asperger's; he knows better than I do what it is?

I was also told about the "underlying nature" of my post. Aspies don't do underlying nature, thank you very much! We mean what we say and say what we mean. The rest of you should try it!

And if I get one more person who wants to cure me, I may write off the human species entirely. I would see the world differently, I would be someone else, I DO NOT WANT TO BE AN NT! For starters, what passes for logic in the NT brain is frightening to me.

ET would phone home if she could just figure out which %#$^%$^&*^%(*&^ planet she was from. . . .

[salvorhardin]

1. Asshat, pure and simple

I saw that post. They were out of line. You sounded angry (not a bad thing) in your original post in that thread, but other than that I thought you layed out your points very clearly.

[elehhhhna]

2. you're a better writer than most here. i get you.

[SheilaT]

3. As the mother of a young man

with Asperger's, I share your rage at people who misunderstand the condition.

[enough]

4. fugue, this is interesting, but I need a little more background.

Could you post the link to the original thread? I don't know anything about Asperger's syndrome, and what you are saying here makes me want to know more.

[fugue]

5. Well, the thread with the annoying person is

here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2708377

A perhaps better place to learn about Asperger's in general is here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=111&topic_id=16097

I didn't give the link before because I was trying to avoid attaching my ire to another DUer's name. I wanted to rant at an attitude more than a person.

[masshole1979]

6. a lot of people on du just don't "believe in" mental health issues

On this thread they keep bringing up "mind control" because of a plan to screen kids for mental illness. Not a perfectly sound proposal, but the criticisms were largely along the lines of, "why are those people taking drugs!"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1018271

[fugue]

7. My criticism is that government doesn't give people a choice on meds

When I went to get help from the government in getting a new job because I've been depressed all my life (as a side effect, apparently, from being an Aspie), I was told I had to take the medication or not get any counseling. I have no objection to people voluntarily taking medication. I have great objection to people being ordered to do so.

I also object to the government doing the screening. It's no business of the government's what illnesses anyone has unless the illness in question is highly communicable and significantly damaging: polio, tuberculosis, that kind of thing. (AIDS, by the way, is not highly communicable.) ADD/ADHD, depression, Asperger's, bipolar disorder . . . it's just none of their damn business!

[DemBones DemBones]

8. A lot of people don't want to understand disabilities, period.

Maybe because if they understood something about them, they might feel obliged to change their own behavior in some way.

Good luck with your plans.

[KamaAina]

9. Temple Grandin agrees with you

that's Dr. Temple Grandin, animal scientist at Colorado State. Approximately one in three beef cattle pass through a facility she designed. Not shabby for a person with autism, wouldn't you say?

Temple stoutly maintains that, if science came up with a little blue pill that she could take to "cure" her autism, she wouldn't take it. She'd be worried it would take away the creativity that allows her to think like the animals, and turn her into just another boring old NT. So there.

[AlienGirl]

13. I'm reading her new book now

Animals in Translation is really great. I always knew there was a reason animals made sense to me and humans did not, and Dr. Grandin does a good job explaining the science behind that.

My childhood perception that I was more like an animal than like normal people was, in fact, right.

Tucker

[AlienGirl]

10. Here's a good site!

I was LOL at it: http://isnt.autistics.org/

Tucker

[fugue]

11. FABULOUS!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[fugue]

12. Something I found that all NTs should read!

"Don't Mourn for Us" by Jim Sinclair

http://www.autistics.org/library/dontmourn.html

Parents often report that learning their child is autistic was the most traumatic thing that ever happened to them. Non-autistic people see autism as a great tragedy, and parents experience continuing disappointment and grief at all stages of the child's and family's life cycle.

But this grief does not stem from the child's autism in itself. It is grief over the loss of the normal child the parents had hoped and expected to have. Parents' attitudes and expectations, and the discrepancies between what parents expect of children at a particular age and their own child's actual development, cause more stress and anguish than the practical complexities of life with an autistic person.

Some amount of grief is natural as parents adjust to the fact that an event and a relationship they've been looking forward to isn't going to materialize. But this grief over a fantasized normal child needs to be separated from the parents' perceptions of the child they do have: the autistic child who needs the support of adult caretakers and who can form very meaningful relationships with those caretakers if given the opportunity. Continuing focus on the child's autism as a source of grief is damaging for both the parents and the child, and precludes the development of an accepting and authentic relationship between them. For their own sake and for the sake of their children, I urge parents to make radical changes in their perceptions of what autism means.

I invite you to look at our autism, and look at your grief, from our perspective:

Which he goes into detail at the link.