this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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Its because to them “autism” is perceived as an illness comparable with Down syndrome. The movie Rain man did a lot of harm to this view.
To themselves they lead normal high functioning lives and have good Intelligence that just happen to have some eccentric hobbies. Now you are pointing at those things they do for fun and calling it the hallmarks of a diseased mind.
The first hurdle the older autistic generations have to overcome is to realise there is nothing inherently wrong about being neurodivergent.
The self acceptance can grow from first accepting a child is autistic, aided by other familymembers (NT and not) addressing the childs atypical behaviours (often they used to experience the same before learning to mask)
Once they accepted their child as autistic and witness how much some simple help and adjustments can cause a huge positive effect there going to wish they would have had access to those same information and aid while they where younger..
lol at the level of necroposting, but also I am kind of honored by it, so thanks =P
But yes, I completely agree with everything you've said, just bang-on correct imo.
This is a rough analogy, but here goes:
If you had a kid who was color blind, you would just accept that, give them some color blind friendly color schemes to work with in their school work and digital UIs and such, and hey presto, yep, they're different than non colorblind people, but not in some kind of ... fundamentally or morally bad way, not in some kind of way that completely cripples them from living a normal life.
Anyone who needs glasses is imo in the same 'special needs' category, if by that you mean... just understand that they are a bit different, accomodate those differences, and you now have a fully functional and capable human.
The fundamental problem is ignorance, lack of empathy, and in my experience, usually also narcissism and frankly just immaturity, from parents/adults.
It really is not that hard to alter one's own behavior just slightly, for either an NT or an in-denial-ND parent or adult to be much, much more compatible with having a healthy relationship with an autistic child or adult.
But what I almost always encounter in my own life is that a huge number of people simply demand other people, especially their own children, just be and act exactly as they want them to... they're just authoritarians in their personal lives, their children are their property.
And this is how you get all the religious fundamentalists with autistic kids who infantilize them, make their own identities into basically being a victim of having an autistic kid... and because they mistreat them so badly, imo, they end up basically making their autistic kid low-functioning, because that kid is never going to be able to make any real sense out of a hypocritical idiot with a god complex's version of how the world or society should work.
So its a self-fulfilling prophecy:
Treat someone like an idiot invalid their whole childhood, they grow up a lot more stunted, then this is seen as proof that they were always going to be unable to regulate their emotions and behaviors.
Yep, there are genetic components to autism... but environmental factors also play a large role too.
... Even worse, these bigoted ignorant fundies basically become genocidal when they believe that autism can somehow be eradicated via some psuedo science bullshit.
That way lies true horror, quite literally, go look up the history of Dr.Asperger ...from Nazi Germany.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Asperger
https://neurolaunch.com/who-was-asperger/