1mo ago

So many labels

55 comments

See also:
- The number of left-handed people increased due to the trauma of WW1 and WW2. No more increase since wars have stopped in the world. Amazing.
  
  Is there evidence that trauma causes left-handedness? I'd always heard that this was due to people no longer being punished for being left-handed, making it a good comparison for people fearmongering about rising rates of recorded transness or autism.
  That would also imply that the trauma of ww1+2 are continuing to make people born in the 90s and 2000s left handed
- Yeah butvwe cant bully them now and that makes me sad.
  
  Skill issue: git guud
- Yep, my older friend tells me often that he used to be left handed, but his parents forced him to become right handed by either beating him whenever he used his left hand or by tying up his left hand to his side for long periods of time, just to force him to use his right hand.
  Still does certain stuff with his left hand, but he can no longer write with it, since it is too shaky now.
  
  isn't shakyness a typical symptom of PTSD?
- That’s a great analogy.
- beat me to it

"He's a gifted boy"
Proceeds to question him and blame him when he is, shockingly, not good at everything but only a set of skills that go well with a logical brain.
- People like things to fit into neat little boxes. If you're smart, you're smart. If you're dumb, you're dumb. If you're smart in some ways, and dumb in others, you're confusing and they hate it.

I worked in software development. Trust me, there were plenty of autistic folks in that field. We knew they were different. It didn't matter. Now I teach software engineering, and the percentages haven't changed . Giving a name to something doesn't make it more prevalent.
- Honestly, and this isn't meant to make them feel unwelcome, but anecdotally I find there are a lot more neurotypicals in dev than ever before.
  
  I've noticed that some of my students seem to be more motivated by the income potential and really don't enjoy the work itself. Given the upheaval due to AI, I wouldn't be surprised if that kind of student disappears.
  
  Well it has become very popular. Large amount of people doing it now.
- But but but vaccines!

You made our life miserable.
You are intolerant.
I feel these statements are missing.
- Some autistic people can be selfish or rude like anyone else but people focus on them being weird instead. Weirdness is the problem of the intolerant normie who feels uncomfortable.
  
  Oh, being “rude” is another accusation that haunts a lot of us. We’re called selfish and rude when we fail to recognize social cues, through no fault of our own.
  The first description provided by dictionary.com lists “rude” as: discourteous or impolite, especially in a deliberate way. To me, they key word there is “deliberate.”
  Consider growing up being called “rude” or “selfish” despite your best attempts at getting along with others. Imagine thinking you’re making a thoughtful response, one where you already attempted to consider another person’s feelings, but you misinterpreted the situation. Nobody around you is straight-forward or elegant enough to explain to you why what you said was “rude,” they just throw the word at you and say it’s your fault for not trying harder.
  Just like anyone else, some autistic people will internalize that term and decide that attempting to be “polite” is an impossible battle. Without the guidance to do a “post mortem” on situations and relationships that go sour, some people may decide, “What’s the point?” and give up trying.
  It’s not a healthy response for sure, but I think it goes far in understanding where pre-existing childhood accusations turn into harmful, lifelong labels.
  
  And whoever it decides to do violence to about it, yes.
  Gosh i love mental health and normalcy.
- No but see i need some one to bully and if it's explained then i havr to work harder to justify myself.

reminds me of these statistics:
- Without more context hard to infer what it's trying to say, but I think basically, 12% of the population is left handed, but before 1950 we ignored them or forced them into being right handed?
  I say forced, because my dad (born in the late 40s, hella boomer) is left handed by nature and he told me as a kid his mom used to take whatever he was holding in his left hand and moved it to his right so he became right handed. Ironically he broke his right hand when I was a tween breaking up a little league brawl and started using his left again, so now he's really ambidextrous.
  
  My grandfather was naturally left-handed, forced to write with his right hand in school, then after school found he could no longer write with decent penmanship with either hand. His penmanship was always terrible for his entire life

Folks in 2003: "you're the weirdest person I've ever met" Same folks these days: "really? You don't look autistic"

Yup. The difference now is that people are getting diagnosed. A friend of mine got diagnosed with add in her mid 60s, then got diagnosed with autism in her mid 70’s. I met her when she was ~80, and she said that getting the autism diagnosis made her life finally make sense. She always had it, she just didn’t understand why she was different.

As society continues to refine a shape of ideals, those that were once normal will continue to be labelled as abnormal. Until eventually those that fit the ideal of "normal" are outnumbered.
"I suffer from proacism."
"Oh, what's that?"
"There's nothing interesting about me. I try, but my mind is underpowered and my personality dull. I can't help but concentrate on the least exciting thing happening in the room. I'm not allowed in unpredictable environments in case I get injured. I'm terrible at sports but I like watching them, especially paying attention to all the commentary."

The world will one day be ours
- I'm willing to bet that being neurospicy is actually the default, and the neuromilds, the mayonnaise brains, they're actually the broken ones. They're just so fucking forceful with their bullshit they convinced the world to do things their way.
  What, you're telling me you fell OFF the spectrum? Are you ok? Do you need help communicating honestly? Just say exactly what you mean it's ok, I know you judge others for no reason but we don't do that. You can just be honest. Or you can lie and blame me for not understanding you that's fine too you fucking prick.
  
  Neurotypicals are just the majority minority. They’re ~40% of the population, which isn’t the majority, but it is the largest single group of people. It’s also a lone circle on an otherwise overlapping Venn diagram, because all of the other circles preclude being neurotypical. So if you’re meeting someone for the first time and are going to make assumptions about them, the default is to assume that they’re probably in the largest, most monolithic group. Assuming any other group has a large probability to be wrong, because even though 60% is the majority, it is split amongst a bunch of much smaller circles.
  All of the other circles on the diagram are messy. They overlap, they have their own special quirks, the lines around the circles are blurry, and that 40% monolith also says that the 60% (broken apart into much smaller circles, so nowhere near as united) is weird and should just fit in. So yeah, neurotypical became the default.

Diagnosed at like 5 or 6 because I was reading at highschool level but didn't act normal enough.
That didn't help me in the slightest especially in that time period.
Fuckers

A diagnosis just makes it slightly more awkward to call kids names or tell them they're doing it wrong.
They liked calling kids names.
- It also becomes a problem for people as it means that there is a medical reason for certain behavior. You can't just treat all kids the same.
  And I suspect that autism and ADD just happens to be at the forefront of culturally identifying and accepting neurodiversity.
- I've always thought of the phrase "to call somebody a name" as weird.
  Like, sure, everybody has a name. Where's the problem?

People who don't comply with some societal norm or other are always seen as "weird" or just "quirky" by those who do, especially those who make a huge effort to fit in.
This applies to just about everything, including the behaviours of the neurodivergent.
IMHO, what makes it a problem is that the judgmental takes (i.e. "weird" rather than merely "quirky") are accepted and even condoned in present day society which de facto means the bullying linked to negative judgements against people for being unusual is accepted and even condoned.
PS: To pick up on what others said, having the explanation "Autism" does seem to make it less socially acceptable to be judgemental about it.

"Lazy" is when you're so scared and anxious that you can't think anymore. Someone's always telling you what to do and how to do it, anyway. There's even a rubric for art.

I'm almost 50 and I never even considered it would be a possibility until much later in life, the autistic kids were at the deep end of the spectrum and in special classes, that couldn't be me. I was just a weirdo, luckily there were some other weirdos, mostly they were the punk and alternative kids, later ravers. All things considered I had a pretty decent growing up but I could have been a lot more successful in school. One of my teachers in HS said straight up I was a loser who would never amount to anything.

I always wondered because the go to term was introverted. My mom actually had a story on almost being held back really early on. Like first grade. Most of my courses were honors in high school.

This is me...

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