Damon Stephenson
Miakoda I don't "have autism".
I'm Autistic.
This is something I consider important.
I'm Autistic.
This is something I consider important.
Michael Weiss@hellomiakoda I assume because the former sounds more like a disease?
@mweiss It goes much much deeper than that.
I HAVE asthma. If you managed to cure my asthma, I am still the same me, I'm the same person.
Autism shaped everything that one would consider to be me. If you somehow removed autism, I, the person I am, would cease to exist. My body may or may not continue, but *I* wouldn't be there anymore.
Goiterzan/Amygdalai Lama@hellomiakoda @mweiss
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but also yes. Everyone says that all your life, people “have,” Autism, like having cancer, then talking about a cure has more legs.
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“Having,” suggests there was a time you didn’t and there could be such a time again, and that has never been the case for any Autistic ever. No spontaneous “remissions ,” no miracle “cures,” no Indigenous remedies exist, there has never been any suggestion that Autism ever goes away, for any reason whatsoever.
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but also yes. Everyone says that all your life, people “have,” Autism, like having cancer, then talking about a cure has more legs.
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“Having,” suggests there was a time you didn’t and there could be such a time again, and that has never been the case for any Autistic ever. No spontaneous “remissions ,” no miracle “cures,” no Indigenous remedies exist, there has never been any suggestion that Autism ever goes away, for any reason whatsoever.
@punishmenthurts @hellomiakoda I've long thought of it more as like "having" brown eyes or red hair. A trait. But since "having" also applies to people with diseases, there's certainly more room for varying interpretations than there is with "being".
@mweiss @hellomiakoda
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ah, we’ve stumbled on it, haven’t we, it’s the old (Allistic, I think) group dynamics: they ARE and WE have, depending whether it’s a desirable thing to them or not. They ARE normal while we HAVE the ‘tism.
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That may not be the main part of that function, there’s a lot going on, we’ll BE when it serves them too.
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ah, we’ve stumbled on it, haven’t we, it’s the old (Allistic, I think) group dynamics: they ARE and WE have, depending whether it’s a desirable thing to them or not. They ARE normal while we HAVE the ‘tism.
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That may not be the main part of that function, there’s a lot going on, we’ll BE when it serves them too.
Looking for explanations…@punishmenthurts @mweiss @hellomiakoda
I’m not sure it’s allistic. I think the potential to see others this way is something we all have to watch out for, including us.
@Susan60 @mweiss @hellomiakoda
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well that’s the whole group dynamics theory, that all groups function that way - again, whenever they do something shitty, the whole world must have done it first.
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There’s a difference between, “we can make that mistake too,” and making that mistake all day every day and then declaring it a natural law to make that mistake. 💜
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well that’s the whole group dynamics theory, that all groups function that way - again, whenever they do something shitty, the whole world must have done it first.
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There’s a difference between, “we can make that mistake too,” and making that mistake all day every day and then declaring it a natural law to make that mistake. 💜
@punishmenthurts @mweiss @hellomiakoda
True, but I have known good allistics who are open to learning. Maybe they’re just undiagnosed. 😁
@Susan60 @mweiss @hellomiakoda
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oh, of course.
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Neurotype means something, though. if more than one type has the same trait in the same measure, that’s quite a coincidence. 🤨💜
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Surely if we have this outsized sense of fairness, that must be in reverse proportion to group prejudice? How do you have a full measure of both?
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oh, of course.
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Neurotype means something, though. if more than one type has the same trait in the same measure, that’s quite a coincidence. 🤨💜
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Surely if we have this outsized sense of fairness, that must be in reverse proportion to group prejudice? How do you have a full measure of both?
@punishmenthurts @mweiss @hellomiakoda
I think that even within our groups, we gravitate towards those most like us and then make generalisations about that group. For example, most of the ND people I speak to often on here are somewhat similar to me, and naturally they are wonderful. 😁
@Susan60 @mweiss @hellomiakoda
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my point isn’t to say we are like this and they are like that, my point is always just to audit the human sciences for neurodiversity. It’s not about who’s better, it’s about them (and maybe to a lesser degree, you) always saying everything they figure out is the same for everyone.
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my point isn’t to say we are like this and they are like that, my point is always just to audit the human sciences for neurodiversity. It’s not about who’s better, it’s about them (and maybe to a lesser degree, you) always saying everything they figure out is the same for everyone.
@punishmenthurts @mweiss @hellomiakoda
I think that’s also the arrogance of many majorities.
@Susan60 @mweiss @hellomiakoda
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“many majorities,” aren’t in charge of the world or your life, Allistic people are.
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We keep having this conversation, we should agree to disagree and stop.
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“many majorities,” aren’t in charge of the world or your life, Allistic people are.
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We keep having this conversation, we should agree to disagree and stop.
@punishmenthurts @mweiss @hellomiakoda
Yes, I think that’s a good idea.
@punishmenthurts @hellomiakoda "normal" is often a dangerous word. I often say that "normal" is defined as your own experiences in the first decade of your life. It's worth the effort to distinguish between "different" (from oneself and one's previous experience) and "abnormal". The latter has judgement attached.
@punishmenthurts @hellomiakoda I'm not saying that's how others look at it. I'm saying that's how I look at it. Most people I know never stop to consider what "normal" means.
@mweiss @hellomiakoda
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ah, sorry. I should have put it in quotes or added some qualifiers. I often do.
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ah, sorry. I should have put it in quotes or added some qualifiers. I often do.
apm77@mweiss @punishmenthurts @hellomiakoda Another example might be "having" a sense of humour. Personally I don't like to attach metaphysical significance to "being" vs "having" language. I think of autism as a region on the abstract multidimensional space of all possible neurotypes, and being on the inside of an arbitrarily defined border does not in itself define me as a person.
Irene (she/they, Sir/Mr.)Im also autistic, and agree strongly with the sentiment/language distinction. The way I exist is autistic, and to change or remove my autism would be to foundationally change how i experience absolutely everything, in the same way that changing me into a non-human would foundationally change how i experience existence. Im an autistic human, and theres no way to separate my autism from my humanity itself, but you *can* separate out something like asthma (great explanation
@hellomiakoda @mweiss thank you very much. I found this enlightening and I'm sure I'll use your explanation in the future.
I have an essential me, & a peripheral me. My essential me is my brain & nervous system. My peripheral me is the body through which I experience & interact with the world around me. If my essential me was transferred into the body of another human, my experience of life would change because of the age, sex, colour & physical health etc of that body, so the change could potentially be enormous. But I would still be autistic.
quackademic@Susan60 @hellomiakoda @mweiss
Agree with our neurotype being an essential part of who we are. But for me, brain & nervous system are not separate from my body! My feelings manifest as sensations in my body & they come to be identified as ‘feelings’ as I interpret them using the ideas available to me. There is no separating any part of me from the whole.
It can be useful to think of ourselves as body / mind, & as separate from other beings & the world around us - to function on a daily basis we need to do this - but I really feel these separations arise from how we’ve learned to interpret ourselves & the world. They differ in different cultures. Sometimes part of what makes us misfits as neurodivergent folk is when we perceive beyond the boundaries that in our cultural setting are understood to define ‘us’ - for example feeling the emotions of other people, in proximity or far away.
I’ve been thinking about these things all my life, trying to make sense of why I perceive differently from most folks. Some non western traditions theorise perception & the boundaries of self/non-self very clearly, Vedanta & Buddhism among them. Sanskrit, for example, has a vast technical vocabulary for description of what we call metaphysics. The English language that frames our thinking is incredibly impoverished in comparison. In our culture, advances in biology/physiology/physics & the idea of quantum entanglement are the closest we get to making ideas like this thinkable.
Mostly, those of us who live with unshared realities are just seen as mad 😎
For me, talking in terms of neurotype is a useful way of describing how I perceive & process sensory and other information differently from most folks. This physical being is the instrument through which I perceive & the medium through which I manifest. I would not change it! Totes agree that calling one bit of it ‘autism’ & excising it is just silly.
But mind is essentially me & body not? Nup.
Hmm.
I think I took the idea too far, and don’t normally try to see the mind and body as separate. I did say the same thing about my body as being the thing through which I perceive the world. It’s why the idea of a “soul” doesn’t work for me. The distinction between the two is too simplistic. “I” am a result of a continually evolving experience of interaction between … my software & my hardware. And that metaphor is also too simplistic.
What I was trying to get at is the fact that the ways in which I am autistic are part of me to a much greater extent than any diseased organ or injured body part. My autism is much more inherently part of me than any disease or injury.
Having an injury or disease will also affect “me” because of its impact on my mood, energy etc. But I can possibly learn to mitigate, manage and adjust in ways that will minimise that impact.
The distinction is a muddy one, and the point I made was possibly a clumsy attempt to clarify it. It came yo me as I was writing, as opposed to a long held belief, and might not have been as clever as u first thought.
Bugger.
😂
@Susan60 @26pglt @hellomiakoda one's sense of one's core essence is complex. In a way, it's a fabrication of our own minds, so it's likely to be quite different to different people.
Murdoc Addams 🧛🏻
🇨🇦
Aaron Graff@hellomiakoda exactly I wouldn't exactly say autism is a weakness if anything it is a strength.
Jef Verbeeck@hellomiakoda Exactly! I feel the same way about being autistic.
theNameless@hellomiakoda ..yes!! ditto! 💚
Mark Andrew@hellomiakoda thank you! I've been thinking this for a while. I'm grateful that you put it in writing.
@spraoi If you like, there's sone elaboration further down the thread
Miakoda :neurodiversity: (@[email protected])
@[email protected] It goes much much deeper than that. I HAVE asthma. If you managed to cure my asthma, I am still the same me, I'm the same person. Autism shaped everything that one would consider to be me. If you somehow removed autism, I, the person I am, would cease to exist. My body may or may not continue, but *I* wouldn't be there anymore. #ActuallyAutistic
Matilda Loveyes
i don't "have homosexuality", i'm gay
i don't "have transgenderism", i'm a woman
i don't "have autism", i'm autistic