Earlier in the conversation, I'd already described autism as a distinct pattern of being; not just ‘struggling in society’  

I talked about the hyper/hypo pattern that runs through autistic life. In sensory experience, emotion, imagination, attention, and responsiveness.

That isn't just random distress. It's a highly distinguishable and recognisable profile.

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I also talked about monotropism; the distinctive depth and narrowness of autistic attention.

The tendency to go very deep, to struggle with switching, to get overwhelmed by competing demands - and to experience the world with such a particular intensity.

Again: not just ‘life is hard’, but a very specific way of processing and experiencing.

#Monotropism #Autism #AutismResearch

My answer was that this whole framework is totally confused!

Current diagnostic criteria are built around pathology and clinically significant impairment. So of course, if you only look through that lens, autism will appear only as deficit.

It’s like sweeping a metal detector across a beach and then concluding that the beach is made of metal. But of course that is what you find, as metal is the only thing your instrument is built to detect. It doesn’t mean there’s no beach.

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But that is a feature of the diagnostic model. It's not proof that autistic people are inventing a neurotype.

I also made the point that disability depends on context. The same autistic person may be 'diagnosable' in one environment and less obviously so in another... simply because support, stability, and context can make such a difference.

That doesn't mean the person has changed out of being autistic. It means context can affect how well they manage.

Those are two different things.

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And crucially: autistic people didn't invent this gatekeeping system.

We were told, for years, that we wouldn't be believed without diagnosis. So people pursued diagnosis in order to be recognised, accommodated, and just... well, yes... believed!

Then, the existence of that gatekeeping gets turned back on us as though it proves something suspicious about us.

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What I most object to is her slide from:

‘society is failing lots of people’

to

‘therefore maybe autistic people are just misreading their distress as autism’.

That just doesn't logically follow. 🤨

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So no. Autistic people are not ‘just making it up because society is crap’.

The reality is more like this:

Society is often crap, and autistic people are then forced to explain their real differences through a diagnostic system built around pathology, gatekeeping, and disbelief.

End of 🧵

#Autism #ActuallyAutistic #EpistemicInjustice