this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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You might want to find some (better) support. The progressive view is that autism is neither good nor bad - just different - and most of the "issues" with being autistic stem from a lack of understanding and accommodation from the rest of society.
That doesn't really help since we do indeed live in a society
Ah yes. Let me just order an understanding community and infrastructure that suited my needs that weren't met. Let me just revert the lack of development and damage done through neglect. Shall I add some dragons on the side?
None of this adds up to autism being bad.
How so? Underdevelopment of the brain has been pretty bad for me. An abusive enviroment partially as a result of me being autistic was bad for me too.
I think I understand your argument as being "in a vacuum, being autistic isn't bad", which i agree with in a way; being neurodivergent in any sense technically isn't a bad thing, just a different thing. However, especially with people who are very autistic to the point of struggling to take care of themselves, autism and other neurodivergence can definitely present huge challenges and difficulties for the person themselves and the people around them. We do not live in a vacuum and society as it stands and has stood for hundreds of years is simply not built to be neurodivergent-friendly. At all. I have ADHD which many would think is "not as bad" as autism, yet I have struggled and gone through so mich pain and difficulties simply because of it. It has been an overall net negative. I suspect I may be a bit autistic too, but don't use the label as I haven't gone out of my way to seek a formal diagnosis. In any case, saying that autism isn't "a bad thing" can be touchy because it ignores a lot of real challenges and pain autistic people have gone through and is fairly close to the (frankly patronizing IMO) "autism/ADHD is a superpower" stuff. It doesn't feel like a superpower when you're suffering because of it.
Sorry for the ramble, it's a bit of a difficult and nuanced topic.