Comment by Tireings
2 days ago
It doesn't has to be a disability just because someone is different from the majority.
Majority is just the average
2 days ago
It doesn't has to be a disability just because someone is different from the majority.
Majority is just the average
It's a disability if it impacts one or more major life function. Otherwise it's just an answer to a question you might not have even known you wanted to ask.
I'm sure I would've been diagnosed autistic as a kid instead of just difficult. Not sure it would've changed anything. I still would've been very strong willed and confused about why people around me say one thing but do a different thing. I think what would've been different is maybe other people's reaction to me?
> Not sure it would've changed anything.
I think the biggest benefit to diagnosis is both the parent and the child are able to draw on resources for those disabilities - learn about coping mechanisms, get advice from other autistic people, etc.
> confused about why people around me say one thing but do a different thing.
I think it importantly helps shift this confusion from the framing of "Is something wrong with me?" which a lot of young autistic people feel
I never thought there was something wrong with me, maybe that's the difference.
I communicate extremely clearly. Most people do not. They say half of what they want, or ignore half of what they read/hear. It's very odd. Life is much easier (read: less complicated, not more pleasant) when you communicate as if the other person isn't actually reading your thoughts and emotions. That applies for neuro- typical and divergent people equally.
Well sure, "disability" doesn't mean "different", it means "less able to do certain things".
Why is the word disability or illness is somehow shameful? Making people stop calling some illnesses an illness just forces doublespeak and shifting of the same meaning to a different word. "We don't call autistic people ill, we call them alternatively healthy"(c) or some other similar bullshit. I'm not normo-typical for example and have some conditions. If someone will call me ill, I would simply nod and agree because that's what truth is about me. What's the big deal? Being different from majority is a disability, and instead of shamefully hiding it behind doublespeak and twisting words, it would be better to acknowledge it and help all of us to be accommodated by the said majority.
My ADHD is not a disability or an illness.
It's a brain pattern / way of thinking which doesn't fit the avg societies expectations.
It's a disability when it hinders me lifting my life but even then you allow the narrative be written by the others.
And my ADHD (rather severe) is both a disability and an illness, and it sucks. It affects my wellbeing in all possible senses and I know it without projecting blame on some virtual "others". It can be even mitigate with medicines, because it is literally a disorder throwing off my internal body chemistry balance off.
It is no different than say diabetes T2. Both are diseases which are caused by wrong levels something essential, both can be mitigated by a treatment which changes levels of that something. Both have significant societal impact on a life of the affected person. Yet, there is no doubt in the social networks that T2 is an illness, while ADHD is for some reason not afforded as much.
a disability or illness implies the need to be cured. but for high functioning autistic people it is not clear whether they are actually having a disability or an illness that needs curing. if something doesn't need curing then it's not an illness, nor a disability. so either we don't diagnose people who don't need curing but do need an explanation for their differences as autistic, or we accept that at least some high functioning autistic people are not disabled or ill.
i mentioned before the book "Speed of Dark" by Elisabeth Moon which explores this topic.
I just want to note that asking people with severe autistic symptoms may be as pointless as asking a person with alzheimer. They have no frame of reference in that particular moment. But that is only my hypothesis, so I may be wrong. But for example I have an ADHD for decades and I'm sick and tired of this quite obviously illness and disability. I would immediately pay if there was a one time cure for it, no debate even for a second.
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