this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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Autism
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Suicide is one of the top three causes of death for autistic people. The other two are heart disease and epilepsy complications, and on average we die under 50 years of age.
What they don't understand though is that the suicide part isn't caused by autism. It's caused by people being horrible to each other. Or in other words: people with autism die because people without it make living hell for them.
Yes, but that's not due to autism, that's due to the way society treats autistic people.
So when is that going to change
I'd love to know.
My daughter has it, and I'd say about 5-10 years ago it changed. The amount of acceptance is so much higher than it used to be. Obviously we need work, but hell in my city there are special times at both grocery stores and movie theatres for neuro-diverse people. The difference to a decade ago is extreme.
It's beginning to change in the academic world. The deficit model is falling for the difference/diversity paradigm.
no
actually everyone treat others like shit. But what NT have is a much stronger upport circle and fewer difference.
By fewer difference I mean that you cant pick on someone that everyone around him does : A boss can't really bully a NT for using implicite dicourse when all of their collegues does the exact same, they would immediately realise something is wrong. The average NT knowing jackshit about autism, it can be easy to trick them into thinking that ND should "just make an effort" to understand implicite discourse.
That's sad part, we are technically all targeted with the same amount of flak so if you are slightly out of cover, you get blasted away
That's simply not true.
that might be an exageration but that is surprisingly common
supposedly
Do tell us your theory.
no thanks, but if youve got some proof id be happy to read it
So you don't have any idea why so many people on the spectrum commit suicide but you don't think it's the way they're regularly mistreated?
i think that the mistreatment of folks with autism is not enough to explain to have this high of a suicide rate, and that autism does just make life harder to deal with, regardless of discrimination
And yet you have no other answers. So until you have them, that seems to be a good working theory.
i think working off answers we do have is a better idea, actually
such as suicide being one of the top three causes of death for autistic people. The other two being heart disease and epilepsy complications, and them on average dying under 50 years of age.
I suggest to read more than one article about the double empathy problem at first.
We have multiple papers stating it's the way we are mistreated the issue. Autists don't have a lack of empathy, communication, socialization, non verbal language, etc. We express them in a different way, an Autistic way! This is as valid as the neurotypical way.
We need to stop internalizing ableism and self blaming us for everything and nothing. These are direct consequences of mistreatments too.
im sure that mistreatment is part of the issue
im also sure that autism does, at least often, come with real internal stressors that are not the result of their treatment by others, and that make dealing with external stressors more difficult
i dont take an issue with the added context of conscious or subconscious ableism (though i think its besides the point here, because cruel or not, its still something potential children will still have to deal with)
i think its important to remember that even if that wasnt a factor, autism will often still impact the quality of life of potential children
The issue with your explanation is that autism isn't an illness nor a disease nor a disorder. It's a neurotype, a neurological difference.
It doesn't come with a difference in neurology. It's a different neurology. They're no normal neurology. All of them are egal and valid. When one of them exercises a pressure to be the one, the norm, and doesn't let the others exist, it's discrimination against a minority. This ends with a high suicide number. It has deep implications with trauma, PTSD, cptsd, depression and other mental health issues from a very young age to elderly. When you can't cope anymore, you ...
And yeah, it's internalized ableism to blame ourselves.
whether autism is or is not an illness, disease or disorder has no bearing on what i said
you seem to be misinterpreting my comment as being a judgement of value on autism or autistic folks, which it is not
my point is based on the common symptoms, effects and predispositions of autism, especially ones that cannot be pinned on mistreatment
completely and entirely regardless of whether it is a 'valid' or 'normal' neurology or not, and completely and entirely regardless of whether autistic folks can or cannot be blamed for any of it
How is that an idea of what the cause of suicide is? Where is the explanation of cause there? Because I gave an explanation of the cause. So far, all you've done is play coy.
you didnt give an explanation of the cause, you seemingly pulled something out your ass and didnt like when i didnt immediately accept it as fact
You think the widespread mistreatment of autistic people is something I invented? Really?
im going to assume the complete misinterpretation is genuine and not just strawmanning
no, i think that the high suicide rates being exclusively due to mistreatment is something you pulled out your ass, especially since the response to 'do you have proof' was not 'yes, here you go'
I never said anything about it being exclusively due to mistreatment. That is something you made up.
And I admitted I didn't have evidence, so I have no idea why you're complaining about me not having evidence.
must be me, but i read that as pretty explicit and unambiguously exclusive language
because i think going 'well thats wrong, heres whats actually happening' with 0 evidence is actually a pretty weird thing to do, as is maintaining that it just has to be true when challenged
Yes, it must be you. If I had meant it to be exclusive, I would have said "that is not solely due to autism, that is solely due to the way society treats autistic people"
But please, continue to berate me for not having the evidence I admit I don't have. I'm sure that will lead to productive discussion.
i doubt there was any chance of a productive discussion past ‘well thats wrong, heres whats actually happening’ with 0 evidence and maintaining that it just has to be true when challenged
im doing this so folks reading this thread at least get the added context of the above being a complete unsourced guess
Yep, there it is.
"I have no evidence."
"You idiot! You have no evidence!"
"I know. I said I have no evidence."
"What kind of fool says that sort of thing without evidence?"
"Me, I guess."
"Ha! I knew you had no evidence!"
Is this going to continue ad nauseam or do you have a point besides the fact that I said something I don't have evidence for? Because I think the folks reading this thread might have glommed on to the fact that I have no evidence at this point.
your commitment to just saying some shit is admirable i guess
Okay, so do you have anything further to say or are we done here?
It's also the 2nd leading cause of death for 2SLGBTQ+ youth:
So there's a lot more suffering in general for anyone basically not white, straight, (and depending on circumstances, male). Autism isn't a death sentence. While people with severe autism struggle a lot more than most, they can have very good fulfilling lives. Source: My daughter (23) has (moderate) autism and her best friend (23) has severe.
can add the healthy for white and straight if you're in the USA. Also just methodologically poc are faced with very different risk with racially motivated crimes and the fact that ethnic getthoisation create strong social support structures will help curb suicidal tendencies.
Even if the struggles can be similar, the supplementary problem with LGBTQ+, is loneliness. There are actually very few of them, so finding people like you that understand your struggles is very difficult. That really hit me when I talked for the first time with people leading association supporting LGBTQ, most of the work is reaching out to people to tell them they are not alone