Lines – Amber (Part 2)

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Sometimes the same behaviors in a person {read as} neurotypical would not even be noticed.

But because people with autism are scrutinized all day, every day, by teachers, therapists, parents, and almost everyone else around them, their behaviors are labeled, treated […]

Partial quote, Lisa Jo Rudy

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When you tell me there is no such thing as normal, this is true, in a sense. The things we as a society prize as normal can not all be found in one person. […] There is no one ‘normal’ person, never was, never will be. So many of us are more comfortable with people like ourselves that we take as normal those with a certain amount of similarity to ourselves, and if we have sufficient power in society, this normal may override the normals of others.

Alyssa Hillary

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There is simply no need to speak at all of ‘what makes us human’ in scientific discourse. What makes us human is nothing, save perhaps our rich diversity.

Sophie Vivian

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A lot of people think they can relate {to my struggles} which means it’s brushed under the carpet as not a big deal.

Partial quote, Amy Miller

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“You know how it is. People like that . . . they don’t experience emotions the same way that you and I do.” […]

I thought about telling her [that I am autistic]. I chose not to. I’m not sure what it would have accomplished if I had told her […] revealing myself to be a person like that

The truth is, I don’t experience emotions in the same way as that woman who spoke to me about her disabled clients. Or in the same way that you do. No one does.

Human beings are cognitively and behaviorally diverse. We are so diverse that we defy taxonomy entirely.

There really is no norm, no fixed point of reference from which to deviate.

Caroline Narby

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[F]ew issues are completely exclusive to one group, but some things affect some groups more strongly than others, and that can be very important.

Elizabeth Bartmess

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[S]ome critics […] suggest abandoning the term ‘autism’ altogether. In their opinion, labelling autistic people as such was merely a mistake: We thought there was a natural category called ‘autism,’ but now that we know more about it, we can see that this was an error.

[I]dentifying as autistic may not be biologically meaningful, but it is politically meaningful

[W]e have our own communities, norms, and practices […] Autism, in other words, has begun to develop into a culture, and this culture opens up the space for autistic behaviors to begin to manifest as meaningful […] challeng[ing] existing standards of acceptability within […] dominant social and ideological framework[s]

Some of our most significant and deeply-entrenched human categories – like race and gender – are partly rooted in a constellation of physical elements, and partly in historically situated social construction.

They do not reside on a single gene, or even a network of genes, and yet they are both extremely ‘real’ and extremely important to our conceptions of self and others.

Robert Chapman

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When you are different it’s okay for you to not quite meet up with the rest of the world here and there, because most of the time, when it matters, everything syncs up.

When you are disabled you don’t have that luxury.

 

When you are disabled you have to prove, over and over again, that you are a real person […]

Julia Bascom

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In a world where autism exists, because we do taxonomize human difference and build systems of power around it, I am autistic.

Caroline Narby

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Labels (Part 2)

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I have never heard either of these labels [high-functioning and low-functioning] deployed to mean anything but “still not quite, you know…one of us.”

That’s what “____-functioning” means.  “Not one of us.”

Dani Alexis

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In addition to being ableist and grading against a neurotypical standard (which is its own, major issue), functioning levels attempt to reduce all the complex information about a persons abilities and needs over time and across a variety of contexts down to one dimension. That’s always going to be inappropriate dimensionality reduction, simplifying what we know to the point that it’s useless. Talking about low, medium, or high support needs isn’t going to fix this problem. Neither will talking about low vs. high masking as if either of those means a single thing. Those still use a single dimension, and you can’t shove enough information about what those support needs actually are, or what the specific effects of masking are into a single dimension for it to ever work.

Alyssa Hillary

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For many of us, engaging with an amorphous diagnostic group-think entity is the first step towards getting a solid conceptual foothold in who we are […] It’s also a first step towards securing a place in society. Especially societies which have low tolerance for divergence […]

It’s a slippery slope, isn’t it? […] You want it, pursue it, and then can be used against you. But if you don’t have it, you run the risk of getting stamped on. […]

Ultimately, it’s really up to each of us, how we engage with our identities, how we understand ourselves. How we navigate our social worlds.

VisualVox

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Semantically speaking,
         autistics are outsiders by definition.

Because autism, basically, is defined by divergence.

Based on two articles by Caroline Narby

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Just because it’s not information you need, that doesn’t mean it’s a useless word.

Alyssa Hillary

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Labels are Tools – They can be used for good or bad things

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When labels become boxes, that’s bad. But sometimes labels are road maps. Guidebooks. They show you how to find the information you’ve needed but never knew how to find or even if it existed.

Jess Mahler

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Calling disabilities by their right names isn’t about labeling, it’s about breaking isolation and making important things speakable.

Ruti Regan

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[T]hey think the problem was that they treated their child like they were intellectually disabled, and they weren’t.

But that’s not the problem.

The problem is that they thought their child was intellectually disabled, and so they didn’t treat them like a person.

Julia Bascom

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It would be great if labels like autism weren’t necessary.

It would be great if ableism didn’t exist, but that’s one hell of a hypothetical.

Ableism is an extreme and far-reaching problem that can’t be solved without labeling the specific disabilities of the people being harmed.

In a world where most people speak with their mouths and assume everyone else does too, I need the autism label to explain why typing is better. In a world of sensory assault, where “I don’t want to” is not a sufficient excuse, I need the autism label to justify my self-protection.

Alix Ditto Au

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Yes, labels may bring prejudice and ignorance, but they can also bring understanding and much needed support.

Laura Rutherford

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Labels (Part 1)

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[…] as soon as someone says they’re on the autism spectrum, we categorize them and treat them differently.

Creigh, Caley

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It’s interesting the way that little label changes where the presumption lies.

If you’re NT and you decide to go explore a local park on a whim, you’re just indulging a whim. If you have ASD though, that’s ‘dangerous wandering’.

If you’re NT and you hire someone to do your cleaning or your lawn, you’re just freeing up spare time for yourself, but if you have ASD, you’re not ‘living independently.’

Cynthia Kim

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When I am open about being Autistic, I am handing people a weapon to punish me with. [Many times] my autism has been invoked during a disagreement. I have ended up leaving so many communities because I was told that I was only disagreeing because my autism meant I didn’t really understand. […]

Anytime someone wants to dismiss my opinion or experience, they point out that I am Autistic, as if that trumps anything and everything. […]

Telling people that I am Autistic gives them the opportunity to understand me better.

It also gives them the opportunity to dismiss anything and everything about me as irrelevant, deluded, pathological, unacceptable. No one has to provide a logical counter for anything I say because my words are Autistic words so they mean nothing. They are merely symptoms and can be disregarded.

Max Sparrow

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Like it or not, public perception of autism is not very diverse (yet). […] We need adjectives like ‘mild’ or ‘severe’ to help other people understand the extent of the autistic person’s needs.

Chris Bonnello

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There is no such thing as severe autism. There are autistic people.

Autistic people all have needs to be met. Just like everyone else.

These aren’t special needs, or different needs, they are human needs.

Autistic people need food, shelter, connection with other people, and to feel safe and valued. Just like everyone else.

Autistic people will communicate their distress when their needs are not being met. Just like everyone else. […]

They are not ‘severely autistic’– they are autistic and severely misunderstood, severely stigmatised, severely stressed, severely anxious, severely exhausted […]

Michelle Sutton

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My ‘high functioning’ child is not yet potty trained and still has to use diapers.  We support her and teach her, but we never shame her publicly or otherwise for being Disabled and on a different developmental path than other children her age.

Wait, does that make her ‘low-functioning’?  I get confused because she is also reading ‘The Hobbit’, which might make her ‘high-functioning’.

Romana Tate

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(See previous quote for context)

Deviating from the gist of the quote; it is interesting to note how – generally speaking – using diapers and reading The Hobbit are associated with respectively ‘low-functioning’ and ‘high-functioning’ in the first place.

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Part of the problem of the “labels are for jars” argument is that it inextricably links the label with diagnosis and pathology. It completely ignores the possibility that the label can be part of a disabled identity [when it is not] entirely defined by medical terms.

Kim Sauder

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A diagnosis is meant to give a reason. We can say, look, you have cancer. That is why you are feeling so unwell. You have depression. That is why you are so sad. You have this, so you are that. We expect a direct correlation, a cause, a salve to soothe us against all the things in the world that don’t make sense. The things that hurt us. A diagnosis tells us if A, then B. In this way, we define and we mend and we neatly slot the world into order. A diagnosis of disability tells the world where to fit a person, what they can and cannot do, how they will be loved and love in return. It designates relationships and builds hierarchies. From the moment my sister was diagnosed, people expected it would define us, too. Her and me. When they spoke they left so much room for the wrong words, such as caretaker and burden and problem, but too little for the right ones, such as sister and friend.

Out of context, Lauren McKeon

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Being assigned the label also became an experience of crossing over the threshold of ‘normal’ to ‘abnormal.’ […] They also continually compared their inner experiences and behaviors against an imagined standard of ‘normal.’

Out of context, Susan G. Goldberg

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Next

Spectrums in Life

Extra section related to:

Blossoming

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Life experiences, individual personality,
and choices and changes throughout life:

(A myriad of little and big things play complex roles in
an individual’s experiences and influence their life)

‘Autism’ is just one thing among many others.

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• Specific configuration of neurological differences (cognition, communication, sensory perception, movement, interaction)

• The fact that the variation of abilities and inabilities is inconsistent

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• In which areas you choose to fuel your energy, maybe at the expense of other areas

• How you (choose to) perform in each context

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• How others think of, view, judge and treat you; how they react to, respond to and what they believe about your actions

• Social dynamics; discrepancy between reality and others’ misperceptions

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• How you change in response of others: your approach, response and reaction to situations

• If and how you choose to show/hide your skills, your (internal) struggles, and your needs – which may differ from other people

• How easy/hard it is for you to get/lose support; which types of support you get/need

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• Whether or not you know and/or disclose you are autistic; when you knew it (if you know it), and your life history before this; how you conceive the label of ‘autistic’

• Whether or not you have, choose to have, or seek a diagnosis

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• Demographic characteristics, identities, experiences:
  • gender (gender roles, trans/non binary, etc.), race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, parenthood, cultural surroundings, socioeconomic status, physical disability, etc.

• Stigma, discrimination, prejudice, underdiagnosis, expectations, portrayal, etc.

• How different characteristics combine with being autistic

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Based on an article by Elizabeth Bartmess

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