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Difference and acceptance

Oscie

I have been pondering this recently, I wonder if our community will ever be accepted as simply different rather than 'disabled'? I am starting to resent the labels being ascribed by the majority population and wonder how others feel.

  • in reply to Sporadic Sparkly
    Sporadic Sparkly said:
    Yes, we have traits that can make life more challenging for us, but we can also have traits that neurotypicals envy, and/or find endearing.

    Yes I agree.

  • Not all neurotypicals perceive us as 'disabled', but I think this possibly has a lot to do with how well-informed they are about autism. Yes, we have traits that can make life more challenging for us, but we can also have traits that neurotypicals envy, and/or find endearing.

  • Hello I understand how you feel. There is sometimes the automatic assumption that anyone who does not fit the norm is disabled. I too feel simply different because I am autistic - I am not disabled because of my neurotype, it is just my natural way of being.

    We as autistic people are a minority and therefore because we do things differently from the majority neurotype we are continuously labelled. Thanks to evolution of the Neurodiversity Movement there is growing acceptance of different ways of being human. 

    I do understand however that some other autistic people do use and embrace the social model of disability- and may sometimes feel disabled by their environment. A great example of this is Luke Beardon’s golden equation- Autism + Environment = Outcome. We are disadvantaged by our environment because it is set up for the majority neurotype and there is a constant comparison to neurotypical norms. We have our own way of interacting, showing emotions and feelings but it is not their way. It is typically only when we find our own autistic community that our natural way of being is validated.

  • I embrace the 'social model of disability'. I believe that I am disabled in some ways by the mismatch between my autism and how society operates. Would I have been so wracked by anxiety surrounding university examinations, if I was not obliged to take them in huge halls alongside hundreds of other people? I think not, certainly not to the same extent.

    The consequence of this viewpoint is, that if society was more matched to my needs, then my disability would disappear.

  • Pretty much the same.

    Hilarious paradox - being treated like mentally impaired by imbecyls