It's a tough truth to face up to, but not every Autstic/neurodivergent person is a good person. Many of us find out the hard way that there are members of our own community who will do harm to us collectively and individually.
It's important that we acknowledge the truth that we can always do better as a community. We don't have to be perfect. We just have to do a little better each day.
@DivergentDumpsterPhoenix Sadly true. It pains me to say it, but some of the people who caused me the most hurt were other neurodivergents - ones who'd learned very well how to lie, hurt people, and then play the victim afterward.
@philpem I think there is something to be said for the sheer amount of trauma in our community, and the fact that some of us pass that trauma on rather than working on ourselves.
@DivergentDumpsterPhoenix One of my therapists opened our first session with the line "most of my clients are here because of other people who'd have benefited more from my help but never sought it."
@DivergentDumpsterPhoenix@actuallyautistic@autisticadvocacy@audhd I had to learn all this the hard way. Ex-girlfriend is autistic and it was like seeing the dark side of autism with her. I had nightmares about her for weeks. The people in the past who demonized me and made me a public enemy and were determined to make my store go out of business were fellow autistics. We are all humans and some people have good hearts and some don’t, autistic or not.
@DivergentDumpsterPhoenix@actuallyautistic@autisticadvocacy@audhd I suppose we can say that for every group of ppl sharing a common innate trait. I see no reasons why there would not be assholes among, idk, women / brown-haired people / elderly / autists.
We only share a common trait, we don't choose "the autistic cause" as if it was some kind of political or cultural gathering. Solidarity with other autistic ppl is an effort to be chosen, it's not mandatory by the nature of being autistic.
@DivergentDumpsterPhoenix@actuallyautistic@autisticadvocacy@audhd Life pro tip: Anyone who refers to themselves as "Aspergers" are universally those types of harmful people. Identifying yourself after a nazi scientist put in charge of purging autistic people tends to be a clue that they have far worse beliefs under the hood. (and no, masking it as "high functioning" isn't any better) Same people who use the autism card to excuse their shitty behavior which reinforces genocidal narratives.
@omegahaxors@DivergentDumpsterPhoenix@actuallyautistic@autisticadvocacy@audhd It's very important to remember not everyone actually knows where Aspergers got its name, it is sadly somewhat of an uncommon fact. I've explained it to friends before who simply had no idea and were thankful for the knowledge. So unless people are using the term maliciously, I would presume positive intent of anyone using it, and offer education.
@nesi@DivergentDumpsterPhoenix@actuallyautistic@autisticadvocacy@audhd I will stop presuming everyone using the term is bad when everyone using the term stops being bad. And I don't care how dangerous it is for these people, if they don't want to be harmed by it maybe cut the nazi out of their identity. It's really not that hard.
"Dont identify with the autistic children a nazi specified as being useful slaves"
That is a hard NO.
They didn't do anything wrong.
Yes its a hill i will die on.
No i am NOT going to allow you to say that the victims of a nazi are at fault or autistic people cannot reclaim the term as a memorial.
Core to the idea is that aspergers are somehow better than every other autistic person, which is exactly why i'm against the term. It's inherently hierarchal and the fact that it has ties to nazi germany is only the tip of the iceburg. You are erasing the literal genocide of autistic people because it puts you on the top. Put down the victim card
Let me know when you stop telling everyone else what they believe.
For me "useful slave" isn't a sign of superiority.
Its a category of being pathologized.
Don't you find it demoralizingly ironic that the first person answering a post about bad people harming the community would be one of the worst of them?
I think one of the most harmful things you can do to the community is actually use that kind of blanket statement, demonizing people you do not know.
@axnxcamr@nesi@DivergentDumpsterPhoenix@actuallyautistic@autisticadvocacy@audhd its ironic yeah. That person blocked me for saying that they shouldn't be trying to dictate what a word means after its been in use for decades and to people who have been using it for their entire life.
I expressed my own perspective but i haven't told anyone else what to call themselves.
I just want them to leave everyone else alone!
@marronvulpes@nesi@DivergentDumpsterPhoenix@actuallyautistic@autisticadvocacy@audhd Just block me. I don't compromise my stances. Sorry if you want to try to water down what I believe in, I don't play that game. I'm evil to nazis and you should be too. If you don't want to be the target of that, then don't be/side with/identify with fascists. I'll always give people a chance to get out of the way, but i'm not going to slow down just because they want to stand in the middle of the nazi road.
@nesi@omegahaxors@DivergentDumpsterPhoenix@actuallyautistic@autisticadvocacy@audhd
I agree with you
Demanding that people change their internal understanding of themselves without consideration for their lived experience
Is EXTREMELY dangerous
AND ANYONE WHO FEELS ENTITLED TO ORDER OTHER AUTISTIC PEOPLE TO DO IT AUTOMATICALLY PLACES THEMSELVES AT THE TOP OF A HIERARCHY OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AUTISTIC.
Self identification IS VALID.
NO FORMAL DIAGNOSIS IS LESS VALID A WAY OF BEING AUTISTIC
@nesi@omegahaxors@DivergentDumpsterPhoenix@actuallyautistic@autisticadvocacy@audhd Neurotypical people using it as a weapon happens. (See the discourse around tech bros)
About the "useful" slaves designation.
Are holocaust survivors at fault too?
Because i disagree. None of them CHOSE. Nazis chose. The victims were ALL victims,
No it's not a word to celebrate. But i find it abhorrent to suggest its a mark of shame to be associated with ANY of those victims
A friend of mine grew up with that diagnosis and the term Aspie became something that was connected to his identity way before there was common knowledge of D. Asperger's activities. I am more recently diagnosed so the term was never applied to me so I think of myself as autistic.
@CatHat@DivergentDumpsterPhoenix@actuallyautistic@autisticadvocacy@audhd You know who else was a victim to the nazis? Every single autistic person. Aspergers don't get the card because he decided to spare just them. It's basically you saying "oh yeah? Well we're slightly LESS deserving of genocide than YOU are"
I get the feeling it's all a scattershot of traits with groups of people that clump together statistically and the clumps overlap significantly. The problem is, for 100+ years psych decided that traits NT's usually don't have together means someone is X, another set of traits mean someone is Y and so on, with the labels designated as pathologies because the individuals they were studying didn't conform to norms. During the historical period that psych was becoming what it is today, enforcement of norms was paramount. During that same period, the theory was pushed and happily accepted that all deviances from the norm are learned behaviors that can be unlearned - Skinner, Blank Slate theory, etc.. Psych sold the promise to "help" people unlearn their differences and agree to conform. The Cold War magnified the pressure for social conformity. It ended, the Internet came about, and ND's could compare notes.
@Frances_Larina@Susan60@omegahaxors@DivergentDumpsterPhoenix@actuallyautistic@autisticadvocacy@audhd
Yes. That reminds me about the book about Fermat. Centuries of mathematicians tried to find Fermats proof. Most of them failed. But all of their attemps brought different islands of math together and builded bridges.
Maybe one day there will be better names and the intrinsic concepts of neurodiversity will be recohnized.
@Susan60
Also words don't have only one meaning. A person can ID as Aspie for any number of reasons having nothing to do with Nazis. The history of that word isn't everyone's root meaning. Skene was a man who named the gland on AFAB bodies known as Skene's gland but that doesn't mean that guy has anything to do with my anatomy. I'm a huge etymology geek, but words aren't only their roots @servelan@LilyoftheRally@omegahaxors@DivergentDumpsterPhoenix@actuallyautistic@autisticadvocacy@audhd
I’m not convinced the term “Asperger’s Syndrome” ever carried that much less stigma outside of “Aspie supremacy” circles and maybe some clinicians who thought being nonverbal was the main thing making life difficult for autistic people generally.
I had at least one family member who decided I had Asperger’s syndrome sometime in the 1990s, but not on the basis of an actual diagnosis (actual me: qualified/equivocal “autism” diagnosis in 1980; definitive one in 2019; both at times when the term “Asperger’s syndrome” was not in use clinically).
Their main rationale for choosing that term appears to have been thinking the following:
Unfortunately, the family member I mentioned was not among them. They went to their grave believing I was incapable of having healthy social relationships and that I didn’t really mean it when I told them I loved them.
@independentpen@Susan60@servelan@LilyoftheRally@omegahaxors@DivergentDumpsterPhoenix@actuallyautistic@autisticadvocacy@audhd even if we were to ignore the Nazi part of Asperger's (ignoring nazis has worked so well in recent years) the term still basically endorses high functioning "good" autism and low functioning "bad" autism. Words don't mean the same thing to everyone, but it is disingenuous to pretend the most common understanding has the same weight as idiosyncratic personal interpretations in public discourse.
@bobbychill@independentpen@servelan@LilyoftheRally@omegahaxors@DivergentDumpsterPhoenix@actuallyautistic@autisticadvocacy@audhd I haven’t bothered to look at whether I could be classified that way because I don’t want to put myself in a category that some might see as better, less disabled or more “functional”. I have been able to “function” fairly well, at a cost, but don’t see this as a mark of superiority, or a justification to neglect or discriminate against those who have had more difficulties than myself.
@Dr_Obvious@Susan60@servelan@LilyoftheRally@omegahaxors@DivergentDumpsterPhoenix@actuallyautistic@autisticadvocacy@audhd yes, ok for the Steiner example, which was a bit extreme. But others like Weleda lab hide cautiously their right-bullshit philosophy base. Other Nazi had a high success (Bayer...), bc there was a time where it was better to have a friendly Nazi neighbour than a communist (from a US point of view). Western Germany came back in the economy game based on this.
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