Anonymous #1 2w

Alllistic. Educate me. Idek what that means

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Anonymous #2 2w

It means non-autistic. Neurotypical people are allistic. Neurodivergent people without autism are also allistic.

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Anonymous #2 2w

If we want to get REAL nitty gritty in it educators now used “High support” and “Low support” to avoid the terms altogether in the classroom under FERPA and just signifies the general level a student is at and what to anticipate in terms of what you need to do for supports. Low is usually easy general assistance and patrol, high is usually the students in independent classrooms with severe/profound autism :) educated!

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Anonymous #4 2w

- the help they need (MAJORITY OKAY.) For then yes it IS debilitating, but that’s not to say others haven’t faced disability and recognition in other areas of life and yes for a lot, it is socially, regulatory, and interest based. So the whole question is case by case

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Anonymous #8 2w

Like the thing about classifying autism as a social disability is that it defines experiencing discrimination as a disability. In empirical data autistic people are shown to be better communicators with each other than allistic people are with each other, which directly contradicts the idea that autism entails or is defined by a communication deficit.

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Anonymous #8 2w

to read the study in question, look for "Neurotype-Matching, but Not Being Autistic, Influences Self and Observer Ratings of Interpersonal Rapport" (Crompton et al, 2020)

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Anonymous #8 2w

Also, frankly I find it insulting when I say I'm disabled and people assume I consider myself disabled because of ADHD or autism, as opposed to the multiple systemic physical chronic illnesses I have. Neurodevelopmental disabilities are still disabilities but that is not the same fucking thing as needing accommodations because I literally do not have the strength in my legs to stand sometimes and get so violently nauseous from small muscle motions elevating my heart rate that I cannot speak.

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Anonymous #8 2w

Like it is very much minimizing and downplaying my actual disabilities to attribute them to autism. Autism does not cause POTS, MCAS, ME/CFS, asthma, or EDS. Autism is not what gives me allergic reactions resulting in asthma attacks I need to go to the ER to stop. Autism cannot turn into cancer. It is very insulting to imply that something that affects and largely defines what I consider my best personality traits is the same level of disabling as something than can directly kill me.

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Anonymous #8 2w

Too many people use "autism is a disability" to excuse outright gaslighting people who are extremely physically sick, by telling them it's part of autism rather than investigating further and discovering it is a separate bona fide illness that is a threat to their life. This is particularly true with genetic disorders that cause autism but also make people very physically sick.

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Anonymous #8 2w

There ARE people who are severely disabled/"low functioning" by autism alone, particularly in the sense of needing very strictly repetitive schedules or only being able to eat certain foods tied to mental/psychological blocks (i.e. not due to any other medical issue). But that is far more rare than people whose "autistic traits" are actually completely separate disorders that are undiagnosed, like EDS, MCAS, neuromotor disabilities, etc.. Blaming all of that on autism is ableist medical neglect

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Anonymous #8 2w

A large part of why I lean towards believing autism as a medical diagnosis is not particularly helpful is that it becomes a scapegoat for everything wrong with a person's health. If you're experiencing physical symptoms like pain, nausea, itching, or physical discomfort you need to dig deeper. The medical establishment also defines experiencing discrimination due to being autistic as something wrong with YOU, rather than immoral behavior on the part of the people discriminating against you.

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Anonymous #8 2w

Like there is nothing inherently disordered or deficit in a lot of what's classified as signs of autism. It completely makes sense that it's not disabling for a lot of people, because the only thing that would MAKE it disabling is either external (like discrimination and restrictive environments), or still experiencing difficulties + distress in circumstances where you're very much able to change the stuff you have a problem wth

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Anonymous #8 2w

Like if you avoid certain entire food categories to the point of nutritional deficiency due to autism, that's a disability. But avoiding carrots because you hate carrots is called a food preference and it's completely normal when allistic people do it, so why is it "disordered" when autistic people do it? Because neurotypical people think autistic people are weird, and being weird means there must be something inherently wrong with autistic people in their eyes. That's discrimination.

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Anonymous #8 2w

TL;DR there is a LOT wrong with autism as a diagnosis and whether or not it's disabling purely comes down to the individual. Autism is arguably a boon in my field; a quarter of us are autistic, and the kind of intense passionate dedication associated with special interests significantly increases your chances of making it through a physics degree. But most of what people attribute to "severe" autism isn't autism at all.

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Anonymous #8 2w

behavioral health professionals have developed thresholds for what severity of symptom is pervasive to your everyday life for a reason. if your symptoms are below the threshold, you do not have autism. if you have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder, i’m sorry, but you do not know better than the licensed medical professional diagnosing you (nor do i, nor does anyone else) because of the very nature of having a mental health disorder.

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Anonymous #8 2w

if your symptoms are not pervading your ability to meet your own needs and function in society, you don’t have a disability, by definition. if they pervade your ability to meet your own needs or put all people around you out to the extent professionals have decided is disabling, you have a disability. you cannot self-diagnose with most mental health disorders by nature because it involves assessing the way you interact with others from a perspective that is not your own, even if you yourself—

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Anonymous OP 2w

— were a licensed doctor, therapist, etc. that is what i’m saying is the thing that it is frustrating a lot of people don’t understand. anyone can open the DSM, look at criteria, and say, “check, i do this, check, i do this, i don’t do this, so that’s two of three.” no one, not even the best mental health providers in the world can say of themself whether the level to which that pervades their own life is above or below the threshold because of the implicit bias of self-diagnosis in psychiatrics

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Anonymous OP 2w

to use your example, neurotypical people can have special interests. autistic people tend to have special interests. ONLY if someone who has (1) a whole degree in doing this and (2) a perspective different from your own inside your body has made the assessment that a special interest is taking your attention away from other things to the extent it is somehow hurting you, does that count as a point towards being an autism symptom.

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Anonymous OP 2w

if you have other disabilities, no one is contributing that to autism. they can be commonly comorbid with autism, but their symptoms are completely separate. is the medical system poorly structured to not be able to well explain this to people who deserve to know about their own condition? absolutely. but is everything you are describing as a symptom technically a symptom, and is your choosing a different manner to interact with society than has been studied by professionals as neurotypical—

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Anonymous OP 2w

—other people’s ‘discrimination’ just because it works for you and you aren’t a social systems professional? unfortunately not.

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Anonymous #4 1w

the question is case by case, but if your symptoms don’t pervade your quality of life, they are, by definition, not a disability. that’s why professional diagnosis is required. it’s not a matter of opening a manual and saying “i do this, this, this, and this, and those are listed as symptoms of autism, so i must have it,” which is what i’m complaining a lot of people don’t understand. you need a professional to evaluate the degree to which each of the items on that list hurt you.

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Anonymous #6 1w

you can outgrow symptoms being above the threshold of pervasiveness with early intervention, but it’s incredibly rare, involves multiple extensive evaluations, and usually results in the same symptoms being classified as another mental health disorder. that is what happened to me. a lot of the symptoms from when i was diagnosed at 2 years old are no longer so severe that they impede my life at all, so the fewer symptoms that i still have as an adult are better classified as adhd.

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Anonymous #5 1w

same exact thing for me but with diagnostic criteria changing and certain symptoms not bothering me anymore it got reclassified as adhd in high school. i think 18 months was just the standard for starting observation 20 years ago or whatever.

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Anonymous #3 1w

for sure, every disability has all different severities of cases. was just expressing my frustration with a “friend” whose research is literally just twitter and thinks they know more than actual doctors. but there are probably people who do that with anything.

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Anonymous pen1s_pig 1w

u callin me a wee wee head? 😞

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Anonymous OP 1w

Yeah, that’s frustrating for sure!

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Anonymous OP 1w

i'm professionally diagnosed dumbass. And it's still not one of my disabilities.

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Anonymous OP 1w

You gon let this professionally diagnosed dumbass talk to you like that?

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