this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
541 points (93.8% liked)
Autism
6842 readers
9 users here now
A community for respectful discussion and memes related to autism acceptance. All neurotypes are welcome.
We have created our own instance! Visit Autism Place the following community for more info.
Community:
Values
- Acceptance
- Openness
- Understanding
- Equality
- Reciprocity
- Mutuality
- Love
Rules
- No abusive, derogatory, or offensive post/comments e.g: racism, sexism, religious hatred, homophobia, gatekeeping, trolling.
- Posts must be related to autism, off-topic discussions happen in the matrix chat.
- Your posts must include a text body. It doesn't have to be long, it just needs to be descriptive.
- Do not request donations.
- Be respectful in discussions.
- Do not post misinformation.
- Mark NSFW content accordingly.
- Do not promote Autism Speaks.
- General Lemmy World rules.
Encouraged
- Open acceptance of all autism levels as a respectable neurotype.
- Funny memes.
- Respectful venting.
- Describe posts of pictures/memes using text in the body for our visually impaired users.
- Welcoming and accepting attitudes.
- Questions regarding autism.
- Questions on confusing situations.
- Seeking and sharing support.
- Engagement in our community's values.
- Expressing a difference of opinion without directly insulting another user.
- Please report questionable posts and let the mods deal with it. Chat Room
- We have a chat room! Want to engage in dialogue? Come join us at the community's Matrix Chat.
.
Helpful Resources
- Are you seeking education, support groups, and more? Take a look at our list of helpful resources.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Instead of "I'm autistic" say "I was diagnosed with autism".
These days there's no shortage of self-diagnosed, no professional opinion needed, thank you very much youngsters walking around and behaving like world owes them a thing, just because they neither do, nor want to fit into the society. This makes neurotypical people doubtful about declarations like that.
I fully understand wanting to avoid self-diagnoses for attention seeking or blame avoiding purposes, but I tend to lean towards believing people first.
One, because there is always going to be a discrepancy between the population of the accurately diagnosed and people who have a condition, because of poor access to mental health, because of the stigma attached with seeking help for and admitting to having a disorder, cultural differences in diagnoses and because there are poorly trained mental health professionals.
And two, because rejecting people outright when they share what may or may not be a serious problem they’re facing puts them on the defensive and tells people in the vicinity that you may not be a safe person or contribute to a safe place to express themselves.
The average person is going to be doubtful anyways, unless you fit into their understanding of your expressed condition. How many times have we heard “how could he kill himself, he seemed so happy?”
Completely agree with this. Also, as this meme suggests, most people who are autistic don't really need to say it out loud for people who know what autism is to know they have it. You don't need a diagnosis to exhibit behaviors that are obvious to everyone else around you. A diagnosis doesn't suddenly make you something you weren't already.
It takes a strong support system to accept and embrace that their child is autistic and a firm commitment for the entire rest of their childhood to doing whats best for the within that context. The amount of parents who simply outright reject that "something might be wrong" with their kid is extremely high, even now. That doesn't make the kid any less autistic because they haven't been diagnosed, and it doesn't make their symptoms any less obvious either.
Yes, hopefully people can get diagnosed, and hopefully your city has adequate resources to help them, and hopefully the parents aren't jerks, and hopefully the place you live isn't full of conspiracy theorists and crackpot religious leaders who think just praying for the kid is good enough. Hopefully. But if not, you just might have an undiagnosed autistic teenager who's life is spinning out of control and the last thing they need is some internet expert's dumb ass telling them there is nothing wrong because they didn't get the magical diagnosis. Speaking from experience.