shy guy 64 wrote:personally i cant stand the way media portrays mutism more often than not. movies treat us a savants, comics as sociopaths, games dont even bother theyll just tag it on to any smart character, tv often conflates it with other things and even then its usually all about the parents.
i can only think of two decent portrayals of autism and thats community and loop
Yeah. You won't be happy with Sia's movie "Music" which is ridiculously offensive to autistic people and establishing bad tropes that characterise autistic people in stereotyped ways in general. And who did she consult with for her "loveletter to the autistic community"?? Autism Speaks, not any actually autistic people. One autistic actor even approached her for the film and was told by Sia, "Maybe you're just a bad actor". Great job.
The Good Doctor (Korean version) is OK.
mcjihge2 wrote:The autism test is the first google result that wasnt an ad and had uk in the url,
https://www.clinical-partners.co.uk/No idea of any details. I havent really looked into it in any detail. I know that online tests are generally rubbish. Im also Mac from Always sunny in Philadelphia, and Chandler from Friends.
I remember in the late 80s autism was made "famous" by the film Rainman and the kid on Blue Peter who could draw the houses of Parliament from memory. These are the extreme examples - the poster boys for autistic savants. And yeah, these guys are few and far between and not good examples form autism in general.
Whats interests me in Kerrs video is at the start - getting a positive test recently at a "late" age. Im a similar age. I guess this is the interesting thing - Why did you get tested?, what does it now mean to your life? GG made the points about expanding workplace policies which is interesting.
My sentiment that i won't do anything about, it is that i really dont see any benefits to taking an "official" test. From what GG said, i dont think ive got the time either. Even if it could possibly also be ADHD or OCD, Im not sure what my HR dept or any authority would or could do. Will i get any monetary benefit? Will i get a bit of a "free pass" to later deadlines at work? Do i get any drugs? Can i use it as an excuse for my casual racism?
I feel that if i am closer to one side of the spectrum for any of these disorders, I hide it well.
There was a thread recently on reddit with a link for a canadian youtuber who was also giving her story. cant remember it off the top of my head but she was saying that autism "charity" was bad too.
It depends. I had an enormous degree of difficulty coping at college and university to the degree that my life was in danger numerous times. I was was already diagnosed with clinical depression and I was on the verge of a psychotic break. By behaviour was erratic, I wasn't attending classes or even seeing people, I wasn't eating or sleeping properly and I was constantly over and under compensating behaviourally, not in any way to do with my physical state at the time (although I was a least 2 stone underweight and didn't realise I had a severe food allergy as well) but how I was coping with my responses to basic, everyday situations (usually social in nature, or fear of other people or what might happen around them). That might literally be going outside and stepping out into the sunlight, into the wind, or speaking to a new tutor or a doctor. I was academically completely competent but I had serious learning difficulties and memory problems that led me to constantly lose track of what was going on, where I needed to be and when I needed to do certain things, that I could not do because I was that afraid of them. Anxiety which is just normal on the autism spectrum causes the amygdala in the brain (which releases adrenaline in response to high stress stimuli i.e the fight or flight response) to overload, so say for example, you need to face to and speak to someone who've not met before or you are not familiar with, that triggers the same response as in a "normal person" but when they are about to be hit by a car or attacked by a wild animal, or somebody pulls out a gun. I wasn't able to manage my daily living in my own private space and time, never mind properly function an interact with society. Moving away from home and having to 100% start from scratch making new friends, negotiating a new environment in a new town (where I'd lived in the same place, in the same house, with mostly the same friends, attending only two schools each for primary and secondary), my whole life up until that point, was completely overwhelming for me.
I had at that stage no choice but to get the support put in place that I needed to not only succeed but to live a healthy life, something I think everyone has a right to achieve (and it should not be considered an achievement;- good health should be the standard, not the "goal"). Having a diagnosis protects someone against unfair discrimination in the workplace under the equality act (and support at interviews plus a mandate of some sorts for an Access to Work assessment to put in suitable adjustment including occupational therapy or work coaching or environment changes to overcome hypersensitivity, for example, as well as more generally just not being allowed to punish you for things you can't do anything about). It also may make you eligible for personal independence payment (which is a working age benefit), if it makes it difficult for you to get or hold down a job, the severe disability element of the working tax credit, a premium added to housing benefit, and probably some other things. Actually getting those, well, good luck. If you are eligible for those benefits then you are also eligible for things like Disabled Person's Railcard, disabled rates on tickets and some facilities like leisure centre or cinema for example, bus pass. The Disabled Student Allowance for studying further or higher education with support. There's quite a few things you can't access if you don't have proof of your disability.
The maximum Access to Work grant for example is £16,000 a year. The Enhanced Rate of PIP and the Mobility Component (although I initially got the Basic Rate, with DWP scoring me a single point below what I needed to qualify for the Enhanced Rate I was actually eligible for, and I didn't claim at all until I was about 27) is a few hundred pounds per month. You are eligible for that whether you work or not, it's non-income contingent.
It's basically compensation for society being gooseberry fool for disabled people and paying for any extra support needs you might have doing the things that everyone else does, or therapy/counselling.
My therapy for example costs £72 per hour. Specialist support is not cheap.
You may also be eligible for Adult Social Care under the Care Act 2014, so even if you're past working/pension age, you can get practical help from an actual person (not everyone has willing or able family, friends, partners, or a family at all, some can't even speak) to do things like shopping for groceries, attending social events, attending job interviews, help doing any and all the gooseberry fool that can be overwhelmingly difficult or distressing depending on what those difficulties are related to autism or any other disability for that matter.
The trouble is, at least from my perspective, is that some children grow up with an early diagnosis and receive this support for their life, whether or not they accept it, they are eligible. If you didn't know and struggled along anyway, constantly blaming yourself for sucking at certain things like talking to strangers for example, you have to go about a protracted process to actually get a diagnosis because "autistic adults are adults and they've managed on their own so far, so why need help now?" or to quote the DWP again because I won't let it go "however yours is a high functioning condition so [you don't really need any help with this, do you
]" (this is ableist against both so-called "high functioning" Autistics (usually formerly known as Aspergers) and those of a "lower" functioning. Basically fighting against all the presumption - based merely on your appearance and how you present, as well as how well you mask/hide the condition (after years and years of conditioning and rejection like that if you act your true self), that you are ultimately some kind of fraud / fringe case / "not really autistic" and so don't deserve help, when usually that is strawberry floating obvious looking at the facts (and not systematically working against people to get help for their condition, to save money or simply doing nothing is way easier or whatever).
tl;dr a lot of the response to adults with autism, whether they have a diagnosis or not, is "that sounds
hard, but we're all a bit autistic really, good luck lol".
You mention Rainman which I have seen a long time ago. I often joke with my support workers that while I feel uncomfortable or "lost" when unexpected things happen or changes happen in my schedule (kind of like a cat that walks into a room where things have changed or there's no food and just sits there staring at you), I don't end up waving my arms around and going off like a siren, but some autistic people do do that. It's just less common when you've been raised as neurotypical or have developed the more "appropriate" response to not do that, or say something instead. More common I think is to just "shut down" and stop talking or even moving completely, I sometimes find my brain just "flatlines" and "switches off" when something completely unexpected happens and I don't know how to process the change. That's the brain right there kind of "error-ing" and just defaulting into "nope", either flight or flight response or withdrawal ("meltdown" as compared to "shutdown"). Most people will just think in such situations, "well strawberry float, oh well LOL" whereas for autistics this is emotionally and physically debilitating and not a nice experience, and not one they are necessarily remotely equipped to deal with. It's very hard to think rationally in such situations because the brain basically just flops around, and gooseberry fool can go very wrong, if you are autistic you may even
wind up dead. Although of course it does matter if some racist banana split calls the cops on you
because you are black and not already dead, but what I find especially interesting is he was wearing a hood to help his hypersensitivity to cold and wind which I also struggle with, and that provoked the "suspicion" - I wear hoods a lot, but I'm only white autistic so that's OK!
Well not really, I get plenty of weird/awkward looks in the supermarket for example because I'm wearing sunglasses indoors and nope that's a wrong'un right there he must be up to something. No, I just don't want a load of flashing lights strawberry floating my brain up thank you very much. I also wear silicone ear inserts but no you don't have to yell at me, please don't, I can hear strawberry floating everything and probably better than you, cheers.