kipplekipple:

roscura:

star-anise:

awn-network:

“That’s right…. my son’s paediatrician says that my autistic way of parenting supports my son too well for him to be traumatised enough for a diagnosis, so we should let school traumatise him and come back later…

…Which brings me to thinking about how we identify autism in the children who are now being raised by autistic parents in a respectful and supportive way. The children who have experienced acceptance of their autistic neurology from birth and who have never been exposed to harmful therapies.

Autistic children raised by accepting parents, often autistic themselves.”

It’s true. The current clinical model for Autism is based on traumatized Autistic children. The experiences of happy, well-nurtured, thriving Autistic people have been hugely excluded from the clinical literature. That needs to change.

on the converse i got undiagnosed by a misogynistic psychologist because the specific ways i was traumatized (especially as a girl) led to me constantly masking to the point where he said i outwardly didn’t seem autistic enough for him to think i counted as autistic, despite my brother there to put in word for how i used to be and despite me saying the amount of constant effort i put in to masking my autistic traits in everyday life leads me to periodic breakdowns, to which he took no concern and dismissed it as me being irrational and exaggerating my struggle, despite only meeting me 4 hours earlier.

the fact that both of these experiences are common goes to show that the mental health field under capitalism neither cares about ameliorating people’s suffering nor genuinely creating a world inclusive of neurodiversity

for me and for many in the community, the label “autistic” is a convenient shorthand for certain patterns/commonalities in the way we/our brains function, and can give us space to communicate with others like us about what that means for our experiences in our current society

for them, it is a way to pathologize certain outwardly exhibiting traits that are seen as a burden or a drag on resources or that are seen as refusal to neatly integrate into structures capitalism uses to perpetuate itself. so whatever people’s needs are, they’ll be happy to switch between denying agency and denying need for help/resources whenever is most convenient

It’s because neurodivergence means nothing to neurotypical society, outside of how it affects them.