Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 101 posts

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#21

Post by KennyBlanken »

slibhb wrote: post #5

Autism has become a catch-all for "people who are weird". "Neurotypical" is the vaguely condescending opposite. Notice the sneer when she refers to "neurotypical 'experts'". The basic idea is that people who are weird are a subjugated minority, oppressed by people with boring, normal brains. I don't doubt that Hannah Gadsby is weird but I think life is hard for everyone, including normal people. I think the struggles…

> I don't doubt that Hannah Gadsby is weird but I think life is hard for everyone, including normal people. I think the struggles she enumerates are common: most of us have crises of identity or meaning, many of us feel intense insecurity, cut off and isolated from others. This isn't to minimize her suffering, it's to say that suffering is normal.

"Everyone feels those things you describe" was how coworkers and supervisors dismissed a partner's attempts to seek accommodation for their auditory processing disorder.

This person had test results showing they struggled significantly more than others in noisy environments to focus or understand spoken language, and showed them to said coworkers and supervisors, who still insisted that "everyone finds that stuff distracting." Yes, but here are the scientifically validated, objective test results showing it is significantly worse for them was her response. They didn't care. They decided that "everyone goes through this sort of thing, this person is just fragile."

Your attitude is also strikingly similar to how people dismiss talk of racism and sexism. "I'm a guy and people are sexist to me" and so on.

> I have a strong objection to people who freely talk about negative experiences.

Says the person who went out of their way to post a comment complaining about people seeking accommodation for their disabilities (and I might add, has decided that they're mostly all a bunch of fakers.)

> Some of the people I respect the most have had extremely negatives experiences but mention them only with great reluctance.

Maybe they only mention them with great reluctance is because you're not a safe person to mention them around.

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#22

Post by barbs »

slibhb wrote: post #5

Autism has become a catch-all for "people who are weird". "Neurotypical" is the vaguely condescending opposite. Notice the sneer when she refers to "neurotypical 'experts'". The basic idea is that people who are weird are a subjugated minority, oppressed by people with boring, normal brains. I don't doubt that Hannah Gadsby is weird but I think life is hard for everyone, including normal people. I think the struggles…

> I have a strong objection to people who freely talk about negative experiences. Some of the people I respect the most have had extremely negatives experiences but mention them only with great reluctance. There's something about that that seems right. Columns like this debase the currency: by exalting empathy and understanding as the highest values, they devalue them.

I'm not sure I understand your objection. The struggles people go through and their ways of overcoming them help shape who they are, and sharing the journeys of these struggles can help people undergoing similar experiences. Especially when it comes to something as isolating and widespread as understanding self-identity. While I'd agree that yes, most people have similar struggles with identity/insecurity, her struggles with undiagnosed autism are relatively unique, and there is value in sharing her story and learning from it.

Apologies if I've misunderstood your comment.

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#25

Post by prithvi24 »

twoneurons wrote: post #9
fsckboy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're fairly judgmental, you think there's a way people should be, and other ways people should not be. this is exactly the type of attitude that exacerbates the alienation autistics already feel.

Autism is not an emotional cycle, it's not a circumstantial state it's a disorder determined by genetics. Either you got the genes, or you don't. Pretty binary.

Just had to call out a nuance here - Disorder is an extremely strong word. People living with ASD are not "weird" or "abnormal" in anyway whatsoever, they are just different. As a society, we accept people's genetically predetermined sexual orientation, regardless of whether it represents the majority. ASD is no different, lets avoid calling it a disorder.

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#26

Post by barbs »

celdon25 wrote: post #19
cjbgkagh wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that everyone has their own journey, I don’t agree that life is equally difficult. But I do think we should think very carefully before making any attempt to try to equalize life to avoid making it worse. For example, I think grievance culture is counter productive. Personally, I have ADHD by way of a genetic mutation. As I get older (30s) I’m getting more and more chronically fatigued. Something I presume is…

Have you ever had a methylation profile done? Would highly recommend it. https://www.doctorsdata.com/methylation-profile-plasma/

What's a methylation profile? I tried reading the link but it seemed quite technical.

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#27

Post by cjbgkagh »

celdon25 wrote: post #19
cjbgkagh wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that everyone has their own journey, I don’t agree that life is equally difficult. But I do think we should think very carefully before making any attempt to try to equalize life to avoid making it worse. For example, I think grievance culture is counter productive. Personally, I have ADHD by way of a genetic mutation. As I get older (30s) I’m getting more and more chronically fatigued. Something I presume is…

Have you ever had a methylation profile done? Would highly recommend it. https://www.doctorsdata.com/methylation-profile-plasma/

Not yet, I’ve been going down other paths. I’ll look into it, thx

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#28

Post by twoneurons »

prithvi24 wrote: post #25
twoneurons wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autism is not an emotional cycle, it's not a circumstantial state it's a disorder determined by genetics. Either you got the genes, or you don't. Pretty binary.

Just had to call out a nuance here - Disorder is an extremely strong word. People living with ASD are not "weird" or "abnormal" in anyway whatsoever, they are just different. As a society, we accept people's genetically predetermined sexual orientation, regardless of whether it represents the majority. ASD is no different, lets avoid calling it a disorder.

ASD: Autism spectrum disorder

Though I agree, in certain aspects is a super-power. In certain aspects it's a hampering disability. Semantics.

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#29

Post by twoneurons »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #13
twoneurons wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autism is not an emotional cycle, it's not a circumstantial state it's a disorder determined by genetics. Either you got the genes, or you don't. Pretty binary.

> It's a disorder determined by genetics. This is wildly inaccurate. > Either you got the genes, or you don't. Pretty binary. Even more wildly inaccurate. It's not remotely binary. There is no autism gene or genes. Environmental factors (nurture) still factor heavily. https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/autism-genetics-explained/ and a myriad of other articles and research papers one can find by googling "genetics auti…

sure, and if there's half a dozen cases of autism in my family, it's because of what we eat (environment)

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#30

Post by WesternWind »

slibhb wrote: post #5

Autism has become a catch-all for "people who are weird". "Neurotypical" is the vaguely condescending opposite. Notice the sneer when she refers to "neurotypical 'experts'". The basic idea is that people who are weird are a subjugated minority, oppressed by people with boring, normal brains. I don't doubt that Hannah Gadsby is weird but I think life is hard for everyone, including normal people. I think the struggles…

I don't think it's a sneering to point out that if most people who talk about something lack the direct experience of having it, they may not represent it well. Personal experience gives folk's different perspectives. Autism certainly seems to.

And whether the struggles she enumerates are common or not, if suffering is normal and near universal as you suggest, I think it's good to ask, does it have to be so? Are there things we can do to make the world better?

I think not talking about something is unlikely to change anything.

Post reply on HN