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Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

theguardian.com

41–50 of 101 posts

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#41
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…

[deleted]

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#42
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 find it bizarre how uncritically the social construct of doubling the ranks of the mentally ill/disordered in the course of decades has been introduced. There is no way in the last few decades the amount of mentally disordered people has expanded so greatly, it must be the case we're simply calling more people disordered. The growth of mental disorders is starting to plateau now but things are still growing.

I find it all to be part of a modern fetishization of victimhood as as something that ought to give you entitlements without responsibilities, and consequently has greatly expanded the ranks of victims in society. I find it straight up bizarre in some sense that a student in an elite school will get academic accommodations and access to amphetamines on the pretence they just can't be as successful as other students when it has to be the case many of these students would end up at community college or state school without the drugs and be fine. It's kind of like to me an athlete playing for a crappy school team getting diagnosed with "strength deficit disorder" getting on steroids and breaking records and this is justified with all sorts of pseudoscience about how steroids actually have the opposite effect on muscletypicals (proving steroids are a drug for only those with legitimate medical need) when the entire sports team is on steroids. We also give them a headstart in all races to ensure that they don't have any performance anxiety.

Re: Experts, The expert she's referring to, more than anybody, is Simon Baron Cohen and his research has been replicated many times yet only applies to MOST but not ALL autistic children. He famously applied the Sally-Anne test to autistic children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally%E2%80%93Anne_test to demonstrate "mind blindness". I would say the biggest issue with the research is that it took place is 1988 and autistics are not remotely the same group of people that they were in 1988, so it wouldn't even surprise me if autistics were no longer mind blind in this way, since autism is not even remotely consistent in its definition across time. I sympathize with any criticism of "Experts on autism" because they have shown nothing but incompetence as a group.

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#43
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 think autism has become the IBS of neurodiversity, and will be retired someday just as the diagnosis of “hysteria” was retired as a catch all for women’s issues a century ago.

> I think autism has become the IBS of neurodiversity, and will be retired someday

Absolutely.

But until then, do you have a better alternative label or (armchair) diagnosis to use?

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#44
post #24
post #2

Her Nanette special - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aE29fiatQ0 Nanette 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWJhMnYv6Mg Can Nanette 3 be about autism?

I found these fundamentally unwatchable, but I guess there’s an audience for it.

their first one quite good and thought provoking. The fact that this person had the gall to make a second one after all the talk in the first, the words sellout and hypocrite are not enough.

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#45
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 think autism has become the IBS of neurodiversity, and will be retired someday just as the diagnosis of “hysteria” was retired as a catch all for women’s issues a century ago.

I'm sceptical the concept of "autism" is tenable in the long term either, it's such a catch-all "spectrum" with diverse underlying causes which present in behaviour which is similar yet broadly defined enough that two people can be diagnosed with autism with entirely different symptomatic presentations with zero overlap.

At the same time, regardless of what you think the social conceptual juggernaut that is "Autism" is not going away overnight or even this decade, nor are the rest of DSM-V disorders. They serves a useful function, such as telling bosses to force their employees to attempt to work in a noisy workplace with flickering lights and off-gasses to fuck off. At this point the concept of autism has become tied up with peoples social identities, with the law, and with a whole lot of money on a massive scale and one doesn't simply unwind that all by going "This whole thing is dumb". One needs to start from the fundamentals, which is why was the social need for the concept of "Autism Spectrum Disorder" created in the first place and why was the concept promoted so readily by so many different interests?

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#46
post #35
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…

People would rather get a diagnosis to belong to a community than be an outcast who struggles to fit in and have their gifts recognized.

Disclaimer: am on spectrum, formal diagnosis at 8yo

> have their gifts recognized.

Please explain how _extreme difficulty in socializing_ is a "gift".

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#47
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 over the years developed an ever increasing disillusionment with the quality of medical providers. Not all of them, mind you, but it seems just as rare to encounter a smart, extremely competent doctor as it is a random person in the general population when one would expect the selective process to result in a much higher proportion. The sneer is well deserved. The attachment of “neurotypical” is inappropriate…

Weirdly, this is the second time today I was reminded of the poem Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson - and it's only 5 AM.

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him:

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

FYI: Most "methylation" tests, books, and treatments are very firmly in the alternative medicine category. Much of it is pseudoscience. It is true that a small subset of people can have a certain set of mutations that has clinical significance, but the alternative medicine community has been hard at work trying to expand this condition to cover far more people than it actually does. One common trick is to perform as…

As someone who personally experienced a rapid and significant resolution of ADHD, fatigue, and other symptoms as a result of a methylation test + methionine supplementation (supervised and recommended by a mainstream medical doctor at my primary care clinic), this is amusing to read.

Cue the "but anecdotal experiences aren't valid" hyperbole.

> Any test that claims to be relevant to so many different medical conditions is a huge red flag.

How much do you understand about DNA methylation?

> If you really wanted to test something, you'd skip this test and get a cheap genetic test to see your MTHFR variant (note: heterozygous is fine, no matter what the naturopaths try to tell you).

Homozygous C677T still affects ~10% of caucasians but isn't sufficient in and of itself to show poor methylation. C677T only shows a predisposition to the problem. So you have it backwards on recommended tests.

Since not everyone knows where to find cheap genetic tests, I'll be a good neighbor and recommend Nebula Genomics + Promethease (with the exported raw data). Stay away from 23andme.

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#49
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found these fundamentally unwatchable, but I guess there’s an audience for it.

their first one quite good and thought provoking. The fact that this person had the gall to make a second one after all the talk in the first, the words sellout and hypocrite are not enough.

Did you watch the second one?

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#50
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 over the years developed an ever increasing disillusionment with the quality of medical providers. Not all of them, mind you, but it seems just as rare to encounter a smart, extremely competent doctor as it is a random person in the general population when one would expect the selective process to result in a much higher proportion. The sneer is well deserved. The attachment of “neurotypical” is inappropriate…

I think there's a difference between having a support network to share your emotions with and demanding that the world change. I can't really imagine the author being any healthier having published this article.
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