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Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

theguardian.com

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Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#31

Post by __blockcipher__ »

barbs wrote: post #26
celdon25 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Methylation is a metabolic chemical reaction your body does, facilitated by enzymes, that sticks a methyl group onto stuff. There’s different genetic mutations for more or less copies or less efficient copies of the relevant enzymes.

The idea is some people are genetically very low/poor methylaters so they’re methylation impaired. Generally the solution if found to be a poor methylater is to take forms of vitamins that are already methylated, like methylfolate

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#32

Post by tonguez »

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…

No post body was provided.

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#33

Post by tannike »

tonguez wrote: post #32
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…

Quoted post unavailable.

tell us what you really think

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#34

Post by colechristensen »

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 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 because it is unnecessary.

> 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.

This reminds me of the recurring story of the apparently happy upbeat person committing suicide to the surprise of almost everyone around them. Hiding your demons to survive and overcompensating chasing respect and accomplishments is one way to cope, this sometimes results in a quality life, other times it is just masked suffering. Promoting this ethic can be extremely toxic trapping people, especially if from childhood, into being afraid of letting anybody know about their problems.

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#35

Post by twayt »

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…

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.

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#36

Post by colechristensen »

bsder wrote: post #4

> "It is a basic human right to have average abilities." I really like that quote from her on multiple dimensions.

And from it a management philosophy which needs to be more prominent: the goal is to strive for the best output each employee is capable of by shaping their environment to serve them best. The goal is not to hold each employee to the same standard and punish the below average.

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#37

Post by PragmaticPulp »

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/

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 many tests as possible, along with as many permutations of those tests (e.g. the various ratios between values). The more tests you conduct, the easier it is to find one that might be out of a specific range and therefore convince the purchaser that the test was worthwhile. 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).

It's also common to claim a test has significance in every medical condition that people might be Googling. The test you linked is guilty of this, claiming to be "Useful for" everything from autism to birth defects to cancer, down syndrome, immune dysfunction, nutritional deficiencies, psychiatric disorders and more.

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

Save your money. If you're curious, you can read more about how the whole "methylation" and MTHFR alternative medicine got so out of control because one naturopathic author pushed it so hard as an explanation for everything: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/pseudoscience-reviews/gene...

There's another good article here about why this test isn't really warranted for most people: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/a-genetic-test-you-dont-n...

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#38

Post by BurningFrog »

elihu wrote: post #14
whodunnit wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If we get a better understanding of what autism actually is, I'd expect we'd also establish more specific and accurate terms for it. I don't see any reason why it would just go away as a concept, though. It seems like it's pretty well established at this point that there is a collection of characteristics that some people have that fit the current understanding of what is meant by "autism". I'm not an expert in the a…

I expect it will be understood to be several separate things, which express themselves in vaguely similar ways, but are quite different both in origin and treatment.

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#39

Post by BurningFrog »

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.

If this is true, where can I read about these specific genes, when and how they were discovered?

Re: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

#40

Post by alecst »

whodunnit wrote: post #7
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 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.

Autism has a few biological sequelae so I don’t think this is gonna be the case. For example their brains grow faster than normal for the first few years of life but slower thereafter. And you can see differences in their brains under a microscope. Or at least that’s what I read in a book recently, I am not an expert.
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