Does watching television trigger autism? (2007) • Hacker News Board

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#81

Post by thinkingemote » Mon, May 02, 2022, 2:21 PM UTC

ariste wrote: post #63

thinkingemote wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to share a room with someone who would fall asleep to TV. In the UK after the last show of the night there would be beep tone for a long time and then it would just be static, no signal. This lead to me having a recurring nightmare which I also got for a long time into adulthood, seeing the tone as 1/2D line, flowing along nicely, and then the static would screw it up and turn it to knots and I would be unsucc…

I have this same reoccurring nightmare and I also grew up in the UK. The line would be smooth, but the violently contort into anxiety inducing sharp triangles. This is the first time I have heard someone echo the same dream.

Nice to hear someone else having the same thing!

In a way perhaps it's kind of an abstract "powerlessness in the face of chaos" nightmare.

Not sure why exactly it went away. But I do remember being conscious of it in my 20s and trying to understand it. I think I tried to understand it consciously and accept some of the powerlessness perhaps. Or maybe later on, it was meaning general confusion and anxiety which was suppressed.

At any rate the nightmare was very scary and awful, as if something evil and wrong was there.

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#82

Post by sascha_sl » Mon, May 02, 2022, 7:47 PM UTC

skissane wrote: post #74

sascha_sl wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Many of them express a great deal of resistance presented with the idea that this diagnostic construct on which they've chosen to build their personal identity might be bad science or even a harmful cultural construct – I am left with the impression that many of them don't even want to hear the arguments against it, they already know the arguments must false before they've even heard them–much as many religious peop…

> The strict defensiveness is simply a result of the existence of exterminationist parties. Many autistic people are happy with the way they are, and just want some support to exist in a society that expects differently from them. But the likes of Autism Speaks keep framing autism as a severe disorder, mostly defined through the suffering of parents, that we need to "cure". Even if many people do not want to be cured…

> I think the parallel you are trying to draw here is very questionable.

The parallel is that both groups are unduely pathologized in the wrong way (not wanting to be healed, but needing support) and have groups that frame their exterminationist thought though that pathologization. Oh, and conversion therapy is advocated for either, except for ASD we called it ABA.

> That fear seems to me to be grounded in ignorance of the actual state of autism genetics research.

Ultimately, it's the thought that counts. It also plays into essentializing either too much. Just as ASD is a set of often interlinking but inconsistently related symptoms ("kitchen sink", as you said), being trans likely has genetic, neurological, environmental and even sociological component that are likely responsible in different quantities for different people.

The anxiety also lies in a precedent for finding the true™ cause and dismissing all who do not fit this model. Even if a research paper claiming to have "found the cause for autism/transness" would have a very long list of caveats and limitations and mark itself as early exporatory research, you know someone would absolutely weaponize it for their culture war.

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#83

Post by skissane » Wed, May 04, 2022, 7:17 AM UTC

seba_dos1 wrote: post #79

skissane wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The strict defensiveness is simply a result of the existence of exterminationist parties. Many autistic people are happy with the way they are, and just want some support to exist in a society that expects differently from them. But the likes of Autism Speaks keep framing autism as a severe disorder, mostly defined through the suffering of parents, that we need to "cure". Even if many people do not want to be cured…

> We've given both groups of people the same label, "autism", despite the fact they have very little in common and clearly "don't have the same thing". I'm not sure it's so clear. I've been lucky to be surrounded by people similar to me for a big chunk of my life which significantly reduced the feeling of "not being understood" or "from a different planet" and I don't have much trouble passing as a regular person, bu…

> but in a severe meltdown I can still shut down and downgrade into something akin of that non-verbal kind of autism for some time. As far as I know, that's not how neurotypical people react to intense stress at all.

I'm very sceptical of the existence of "neurotypical" people, but I think speechlessness, difficulties in processing verbal information, etc, are actually quite common experiences when under extreme stress, and many people who would never be diagnosed with ASD respond similarly to how you say you sometimes do. I don't think similarities between how some people act on those occasions when they are overwhelmed - whether they are overwhelmed rarely or frequently – and how other people act 100% of the time, really have much significance.

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#84

Post by seba_dos1 » Sat, May 07, 2022, 4:35 PM UTC

skissane wrote: post #83

seba_dos1 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've given both groups of people the same label, "autism", despite the fact they have very little in common and clearly "don't have the same thing". I'm not sure it's so clear. I've been lucky to be surrounded by people similar to me for a big chunk of my life which significantly reduced the feeling of "not being understood" or "from a different planet" and I don't have much trouble passing as a regular person, bu…

> but in a severe meltdown I can still shut down and downgrade into something akin of that non-verbal kind of autism for some time. As far as I know, that's not how neurotypical people react to intense stress at all. I'm very sceptical of the existence of "neurotypical" people, but I think speechlessness, difficulties in processing verbal information, etc, are actually quite common experiences when under extreme stre…

> speechlessness, difficulties in processing verbal information

I don't think these words even begin to scratch the surface of the experience I'm talking about.

> I don't think similarities between how some people act on those occasions when they are overwhelmed - whether they are overwhelmed rarely or frequently – and how other people act 100% of the time, really have much significance.

It's very significant. Among other things, autism is a lot about what, why and how fast makes you feel overwhelmed (and sensory issues are just tiny little part of it). Learning how to identify when you're starting to get overwhelmed and how to cope with resulting meltdown is important part of therapy. As you noted, the word "autism" describes a pretty broad phenotype, but there are common patterns that simply don't apply to non-autistic majority, and which vary in their intensity across individuals. When everyday interaction makes you overwhelmed already, the difference between "those occasions" and "100% of the time" is not very sharp.

Re: Does watching television trigger autism? (2007)

#85

Post by skissane » Wed, May 11, 2022, 6:07 AM UTC

seba_dos1 wrote: post #84

skissane wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but in a severe meltdown I can still shut down and downgrade into something akin of that non-verbal kind of autism for some time. As far as I know, that's not how neurotypical people react to intense stress at all. I'm very sceptical of the existence of "neurotypical" people, but I think speechlessness, difficulties in processing verbal information, etc, are actually quite common experiences when under extreme stre…

> speechlessness, difficulties in processing verbal information I don't think these words even begin to scratch the surface of the experience I'm talking about. > I don't think similarities between how some people act on those occasions when they are overwhelmed - whether they are overwhelmed rarely or frequently – and how other people act 100% of the time, really have much significance. It's very significant. Among…

What you say is not true of everyone who meets the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for ASD–"meltdowns", or "what, why and how fast makes you feel overwhelmed" are not part of those criteria–so it is possible to have ASD (per DSM-5) yet not have those symptoms, and indeed there are people out there just like that.

Conversely, there are people for whom what you say is very true, but who don't meet the diagnostic criteria for DSM-5 ASD, and hence officially don't "have autism". People with anxiety disorders, panic disorder, OCD, etc, can have very similar (if not identical) experiences, yet they don't have the right set of other symptoms to meet the DSM-5 criteria for ASD.

I get the impression you are defining "autism" anecdotally, based on your own personal experiences and those of others you know, or based on popular information sources (as opposed to the research literature). When you define it that way, you may actually be talking about a rather different construct from what the DSM-5 is talking about.