https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/my-life-aspergers/201910/is-autism-becoming-neurodiversity
Healthy. Independent. Normal. These three adjectives summarize the US ideal for an adult human. Look very carefully at these three adjectives.
We strive very hard for these, but if we ever truly qualified for them, it was a very fleeting qualification, perhaps in our early 20s. In terms of health, the instant you develop any kind of chronic health problem, like migraines, sleep disorders of any kind, mental illness, you've lost that ideal and will likely never have it back again. The vast majority of US citizens do not count as "healthy." Our bodies break down over time, or come with genetic quirks that can cause problems. Perfect health is a fleeting illusion.
Independence is a funny one. Unless you want to live alone, off the grid, in some cabin you built yourself without tools in the middle of nowhere, growing and foraging your own food and drinking your water out of a stream or lake, you are not independent. We like to take things like roads, saws, screwdrivers, education, and the Internet for granted, but each of them involves other people. Usually a lot of other people! You rely on those other people every time you use these things.
I feel very confident in saying literally no one who reads this post, even if it was printed out on paper and brought to far corners of the US, is independent. Independence is an illusion.
Normalcy, well... I have yet to run into anyone who can define normalcy in a way that doesn't sound stupid at best and horrifyingly straitjacketing at worst. We can safely say I have a bias here: after all, I've been autistic since before I was born, and so I've never been "normal." I just don't see the point.
Yes, it's good to have places where you feel you belong, but usually the people deciding who's included aren't going to include the full range of human diversity, even diversity like "I like this other sport" or "I really liked this unpopular song because even though it's bad, it spoke to me personally."
As such, autistic people are almost invariably left out... but everyone, even neurotypical people, have the experience of being excluded at some point in their lives. From what I've heard and read, it's about as fun as being excluded for being autistic. It's just a less systemic, less regular occurrence than what often happens to us. You don't ever get to always be normal. And honestly, given the vast range of human diversity, I kinda think normalcy is also an illusion.
And there you go. What we idealize, we can never be for long, if ever. I have a lot of problems with the medical autism mode of thought, but I do at least recognize that it addresses very real disabilities and support needs. Neurodiversity is the pushback to the stigma that medical autism has forced on us. It is, like the social model of disability before it, a much healthier, though incomplete, philosophy.
If we welcome everyone, then everyone, neurotypical or not, will be welcome. If we accommodate and support health differences, everyone, perfect health or not, will be welcome. If we recognize that everyone relies on thousands, even millions, of other people every day, we won't find higher support needs so offputting, and may find ourselves learning and growing as people.
Healthy. Independent. Normal. These three adjectives summarize the US ideal for an adult human. Look very carefully at these three adjectives.
We strive very hard for these, but if we ever truly qualified for them, it was a very fleeting qualification, perhaps in our early 20s. In terms of health, the instant you develop any kind of chronic health problem, like migraines, sleep disorders of any kind, mental illness, you've lost that ideal and will likely never have it back again. The vast majority of US citizens do not count as "healthy." Our bodies break down over time, or come with genetic quirks that can cause problems. Perfect health is a fleeting illusion.
Independence is a funny one. Unless you want to live alone, off the grid, in some cabin you built yourself without tools in the middle of nowhere, growing and foraging your own food and drinking your water out of a stream or lake, you are not independent. We like to take things like roads, saws, screwdrivers, education, and the Internet for granted, but each of them involves other people. Usually a lot of other people! You rely on those other people every time you use these things.
I feel very confident in saying literally no one who reads this post, even if it was printed out on paper and brought to far corners of the US, is independent. Independence is an illusion.
Normalcy, well... I have yet to run into anyone who can define normalcy in a way that doesn't sound stupid at best and horrifyingly straitjacketing at worst. We can safely say I have a bias here: after all, I've been autistic since before I was born, and so I've never been "normal." I just don't see the point.
Yes, it's good to have places where you feel you belong, but usually the people deciding who's included aren't going to include the full range of human diversity, even diversity like "I like this other sport" or "I really liked this unpopular song because even though it's bad, it spoke to me personally."
As such, autistic people are almost invariably left out... but everyone, even neurotypical people, have the experience of being excluded at some point in their lives. From what I've heard and read, it's about as fun as being excluded for being autistic. It's just a less systemic, less regular occurrence than what often happens to us. You don't ever get to always be normal. And honestly, given the vast range of human diversity, I kinda think normalcy is also an illusion.
And there you go. What we idealize, we can never be for long, if ever. I have a lot of problems with the medical autism mode of thought, but I do at least recognize that it addresses very real disabilities and support needs. Neurodiversity is the pushback to the stigma that medical autism has forced on us. It is, like the social model of disability before it, a much healthier, though incomplete, philosophy.
If we welcome everyone, then everyone, neurotypical or not, will be welcome. If we accommodate and support health differences, everyone, perfect health or not, will be welcome. If we recognize that everyone relies on thousands, even millions, of other people every day, we won't find higher support needs so offputting, and may find ourselves learning and growing as people.
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