I’m not “pro self-diagnosis” for Autism. Like, I am, but I actually go even further than that.
I’m anti formal diagnosis. I don’t think a formal, medicalized diagnosis of Autism is important for someone to have. I don’t think it makes any sense for Autism to be viewed and understood through a clinical or medicalized framework.
Autism is not a disorder or a disease, it is a neurotype. It is a fairly common way of the brain working. The more we learn about it about how it manifests in various populations, and the better the (pretty fucking shitty) diagnostic tools get, the more people we discover who live and belong under the Autistic umbrella. And since Autism is a series of spectrums – each Autistic trait is itself a spectrum of its own – a lot of people live in a middle space between full, iconique stereotypical Autism, and complete neurotypicality.
We know already at this point that Autism has genetic components. It runs in families. We know that lots of people have gone undiagnosed for decades of their lives, because the prior diagnostic categories were shoddy and limiting. We know that access to an autism assessment is difficult and expensive. We know that people who meet every diagnostic criteria for Autism get turned away by assessors on a regular basis – because they’re women, or because they’re trans, or because they just “look” too “normal” or whatever the shit. And we know that in families where Autism runs, there are lots of family members who never got diagnosed or assessed, but who have a ton of Autistic features that impact their day to day lives.
What all of this means is, at any given time, there are probably more un-diagnosed Autistic people, or autism-spectrum people, than there are people who are diagnosed. And there’s also the fact that if you’re an adult, getting a diagnosis… doesn’t generally change jack or shit about your life. You don’t get any benefits. There aren’t specific, well-researched adult “treatments” for Autism, because it isn’t a disorder you can treat or cure, it’s a way of being in the world.
In many cases, getting diagnosed with Autism as an adult can make your life worse. For many years, you couldn’t immigrate to Canada if you were Autistic. In many places, you can’t get access to trans healthcare as easily as allistic people can if your doctors know you’re Autistic. Autistic people regularly have their agency stripped from them in various ways. It’s not beneficial, unless you’re pursuing a workplace disability case in court or something, to have that stigmatized feature of yourself on your records.
What I am proposing is a framework of Autism that is completely non-medicalized. Therapists and doctors and neuroscientists had their fucking chance with us, and they blew it. They called us less than human. They erased those of us who weren’t white cis boys who loved trains. They tried to cure us and created more stigma for us. They advocated to have our kind completely erased from existence. They ignored us when we asked for help managing the social and sensory traumas of existing in an allistic world.
They don’t get to define who we are and what we need anymore. They botched the fuck out of it. I am pro self-realization of Autism. I am pro self-identification as Autistic. I don’t care if you would be categorized as Autistic by some outmoded ass diagnostic tool created for children and later adapted, poorly, to flag a handful of stereotypically Autistic adults. I don’t care if you spent thousands of dollars trying to get a bigoted doctor to validate what years of self-knowledge has taught you. I truly don’t care.
I don’t think you need to be cured. I don’t think you need someone to approach your neurotype in a way that assumes you want to have it eradicated. I believe it is neurotypical society that must change, not you. I believe that the only way for Autistic people to thrive is for us to oppose any framework that says we are something to be measured, monitored, contained, and controlled. I believe society must get used to us, because we are not going away. I believe there are far, far more of us than any researcher or diagnostician has a good record for. I believe in your autonomy. I believe in your agency and self-knowledge. I don’t believe in diagnosis.
areudirty
baratheonpilled
pixelskylines
origamiaround
titsay
snowghoul
discoholicmusic
