Autism and paracetamol/Tylenol
HelenEva
Shipmate
in Epiphanies
Hi everyone, I'm an autistic and I would welcome a safe space and bit of support to talk about the difficulties it's currently causing me and people like me that there's so much world discourse on autism being "caused" by X/Y/Z and the implication that that means we can get rid of it. I don't really want to hear that me being born autistic was a terrible tragedy for my parents and society, and nor do I really want to hear people triumphally saying they're going to avoid people like me being born in future. I presume others here can relate? I've no idea what my mother took during pregnancy other than a metric f*ck ton of dark chocolate and I don't really want anyone saying if she'd better choices I wouldn't exist.
I take that view that God made my autistic because this is how he likes me and that it's perfectly OK to God that I am autistic.
I hope this is an OK place to post this - I'm not looking for a row. I'm a UK civil servant so I'm also not looking to be (UK) political.
I take that view that God made my autistic because this is how he likes me and that it's perfectly OK to God that I am autistic.
I hope this is an OK place to post this - I'm not looking for a row. I'm a UK civil servant so I'm also not looking to be (UK) political.
Comments
What causes autistic people is other autistic people having babies - but because of improvements in recognition, quacks have been able weaponise the increased visibility of autistic people in order to make ill- founded claims.
I dont think this can be discussed entirely without politics - because political choices in scapegoating, pseudoscientific beliefs about wellness/ eugenics and being unwilling to fund public services, social security and accommodations in the workplace lie behind a lot of it - though I totally understand that you can't get involved in that.
I noticed a while back that the anti-trans thought leaders were targeting autistic people because autism has a sizeable overlap with transness - trying to strip young autistic people of agency and because there's also a sizeable overlap with ADHD ( I am AuDHD) attacks ramping up on people with ADHD also include us.
Then there's the turn to pseudoscience that came out of Andrew Wakefield who targeted autistic youngsters with his anti-MMR scam which helped fuel the now powerful anti-vax movement. This kind of science denial ran rampant over Covid and we're seeing more fruits of it now in far-right politicians thinking they can just stand up and spout nonsense and it will lead the headlines.
'Impartial' news approaches often end up spreading this stuff on a wide scale by not properly condemning or ignoring it as outright crankery. And this means that time and space that could be spent helping people's understanding of autism in ways that could make our lives as autistic people better are instead devoured fire-fighting this crankery and that the crankery gets loose in society - meaning we can face increasedprejudice from our friends and families and in the workplace.
It is unfortunately politicised - we're seeing the resurgence of eugenics in the far-right of the sort where the superior white supremacist nation had to be a 'healthy' one in contrast to the degenerate foe and degenerate enemies within and the undeserving genetic inferiors who needed to be expunged from the proper upstanding hardworking patriotic 'Volk'. (folk) - and that's why we're increasingly in this situation.
I too feel worried about it and where it leads. We're not yet in the even worse position of our friends who are trans people and immigrants who need our solidarity but we're not in a good position and crap like this encourages- as you say - people to see you and I and others like us as something with a quick fix to be cured rather than as people who are different, equal and happy when given the support and accommodations we need.
You're not alone! And it is worrying.
https://buttondown.com/TPGA/archive/the-big-autism-announcement-is-a-big-pile-of/
There's no apoplectic like an apoplectic autistic. We give good rage.
He is a good and kindly man, but somewhat insensitive at times.
I am myself on the spectrum, and rather resent being regarded as *sick*, or in some way mentally deficient.
Chuffing Nora I do hope you can get him to stop. It's only one or two steps from praying for people like me not to be autistic to praying for other people not to be gay (or whatever - choose your own stigmatised difference).
https://www.psychiatry.org/News-room/News-Releases/APA-Statement-on-White-House-Announcement-on-Autis
I think I've remonstrated with him on at least three occasions (in six years), but not recently. He continues to include the names of three children *with behavioural problems* on the list of sick and suffering in the weekly bulletin, but he is due to retire soon...
The congregation is very small - 25 on a good day - so the bulletin is not read by all that many people. I include a modified version on the website, with first names of those to be prayed for, but without any other details.
Or to pray that people be released from tbe burden of being utter fucking twats?
I wouldn't say I suffer more than someone raising three kids alone, or trying to survive on out of work benefits, or any number of other situations routinely encountered that no-one would consider as needing constant inclusion on a prayer list.
The term *sick and suffering* is, maybe, pious-speak. I don't use it on the website, preferring to say Please also remember before God (who knows the needs of each) those for whom our prayers have been asked...
75% of my kids have a diagnosis that includes autism. I have never pursued a diagnosis, but if you look at me and you look at my kids, and you look at my dad, the genetic link is pretty obvious. His dad died 40 years ago or so now, but he ticked a lot of the boxes, too.
PS. And my brother, and his kids.
He loves having someone to blame.
As an aside, as someone who was also a colicky baby and who has mild dysphagia due to hEDS - I wonder if hypermobility/hEDS is a possible culprit of colic.
https://bsky.app/profile/lewisgoodall.com/post/3lzkvio2n2k2l
People on the autistic spectrum are overrepresented among research scientists. Therefore, unequivocally, autism causes vaccines.
AFAIK, I was not prone to colic when I was a child, but it's a long time ago. I did suffer quite badly from eczema, right into my 20s, and it has recurred (albeit very mildly) in recent years. I doubt if a common skin condition has anything to do with autism, though - or does it?
AFAIK, I was not prone to colic when I was a child, but it's a long time ago. I did suffer quite badly from eczema, right into my 20s, and it has recurred (albeit very mildly) in recent years. I doubt if a common skin condition has anything to do with autism, though - or does it?
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In case I confused you (or maybe you confused me?) I was talking about a connective tissue disorder that is body-wide, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, hypermobility type (hEDS). It may or may not be linked to being neurologically out of the ordinary, but it is certainly linked to some cases of colic, because the connective tissue problem means that the valve between stomach and esophagus is weak, and doesn't shut properly and tightly, and so acid comes back up the esophagus--resulting in colic. Which really sucks.
This.
In case I confused you (or maybe you confused me?) I was talking about a connective tissue disorder that is body-wide, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, hypermobility type (hEDS). It may or may not be linked to being neurologically out of the ordinary, but it is certainly linked to some cases of colic, because the connective tissue problem means that the valve between stomach and esophagus is weak, and doesn't shut properly and tightly, and so acid comes back up the esophagus--resulting in colic. Which really sucks.
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Thanks for the cogent explanation @Lamb Chopped - it was indeed I who got confused...
This is an interesting observation. As a (retired) research scienist I recognise that I and many of my colleagues were, as they say, 'on the spectrum' and neurodiverse.
For many years, I was happy in a gentle fundamentalist evan church and I wouldn't be surprised if 'people on the autistic spectrum' are also over-represented in these sorts of churches. It would explain their seeming lack of empthy with any other point of view.
I moved to a much more, all embracing, church after CBT for an unrelated issue (I am a person who then stammered severly). The church, deeply suspicious of all psychology, was puzzled, though not unloving, by this.
I do think fundamentalism can be tempting to an autistic brain. It's the clarity and rules and things. I can feel the autistic temptation to something more fundamentalist than my current Anglican home which is where intellectually and morally I feel I belong.
Affirming Catholicism style Anglicanism allows me to scratch my "rules" itch without the, frankly, evils of fundamentalism. Let me fuss about bowing in the right place or when to make the sign of the cross and keep me away from trying to police other people's personal lives.
It isn't the first time that mothers have been blamed for autism. The "refrigerator mothers" theory, popular in the 1950s and 60s, declared that children became autistic due to "lack of maternal warmth." Research in the 1970s debunked this, but not before a generation of women were wracked with guilt.