Thank you for talking about this topic. Much more awareness of autism needs to be done. I've heard a number of those comments from so-called professionals I have had to deal with.
I got diagnosed with ADHD last year and might possibly have autism but if I do it's low on the spectrum but the ADHD is definitely a big thing that has opened my eyes to how I am and how that is very different to neutro typical people. It's been really hard adjusting to it and even thinking of how to tackle it or learn to accept it. Even though I'm 40 this year so been living with it for 40 years it honestly feels like my life has dramatically changed or warped into this new perspective. It's definitely a great thing to know the reason why I do certain things or why things feel even more challenging that they should and I hope I'll be able to learn better coping mechanisms. I think the hardest part is knowing but it not being obvious like a physical defect or injury would to other. It's weird as most if all of my friends and connections now know I have ADHD but I'm not treated any different and it gets pointed out that I bring it up all the time which to me is just trying to make people and myself aware of what it is for me. It's such a difficult one on both sides as it's impossible to really describe properly and it's probably even more harder to try to understand if you not experience it so I try to be understanding that it's as new to me as it's to those around me but still doesn't stop it being frustrating. Thanks for sharing this just normal chatting like this is worth so much to us all.
As someone on the spectrum, the phrase "That's so autistic" hurts because the insinuation is that someone doing something inherently dumb forces the stereotype that autistic people are mentally deficient. Then when you try to take issue with it, you're only giving them reason to believe it. You can't win.
You're really describing bullying instead of a specific term, at least the latter part about using your reaction as evidence of their insults in the first place, there's really no winning against bullies other than to look back at them 10-20 years on to learn their lives have come to nothing when you've moved on. "x is autistic" is unfortunately the replacement for "x is retarded" as that is no longer acceptable to say, while the two are not at all related or interchangable, autism has become the new victim, at least until it is no longer acceptable too. Much like mental retardation is no longer used either medically or as an insult, autism itself might have to be called something else in the future, this phenomenon is called the "euphemism treadmill", but I've read somewhere it should really be called the euphemism forest fire as it leaves a trail of destruction where words that otherwise are useful are tainted to a point that will basically never be useful again.
Doesn't your comment show that you yourself view autism as "something inherently dumb"? If you just viewed it as a disability that has pros and cons and overall is just something that makes you different. It's hard to be offended by a comparison to something unless you believe that comparison is valid. Since I don't believe that the comparison of autism to inherent mental deficiency is valid, I don't get offended by the phrase (unless the tone is very obviously showing that malice is involved, of course, which is usually not the case in my experience).
As an autistic man, I've realised that crying about what people say is probably the worst thing you can do. Life is too hard, people are self centred. Relax and enjoy the human experience the best you can :)
I'm on the spectrum and I have similar experiences in a lot of ways. Everything is a conscious effort, not much happens subconsciously. I have to analyse everything about what someone says and try to figure out how to respond appropriately. I also get distracted pretty easily by everything sensory going on around me, so it can be draining to get through the day. My analogy for what it's like communicating sometimes is that there are instructions similar to a flatpack wardrobe, but all of the instructions are in another language. You know roughly what it's supposed to look like and do, but there's always a piece missing by the end of it - and sometimes everything falls apart without that missing piece.
Maybe I'm just different, but I've never found myself offended by someone saying something was Autistic. I had a friend that would call me a "Sperg Lord" when I'd show a heightened level of interest in something. Honestly, it still makes me laugh remembering that.
One time, I told someone that I’m Autistic and she immediately responded with “Oh, you must be a savant”, and it made me feel so icky that I shut down and I had to just nod along and repeat bare minimum script responses until I could get out of the conversation.
I honestly don't care about people saying " that's autistic" . Honestly as long as someone isn't coming at me I don't care. All this video does is make us look soft , I'm autistic and say half this shit. No everyday civilian is ever going to understand autism because of how varied it is. Stop expecting that from people and move on
I have unfortunately said "that was kinda autistic" to someone recently, I didn't even realise "autistic" has been adopted as the new r-word until looking it up after watching this video because that was the only time in my memory that I've used this term casually. The reason I said it to this person was because in the middle of an otherwise involved conversation, she suddenly blurted out something entirely unrelated, interrupted the conversation, which it turns out despite being "in" the conversation, she was paying zero attention to the entire time. Knowing that it's not acceptable to use casually, I'll try not to, though I'm not sure my use of it in this specific example is how other people are casually using it to replace the now unacceptable r-word.
Yeah, because this all just came into existence literally yesterday. Just because people used to simply brand autistic people retards rather than bother with giving them an actual diagnosis and the help they need doesn't mean they didn't have a problem. Not acknowledging a problem doesn't mean it does not exist, neither does acknowledging it and doing something about it create it in the first place.