"Disorders are not good" is quite a black and white thing to say, considering we have made up the concept of what a disorder is, especially in psychiatry. Disorders are defined by what society believes is harmful and what seems to impair functioning - homosexuality was defined as a disorder in the DSM until recently as it was seen as unnatural. One could argue being gay does have some limitations, like not being able to have biological children, but it is now commonly accepted and is part of normal human variation, and I strongly identity with this take.
Black and white?
Genuine disorders cause *impairment* and *distress* to us people who *suffer* from them. They are not desirable at all. No one would want one if they had a choice* and no prospective parents would want them for their children, not if they want to maximize their offspring's chances for happiness.
In light of that how could saying "disorders are not good" be inaccurate? What about that simple statement could there be to object to?
I'm all for being critical of mainstream psychiatry but things like schizophrenia are disabling in and of itself and not only because of how society views them. The impairment is tangible and concrete. If you were a psychiatrist you must have witnessed that.
Homosexuality seems like an irrelevant strawman of sorts and I say that as a gay person. Its classification as a disorder was clearly a mistake and has since been rectified. They're not going to make the same change when it comes to autism or bipolar or schizophrenia or anorexia and so on and they shouldn't. Homosexuality is not comparable to them in whatever challenges it causes. Normal human variation in the sense in which that phrase is meant does not cause impairment. To describe something that does as such is in my opinion meaningless.
I believe there is some grey area with disabilities where there are some difficulties that are inherent, but when it's something like autism where there are also strengths, it's not so easy to say that. Losing a leg doesn't have much positive you could say about it, but autism does. What is a disorder is partly a societally constructed concept.
*And here I'll gladly qualify my earlier statement. I will grant that autism can confer some advantages or strengths (in *some* cases, it must be added). In fact among all the physical or mental disorders out there autism seems to be uniquely ambiguous in that respect and thus the only one among them that this kind could of debate could even revolve around. Everything else is unequivocally detrimental. So it just so happens that the topic of this discussion, autism, happens to be the one thing, as far as I can tell, where things are bot so clear-cut.
But as I pointed out, autism doesn't confer strengths universally across the board in all cases, or ones that feel worthwhile enough. And I'm not convinced that those strengths are exclusive to autistic people anyways even if autism may be conducive to their development (again, in some cases). There are people who are "different" who have positive qualities associated with autism but none of the impairment, at least none that rises to a clinical threshold. And there are allistic people who have these strengths that in their cases are not a function at all of being neurodivergent.
What is a disorder is partly a societally constructed concept.
Hmm? Partly? Earlier you had said that the difficulties of autism stem only from extrrnal social factors which I objected to. Which you then objected to. So are you in agreement or disagreement with me?
Executive functioning issues, sensory issues, susceptibility to emotional overload and strrss, the propensity towards millions of concomitant comorbidities like epilepsy which I developed, these are not conditioned by society (though they can be able exacerbated by it but their genesis isn't in it). Even some of the social issues are not solely a function of society. Autistic people are innately poor at succeeding at social drives even if they share the same as on any average person. I have been in settings where the (normal) people around werr welcoming and friendly, or at least not overtly hostile or shunning, and I did not succeed socially because of innate problems.
because you may feel depressed about your condition and see it as all bad, it does not mean you can speak for everyone with autism. There are people with autism who strongly advocate for greater acceptance and accommodation of autism rather than pathologizing.
Don't you think your insistence that autism isn't innately a disability at all also constitutes speaking for other autistic people? It doesn't seem like you'll budge on that but that view isn't reflective of my life experience at all. Furthermore that kind of view hampers research efforts that could go a long way to improving human life much more significantly than anything else. Opposing those efforts because of personal distaste amounts to speaking for less abled people like me.
I am not telling existing people with autism how to feel about their autism. Autistic people should be accepted but that doesn't mean the existence of autism has to be. Accepting and accommodating autistic people doesn't have to amount the reality that autism is a disorder that innately makes life harder for those who suffer from it.
Those people would be offended at the idea they should "not be propagated", basically bred out.
Cool. And what I find offensive is that idea that people like me just have to be collateral damage, especially in in a world that treats attempts to escape perpetual misery the way it does (and since you were a psychiatrist I doubt that needs any further elaboration). This is an dies that I have seen both implied and explicitly expressed.
Look at where you are and where we are. We are on a suicide forum. Given your username I would assume that autism was a big factor driving you to this site instead of living like the average shrink who would readily rail against this site and all the dangers it purportedly poses to its users. And if it isn't clear autistic people are very disproportionately represented here. In fact I do believe this site features the most disproportionate representation of autistic people pound for pound than any other collection of disparate people. More than Silicon Valley or Comicon, more than pediatric psych units or group homes. Though since that is just an impression ultimately I could be wrong.
There was an autistic young man who was a user here. He had all the strengths of an autistic person that you allude to, brilliance and magnanimity multiple times the human average, and you want to know how his life ended? Alone last spring in a dingy hotel by his own hand after having ingested a vile poison. Autism was the main factor driving that decision and I'm not projecting here, that's straight from own writings he left behind.
It's not about the "them" not being propagating or anyone who is already in existence. It's about relying on pure moral luck that a future autistic person will be a success story.
I know myself that if society was not the way it was, I could have a good life with autism.
Perhaps that is true. If you managed to become a physician than frankly your manifestation of autism is of a completely different sort than mine. And it's also frankly it's not surprising to me that a high-achieving autistic person who have the view you do since such is the attitude that I've seen from similar people.
About being trans, same thing about homosexuality. I don't think what it is particularly relevant to autism for the same reason.
Anyway, we don't live in that wonderful world, but it isn't a universal truth that things have to be how they are for autistic people now, and autism does not inherently have to be pathologised.
If people insist they are not in fact disabled by their autism and do not identify as being disabled, then whatever they have should be conceived as something else other than autism spectrum disorder.
This is kind of borderline eugenics here lol.
I don't think it's evil to give people coming into the world greater access to a happy and meaningful life and promote their life-long well-being if that is an option.
It's not evil to make it so people don't have to hack their way to their death from cystic fibrosis, have their bodies shrivel up from muscular dystrophy or die before entering preschool from Tay-Sachs. And on and on for the tons of other devastating congenital disorders.
The word "eugenics" has nasty connotations because of history but the problem with that lies in coercion and violation of autonomy. But I wasn't talking about coercion. While I think that it would be deeply unfair to the child to force them in life with something like autism if if that didn't have to be the case, the line can be drawn at individual/parental agency. As to my stance that it shouldn't be passed down if it didn't have to be, well, people form opinions all damn day every day about what other people should or shouldn't do or how things should or shouldn't be.
