But you’re so high functioning….
But you’re not like my child because they are on the extreme end of the spectrum…
But you only have aspergers….
But you don’t look autistic….
But you are so verbal….
Oh I’m sorry that must be hard for you….
You don’t speak for my child….
You just need to learn social skills…
But ABA changed my life…
But I’m an Aspie so those on the lower functioning autistics they must want a cure….
I don’t think you should say autistic I always see the person first not the diagnosis..
But I am not disabled…
Bit I am not disordered…
Bit I am disabled…
But I am disordered….
I have heard or read all of the above. They are common phrases, they are expressed at times from all 
variants of the autism and autistic communities. They display that we are not at peace. We are at loggerheads, fighting against one another almost as if one community is always seeking supremacy over the others.
It’s not helpful. It’s dest
ructive. It’s never going to be helpful. It’s only ever going to divide us and not unite us.
Maybe we can never be united. Maybe that is a fact that needs to be faced. I am not sure, but maybe. But…
Surely we can be at peace.
Autism parents want their experience taken seriously as is right and proper.
Autistics want the same.
It is this that gives rise to the cries, the slogans the hash tags like Nothing About us Without Us. Different Not Less. Actually Autistic. I Don’t Need A Cure. No Cure Required. Autistic And Proud. Proud Autistic Living.
What to do? How to move forward?
I regularly see the autism and autistic communities implode and try to tear themselves and each other. It doesn’t help. It hurts. And worse it makes it easier for negative narratives to move forward and further alienate us.
It gives rise to the language of epidemic and catastrophe from the likes of Autism Speaks.
It gives rise to turning a blind eye to the horrid treatment of autistic people in places like the Judge Rotenburg Centre.
It gives rise to allowing a platform for idiots like Donald Trump, Jim Carey, Robert Kennedy Jr and the like to proclaim utter rubbish about vaccinations.
It fosters the freedom to thrive for abusive therapies like MMS, GcMaf, Chelation and others to be marketed like snake oil and autistics children and adults to be damaged and abused.
I don’t know the answer, I know part of the answer and that is listening to each other and giving respect to each other. But it’s not the whole answer it is just a part of it.
I wonder what you can add, I wonder if you have any thoughts. Please like comment and share your thoughts.
I love the idea of listening to each other. I’m not a political person but maybe a solution would be grassroots people asking for a forum, a conference to have everyone get together. Should the government be the driving force? I don’t know but there must be a way of getting everyone together.
All good thoughts.
The best thing to do is pray for wisdom and keep sharing! Your blog and posts are wonderful!
I don’t know much, I’m just a concerned grandma. My daughter has two amazing friends (they are sisters) with three children of their five with diagnosis of autism. I know they are wonderful moms in solid marriages. Until o found your site and NLT, I was pretty ignorant. Let’s just say, I’m hopeful now. So just keep writing and sharing and I’ll keep sharing. Education really helps. And your personal experiences are my best education so far!
May God bless and fill you with His wisdom and continuing courage to write and speak out.
Thank you Debbie. Education is always a helpful thing 🙂
I recently posted about basically the same thing. Maybe the message will finally get somewhere if more people actually say it.
Dave. .link your post so people can read it ? thanks for the comment and for reading!
Yea I think you are correct Dave, did you post in a blog or fb, love to link to it if you don’t mind.
1. Autism is a collection of vastly different “symptoms” that have been thrown together by psychologists; there are at least 50 AUTISM DISORDERS that have known causes. It’s insane, and “autism” ought to be retired as a catchall for these mostly unrelated disorders. Treatment should be by symptom only. IE Reading problems need addressed differently than anxiety.
2. Neurotypicals have taken over control of the discussion about autism – that’s who is fighting. Neurotypicals want power and control, especially in the social arena. They’ve made “autism” a social war like everything else they worm their way into.
3, Tell the neurotypicals to go away and let autistic people decide who they are and what they want.
4. Asperger’s is not autism.
I have to disagree with you on a number of fronts Gone Wild. As there is no telling evidence of the so called at least 50 types of autism, and it is not a disorder, just as homosexuality is not a disorder as it was once viewed, just as left-handedness is not a disorder.
Yes as autists we are indeed disabled but we are disbled not by impairment but by the social constructs imposed upon us.
And Yes Aspergers certainly is autism. There is no research of consequence to counter that fact, any so-called studies to date have questionable ethics, questionable selection and recruitment processes and very small sample sizes and as such no real conclusions can be drawn, on the contrary it was in fact Aspergers work all those years ago that equated what has been described as Aspergers Syndrome. It has always clearly been autism. Aspergers is nothing more than a functioning lable used to categorise, generalise and falsly assign preconcieved ideas of functioning, ability, intellegence and the like on those with that particular diagnosis.
Autism covers many actual disabilities (genetic / epigenetic and damage to the fetus during pregnancy.) The problem is that these disabilities are grouped with conditions for which there are no specific causes. Asperger’s individuals do not have disabilities; we are an “anti-social” logical, visual-thinking personality type most closely associated with the Intuitive Rational personalities on the MBTI.
There are many posts on my blog dealing with these questions.
Those disabilities are not autism, they are comorbid conditions that at times go along with autism but they are not autism. Austistcs that have been diagnosed with the aspergers functioning label are not merely anti-social logiccal visual-thinking personality types at all. It is far more complex than that.
I don’t believe it is helpful to the autistics involved, their parents and families, their siblings, those that are involved with them in education etc to try to pretend that just because they have been given an innefectual label of aspergers that they do not have issues imposed upon them by the socio-political construct that is society.
There are many ‘Aspies’ with additional issues, in fact if you consider the criteria you will find that it language delay that is the criteria that seperates what was formerly labeled as aspergers.
It is disengenuous to attempt to seperate aspergers out of autism, it never was seperate other than as an entry in a diagnostic manual. Never was it seperate in the minds of Asperger, who was in fact the key informant, though unacknowledged in Kanner’s work.
Why do you want Asperger individuals to be autistic? Does it make you happy? I can’t imagine why you would care that we aren’t. It makes no sense!
It’s not what I want it is what it is. It simply is what is true.
It makes perfect sense that I would want the truth and the accepted science to be accepted. The question really is why would you be so intent in not being autistic.
I can’t imagine why you would care so deeply about being a fraud of what you actually are. Does it mage you happy to pretend to be something you are not or conversely to not be something that you are?
It makes no sense that you would try to redefine the truth, the science and the accepted wisdom.
You are ignorant of current research into autism, Asperger’s and mental health. You have no science background apparently, or you wouldn’t keep repeating the myths propagated by psychologists, who are NOT scientists. Read my blog before calling me a fraud. Learn something new…
No not at all. I didn’t call you a fraud at all I am just highlighting that your stance is fraudulent. As stated at the start there is no credible research that supports your view. Only questionable research that has issues in design, participant selection, bias and sample size.
I certainly would not be looking to your blog or anyone else’s for that matter to learn something of such significant and importance but to a credible source of peer reviewed research.
It would seem your willingness to take on an unaccepted unsupported and unsupportable stance about aspergers would indicate that you have an opinion that there is something wrong with being autistic or that somehow being aspergers is somehow better than being autistic. This is a false view that is unfortunately propagated by some within the Aspie community which flows from an arrogance that is unfortunate and downright damaging to the greater autistic and autism communities.
Wow! What a jerk.