Mage wrote:
I just noticed after reading through the rest of the responses how offended people are that they might POSSIBLY have any genes that would connect them to schizophrenia, GOD FORBID!
Come on people, you have as much right to spit on schizophrenics for their illness as you would insult other autistics. It's genetic, and whether you're autistic or schizophrenic, you're just out in the world doing the best you can with the genes you were given. I am not at all ashamed to have relatives that are bipolar and schizophrenic, and although I was personally relieved to find out I just had HFA, I would hope my husband would not have divorced me and run like I had the plague if I would have turned out to have schizophrenia instead.
What's next, autism gets linked to red hair and everyone's like GOD NO! THAR BE NO GINGER KIDS in MY GENEPOOL!
It's not like that at all. What annoys me is the way it's misconstrued in various re-writes of what I assume is the press release so it makes out that ALL autistic spectrum kids have parents with mental problems, and that that could be taken as meaning:
1 - The parents are to blame
2 - Make the parents feel guilty
3 - Have the kids taken into care as authorities suddenly fear the parents are the cause and have problems themselves so are unfit for raising children
4 - Discrimination against parents, whether they have anything wrong with them or not
etc
I have a lot of Aspergers through my family, which I happily admit - it doesn't bother me in the slightest - but there is nothing wrong with my parents, they're both NT as anything and definitely not on the spectrum or affected by anything else. I'd hate them to be discriminated against or blamed for my quirks or thought to have mental problems thanks to a misreported news article.
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We are a fever, we are a fever, we ain't born typical...