My issues with the greater autism community.

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Yes. If you understand how things work and relationships and communities form you will have more meaningful relationships and be able to form more functional and generative communities .For example, suggesting (but really telling) people not to use the word, creepy. Personally I find creepy to be a kind of creepy word and do not like it, but telling people not to use it is even more creepy. Of course this could just be one person, but there is a tendency to protect other people's feelings which I see as kind of crippling and enabling. The OP seems to be questioning this kind of thing. Another point--people do not even really know what autism is, yet they are acting as if they do know and putting all kinds of people under this tent---psychologists are doing it, too, and it serves some functional value, perhaps, but also in some ways it is skewed.

To Vernandi, yes it's natural fro people who are diagnosed as autistic to be talking about it and to organize community around it, but I see something off in the way this is being done. I have tried to address this, not so successfully, in other threads. Also, I agree with your point that no one really knows what another person is experiencing, and that what is easy for one person can be very difficult for another.

As far as making 30, 000 posts goes, I do not see how that fits into the topic of the OP. Someone is just using this venue in this way for whatever reason...could just be fun, though ti is not how I myself use it...Sometimes it takes me an hour just to look over various threads and decide what I want to write about...

I think I went overboard on my response. It made more sense to me yesterday. I do see a problem with the autism community, though, as do many.

This on the line, meaning on the edge, evaluations of the meaning of subtle perceptions can seem very clear one day and not see clear the next because the picture is turned at a different, so a theory of mind thing can come into play here as one sees it so clearly one day that on that day one tends to assume that other people can see it also..Yesterday I was seeing that the OP was seeing what I am seeing about the autism community. I still think he may be, but today the picture is not quite so clear. Another thing is finding the words to express these subtle kinds of perceptions clearly. Sometimes one can just find a situation to describe that kind of approximates, but it is not quite exact enough to reveal to other people the picture of what one is seeing. I think this is what has happened here.

This analysis reminds me of the joke about the professors in the deer hunting party:

A physicist, a geologist and a statistician go deer hunting. Before long they see a buck standing in clearing up ahead.
The physicist takes a shot and misses by five feet to the right.
The geologist fires and his bullet passes five feet to the left.
"Got him!" shouts the statistician joyfully...

A similar question of perspective comes into play with the other questions in the OP.

There is no such thing as the general autism community anymore than there is such a thing as society--its a figure of speech and a sort of mental shorthand for a complicated idea about the average behavior of individuals within large groups. But the reality is that individuals are always individuals, no matter how large a group you view them as a members of. Individual autistics are unique--when you've met one, you've met just one. This is something they have in common with individual NTs.

On a personal note, I only discovered this year that the thing that has set me apart all my life is autism. Like Kaelynn, I worked hard to minimize the observable qualities of my differences all my life--I dress reasonably well, I have a job, I drive a car, I own a house, I am married and a father. On the other hand, I have always had the feeling that I had to be on guard against revealing my unacceptable inner nature. My experience has been that when I am too relaxed and behave too naturally, I will pay a social price. I have spent years worrying about seeming to geeky and avoided things that I love out of anxiety that being seen to love them will expose me.

Now I'm through with that. Somehow I feel the diagnosis and self-knowledge enable me to embrace all my qualities--even the ones the NT world made me ashamed of. Yes, I want to be able to go out and get things done without people staring at me or giving me grief, but I also want to claim my right to exist without having to pretend to be something other than myself. I saw a "coming out day" video being praised by the Autcast a day or two ago and I completely understood what Landon was trying to say.

I feel like this was all going toward some kind of coherent point, but by the time I got here it sort of evaporated. Hopefully I have communicated the main idea.

There is one particular individual who did in fact become a member almost exactly one year ago - who has already racked up 20 thousand posts.

Thats not quite 30 thousand, but it is of the same order of magnitude.



The OP obviously had that one guy in mind when he said that., and that one guy should avenge the remark!

The two should have a duel with pistols!

Just kidding!

I think that guy is too good-natured and relaxed to argue with others. He probably couldn't care less about such comments.

I like wp to discuss autism and autistic traits with autistic people, but I don't think of autism as personal identity or group identity.

I am most interested in the science and education aspects of understanding and developing autistic brain, and I am not interested in most other aspects.

(This is directed to the original post)

Wow, shaming people for their interest in or their advocacy for autism? Is this actually real or are you just pulling a prank? There is absolutely nothing wrong with how anyone chooses to perceive, experience, or express their autism. It is not up to you to say what is the right way to do it. Your opinion about how other autistic should act is just your opinion, your own preconceptions of an existing online community. There is no difference between autistics meeting here to discuss their lives or meeting in a facebook group.

I am very open about my autism I share it with many people because I have children who are also autistic and I want them to grown up with the understanding that it is absolutely okay to be autistic but with that said there are many who do not share it at all and that is also okay. My point is that it is imperative that each autistic person has the free will to experience their autism how they see fit, without judgement.

It seems to me you got scolded in a facebook group for using language they didn't like so you decided to come here to vent your frustration about it by ranting and attempting to demean how other autistics choose to live. No one person has to live up any sort of rules to how they are suppose to be autistic.

The OP created this thread in 2013 and has not posted on WP since April 2015.

Oh, well that's important information.
Had I actually taken the time to look, I wouldn't have replied.

I've always been refereed to as creepy even by other kids growing up. Something about a blank face or a face that does not match the emotions below that freaks people out. I am not offended but can see how some people may be sensitive to the word. My nickname in elementary school was "creepy doll".

I feel like calling it the r word, just gives even more power to people who might use it to belittle someone...also might encourage people to think its the worst thing to be called, and thus be even more upset by it.