Autistic as an insult

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Thanks for replying .

I do think it would be quite absurd if we always agreed lol . I think part of my strong feelings towards psychology vs. neurology is not wanting to be labeled mentally ill because of my disorders. It alleviates my bad feelings surrounding psychology if I see my disorders as neurological rather than psychological.

Autism is preeminently a neurological disorder. People who are autistic are rarely thought of as being mentally ill.

People who have OCD are also rarely thought of as being mentally ill.

Usually, people with some sort of severe psychosis, who do harm to others or themselves, are considered mentally ill.

If you don't take showers as an adult, or have violent tantrums for no apparent reason, you're usually considered mentally ill.

It's funny, because my OCD causes (or caused, for some reason it's been a lot better ever since my last psychologist visit) me to fear psychosis. I have nothing against the people with it, but I just can't picture not being in control of my mind. My psychologist said I don't have a mental illness; I fear mental illness. I just don't want my mind and my future to slip away from me with nothing I can do about it .

It's not pleasant to feel you are not in control......

But you seem to have a good handle on things.

You seem to be responding well to therapy.

Hopefully. I'm trying to get better in regards to OCD. It feels so weird to not be plagued by constant anxiety, though. Part of me wants to feel anxious again as it has become my "normal". I'm sure I'll have another horrible obsession at some point though . This article seems to describe what is happening right now: https://www.adaa.org/blogs/missing-your-ocd

Lol this thread was about using autism as an insult. I guess I went slightly off topic...... .

Not really. We were talking about autism as a "mental" disorder. Perhaps that's why idiots use it as an insult.

If it is productive, it's okay to go a little "off-topic."

I've heard the word "autistic" being used as an insult before. If someone ever asks me if I'm autistic (in an insulting way), I can say, "Actually, I am" .

I hope what I've written is productive, then!

The big insult when I was a kid was "ret*d."

Autism was seen as so severe that kids with it weren't usually insulted.

I'll speak to you tomorrow. Have to get up early tomorrow.

It was swell conversing with you.

It was great conversing with you as well .

If anyone were to ever insult me by calling me autistic, I'd thank them for the compliment and go along my merry way.

Gosh, some of the words here, I just wow. I've always hated the word abnormal, there are just so many attached implications and it's rare to see that word in a positive context. Whenever I see that word, it's generally used as an insult and it made me think back to the bullying I experienced for being gay/ being suspected of being gay. It's almost painful looking at that word.

One of the biggest barriers between me and accepting myself was accepting the fact that the way my life was going to go was going to be different than how I had originally expected it would be. I see it a lot, people bringing it up that being gay doesn't lead to procreation, and looking at this post made me think of all the arguments you see where people say that gay people have no use in society. I remember feeling like that was true at one point, and I became heavily depressed, wondering if I was a waste of air.

Usually the argument will go like this, someone will bring such views up, and people will point out that there are straight people in the world that can't procreate either and ask if they are useless to. My stance has always been this, that I believe there is no singular meaning to life, but in fact many meanings to life and it's up to you to give your life one, if you want to give your life a meaning at all. For some people, having no meaning to their life is good enough for them.

I dislike the idea that the only meaning of life is to procreate, because if that's the case then that's a bit depressing if you ask me. It's basically saying that you have no aspirations for what you want yourself or others to achieve, basically just dumping more people into the world just because it's what you are meant to do, that nothing about the world is enjoyable or meaningful and the only reason to exist is just to exist, and then make more people who will just exist. Sounds a bit dull to me. It also doesn't take into account the various careers we need to make the world function.

It gets me how people will tell straight people to wear protection, and the same people will say that gay sex is pointless because it doesn't produce children. Bit ironic.

Besides, there are plenty of ways gay people can have kids, even bi people in gay relationships as well, there's adoption and surrogacy and sperm donors, all sorts of ways to have kids. So just because they're gay, it doesn't mean they can't have children.

Yes, only a tiny fraction of the world is gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender. Ah, another word I don't like much, "leftist". People seem to act like there's some kind of political agenda to make it seem like there are more gay people in the world than there actually are lol. Like it's some kind of hidden conspiracy. I really wish people would leave politics out of this.

There's often a lot of debate about how much of the world is LGBT, and getting such stats isn't exactly easy. You have issues with a)people not being honest (understandable, there's still a lot of hate in the world and in some places you can still be fired,and/or jailed and killed for being gay, not exactly the best conditions for honesty) b) surveys often have small sample sizes, or are taken in areas that may be biased, like an LGBT help centre or something. c) sometimes people don't know, or would just rather not say because they don't think their gender identity or sexuality is anyone's damn business.

I know people that fit under the LGBT description, but don't consider themselves LGBT because a) they don't feel a part of the community/ hate the community for whatever reason, and/or b) admit that they are LGBT but self-identify as not being LGBT because they find it easier.

It would be interesting to find out the rates of how much autism occurs (although I've heard that they aren't always accurate due to the under-diagnosing of females ect.), but like I've said rates on LGBT are often not that trustworthy due to the amount of shame around the topic.

I have to wonder what you mean by "spiritual brothers and sisters", do you believe that the LGBT community should do more for those with autism? That they should relate more to your cause? I know people that are both LGBT and autistic, and I know people who are LGBT and aren't autistic. Do you believe that those who are both LGBT and autistic should speak out more? Or just LGBT folk as a whole? Is it that you think the communities should be more allied so that there is more of "a voice" for autism? Or do you believe that allies are speaking too much for autistic struggles, and that people with autism should have more of a platform?

Your post confuses me so.

Wrong.

ret*d and ret*d were both medical labels and the usage of both as colloguial insults did not start until after the medical community had adopted the terms relatively recently. ret*d has only been an insult for a couple of generations. Before that it was just a fancy French word for "delayed" that few ever used.

The medical term "ret*d" was adopted in the early post war era as a euphemism for words like "moron" and "imbecile". Medical textbooks of the pre war era actually use words like moron and imbecile as medical labels.

But by the time boomers like me were in grade school in Sixties "ret*d" and "ret*d" had escaped the scientific community and become colloquial playground insults (just like imbecile and moron had been before). So by the Seventies they had to think up euphemisms for the euphemism. And started to use new labels like "mentally challenged" etc.

And that's the very point. Its a constant cycle of euphemism becoming insult, which spawns a new euphemism, which in turn becomes an insult, and so on....

in your post, you refer to whoever had the nerve to tell you you were "autistic" as "they". who were "they", coworkers, strangers, friends, acquaintences, enemies?

if "they" were someone that you have to regularly interact with, then maybe a confrontation would be necessary. (yeah i know i hate and fear confrontations.)

if "they" are someone you do not have to interact a lot with, then ignore it.

and how many were "they"? 1? 100?

did you disclose AS to them? your profile does not say if you have an AS diagnosis.

in any event, though, you can't control someone else's prejudices. you might be able to educate them, if they are receptive. if they are not receptive you can't make them receptive.

This. Absolutely accurate.

Your brain is supposed to reflect the reality correctly. If you have a cock and think that you're a female, it's a problem with your brain, not with your cock.