A word that I hate: "overcome"

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Karilyn,

“It was very confusing, as logically, no aspect of the movement of a handful of specific muscles should particularly alter my perspective of her love for me. But I did experience a greater sensation of love than I had in the past; from something as nonsensical as a movement of muscles. That was one of the few times where I was very acutely aware that there is in fact a primitive primal subconscious which exists at a very basic level which is still able to read these things, even if I wasn't aware that it could read these things. If I was to take a guess based on the neurological sensation, I would guess that I felt it in the same part of the brain which registers "fire hot"‘

Love

Does it ever get easier:
“That's a LOT to keep thinking about at the same time.”
“It's much harder, if not impossible in many cases, for an Autistic person to convert things to that subconscious muscle memory.”
“to some extent, it does get easier, but it tends to with only the simpler things. The more complex the task, the harder it is to assign to subconscious muscle memory.”
Ok

“rather abusive therapy as children” what was it?

Uh, pretty standard stuff for anybody who was diagnosed in the early 90s.

The one which was the most devastating probably which still affects me is essentially. Well, psychologists at the time believed that Autistic people did not have thoughts or feelings unless they communicated them in a Neurotypical way. And they would constantly tell me how I was Autistic, so I wasn't capable of having thoughts or feelings, and was only tricking myself into thinking I had them. Of course, they only told me this when it conflicted with what they THOUGHT I should be thinking or feeling.

And they trained my parents in this technique too. I believe the name for it was "Extinction." Essentially viewing Autistic thought patterns and emotions as being bad behavior, which if it was ignored, could be made extinct, and thus free the person from their Autistic disease. Even now, at age 25, my parents still try to use this technique on me, though I can recognize it now, and make an effort to ignore it for the stupidity it is. But it still hurts. My parents genuinely believe that they are doing me good by ignoring my feelings.

To the doctors, and my parents, I was broken. To myself, I still struggle not to see myself as broken, because it's so deeply ingrained in me from having been told it for years. And I still sometimes doubt the reality of my own thoughts and feelings because they brainwashed me to think that I was tricking myself into thinking I was capable of feeling emotion...

Trauma? Abuse? Yeah. That's definitely what it is. Is it any wonder that a lot of Autistics hold grudges against Neurotypicals?

It is because being yourself is only a fraction of what NTs believe and value. Honestly, no one NT is a like and NTs do believe and value different things. NTs live in different countries and these countries have different cultures. Some cultures have different sub-cultures. Each culture and sub-culture have different things that they believe and value. In America, being yourself is valued but that is just one thing they value. There are other things that Americans believe in as well. Not every American believes this. Some Americans believe in more modesty than others. In their mind you are supposed to be modest but within that realm you can be yourself. Some Americans believe in the value of responsbility. Again within this value you can be yourself.

karilyn, sorry about the abuse and manipulation.

Did the doctors and psychologists confuse autism with sociopathy? I know there myths about this.

I don't want to start a firestorm but much of special ed falls techniques fall under the wide umbrella of 'extinction.'

What I've seen in the school of ed for these techniques are applied if necessary, the biggest criteria being, 'is the kid physically hurting himself or others' which I think happens sometimes with stiming.

Anyway, I'll have the next year and a half, two years to get ed. prof.'s view of this.

I think this is the correct use of the word.

It's absurd to think that you can "overcome" autism. If people actually know more about it, they don't use the word anymore.

Unlikely considering I was diagnosed around age 3. It's more likely that the psychologists I was working in had a background in behaviorism. As you are aware, behaviorism assumes that if it cannot be perceived in a behavior, than it does not exist. So for an Autistic child who fails to produce proper facial expressions, but may be trying to communicate them verbally, would dismiss the communications as falsehoods. As the mind and internal physiological events are considered to be irrelevant in behaviorism, this would particularly conflict with an ability to understand Autism and treat it in an appropriate manner. If it's not on the face, it's not in the heart, and thus the Autistic person must be lying or too stupid to know what emotion they are actually feeling.


I was violent as a child. However, this is in no small part enhanced by the way I was raised. Even the most healthy neurotypical child who is taken away from their home and locked in a padded cell for studying by psychologists, day in, and day out, for weeks on end? Of course you'd be violent to your oppressors.

Here's a quote from my girlfriend from an email she sent me a while ago about this exact subject, which should give you an idea of how this sort of treatment can affect a person. (For many years I was obsessed with the idea that I was a bad person. I think my girlfriend hit very clearly on why I thought that, as I've been able to get away from the idea with her help since she suggested this idea.). It shows pretty clearly how this stuff can REALLY f**k you up, in two nice clean little paragraphs. She's much more a master of brevity than I am.



FYI I've mostly moved on over time with my girlfriend's help away from the obsession that I am an evil person and deserve bad things that happen to me. No worries <3