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The disability model weakens our status

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Sweetleaf
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11 Dec 2016, 1:30 pm

League_Girl wrote:
I have a solution to your problem for those who want to be a human than a label and want to be treated the same as they were before the diagnoses and not have everything become part of their disorder, don't tell people about your diagnoses.


Before my diagnoses people treated me like I had no issues that were out of the ordinary. That was not helpful, for instance with sensory issues I might try to express a light or a noise was too much and causing me pain, and usually got told to be quiet and quit whining. I want to be a human and have it acknowledged that I have a condition that causes difficulties most people don't have to deal with. Doesn't mean I want to be treated like a helpless person who cant do a single thing for myself, but yeah I do find it helpful to have some acknowledgement for my condition.

That said I don't make a point to mention my aspergers to everyone I meet, but yeah if something comes up where it would make sense to mention it then I will.


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Pieplup
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11 Dec 2016, 1:41 pm

League_Girl wrote:
Tawaki wrote:
@Sweetleaf

I can't figure out how to cut and quote on the mobile, so I hope I can answer a few things.

My husband's diagnosis wasn't because he knew he had Autism and so did everyone else. He got it as a last ditch effort to save his job and his marriage.

I didn't know what was wrong with him. Seeing a grown man beat his head against the wall during a melt down is shocking when you have no clue why he is doing it. I thought he was on drugs.

Why we treated him differently...

His therapist came back with a three pages listing "all his issues".

He didn't like being hugged or kissed on. Hated stores. Hated people eating around him. Hated spur of the moment requests to go out. Hated phone calls. Hated texts. Big lists of foods he hated. Hated people talking to him. That's a cliff note version of the list.

So we took those three pages as gospel truth. So the intimacy stopped. The friends stopped dropping by uninvited. No more calls or texts from anyone. Stopped eating around him. Cooked everything that was bland, mushy and white.

I guess it's sort of be careful what you wish for. We love him, so why continue to do things that supposedly made his life a living hell? Everything he listed was a supposed trigger related to autism.

Everyone was too nice. Too understanding. Too much let's make this all good so we don't cause you uncomfort. What to eat Raman for weeks? Not a problem. You let us know when and if you want to go out. His executive functioning skills are so bad, it would be impossible to actually plan that.

We stopped treating him as adult with fixable problems. We treated him as someone who has an inflexible disability, with no real ability to change.

I'm pretty hot headed. A shove from behind before diagnosis, my reaction would be not be pretty. When he shoved me 6 months after his diagnosis, that was to see how much I changed. I reacted like a 5 year old shoved me (because of his diagnosis) instead of a man.

So I can see where the disability model falls short for some people. Everything you do can be explained away because you have this disability, which is probably not true. It also makes it easier for people discriminated. Like all Aspies hate team work. All Aspies hate stores. All Aspies hate changes to their routines.That's not sh*t behavior, just a sensory issue. Those theories might work well with a child, it doesn't translate so well for an adult.



So wait, your husband hates being accommodated and understood and he would rather be treated like he is a jerk?

No, He doesn't hate being accommodated he hates being treated like everything he does is good, since he is a aspie. [quote="Tawaki"]I'm pretty hot headed. A shove from behind before diagnosis, my reaction would be not be pretty. When he shoved me 6 months after his diagnosis, that was to see how much I changed. I reacted like a 5 year old shoved me (because of his diagnosis) instead of a man.[/qoute] He wants to be accommodated not infantilized. Much, like I hate when people infantalize me since I'm younger than most people on this forum. He wants to be accepted not infantilized. He doesn't like being treated like he is five. Accommodation is not infantilization. There is a clear line. She's saying that she crossed that line.


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Knofskia
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11 Dec 2016, 3:31 pm

I agree, firemonkey.

firemonkey wrote:
I don't think it is a simplistic either or scenario ie medical vs social model. Ideally we need a model that acknowledges the impairments but also seeks solutions/ societal support for the barriers created by those impairments. It also needs to acknowledge the positives that may arise from ASD.

I would advocate a hybrid model.


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