Why is autism such a bad thing?

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Agreed, and it probably doesn't help when no-one truly understands us either. And it really doesn't help when people who think they know everything make bad comments and give it off as fact to people who don't know any better.
I just wish that for once, everyone in the world, for one day, could see the truth as it factually is, for the entire world... people would be more than willing to shut up then.

Because autism is a difference to the social normality, and that's seen as a bad thing. People have prejudges and don't understand it enough, and this lack of understanding is viewed as bad. It's also because you can suffer from it, but then again, NTs probably suffer a lot if they feel empathy so much. It's a difference to what is expected and people just can't stand that. Ignorance spreads, and it'll pass off soon enough. They just see it as anyone with any form of disability is going to have a horrible life, no matter what, because they'll never experience life in the same way. Untrue, but it's how society sees things. Blame society.

I agree. One of my autistic friends find it difficult to use public transport to go from his home location to one of his friends that lives 5 miles away. He finds it hard to go to a bus station, look at the bus's time table, wait for the bus, and ask the bus driver to warn him if the next stop is the stop where he must get out. He also needs help from the staff member of his group home.

For me this above is extremely easy. When I want to take the bus, I go to Google Maps and find out what buses there are. And not only of my neigborhood's buses, also buses, trains, other kind of transport in foreign capictal cities.

Some people find it difficult to fly, how to order a ticket, how to check in, what gate I must go to, when my flight starts. Dealing about luggage, what behaviour is expected from the airport of departure, and what to do after the aircraft lands. Even NTs find this difficult, but I... I just do it. I am pretty experienced in this.

And those friends and I myself have a kind of autism.

I guess it depends on who you are and what you experience. For me, it's not completely good, but not completely bad either. It's just life.

My heart hurts when I read this (and many of the other thoughts).

Being fairly new to this world with an adult diagnosis I'm still wrestling with a lot of this but I'm finding myself more inclined to love even more who I am. Titles and labels can be very hurtful, for sure, which is why I wrote here ( http://aspie.co/unknown-aspie/ ) why at times I wish we could do away with all labels if it got in the way of bringing us more together instead of creating distance.

But I believe that we all have something incredible to contribute to society - we have to all be open to the possibility that there are more opportunities for us than just what we "see" directly.

IMO?

Difference makes people uncomfortable. They do not wish to deal with this discomfort, ergo the thing to do is make the difference go away. Disabilities in general-- and sometimes I think HFA and ADHD in particular, perhaps-- hold up a mirror in which people do not care to see themselves.

Thus, stigma.

Autism Speaks-- and for that matter the medical model of disability-- didn't help matters any, though.

Though that brings us back to society in general choosing to subscribe to the medical model of disability. Vicious circle.

If I knew how to break it, I wouldn't be cowering in my house still forcing myself to view myself as broken.

Why does this come up so much??? A few days ago, I walked by a current events class that was talking about abortion. A bunch of discussions were going on and someone asked the professor "What about people with autism or people with depression?"

That kind of struck me and I stayed outside to listen. The professor said that he didn't want to express any of his personal opinions, but I have Aspergers so the idea of autism is more real for me than probably anyone in that room. It's just frustrating to know that people would even THINK of such a thing.

From an NT's perspective, the response would most likely be "It's a bad thing because I would have a hard time relating to people." Yes, it is hard to relate to people, but we all find ways to adapt to what our strengths and weaknesses are.

The idea of the question "Why is autism such a bad thing?" could also be "Why is being normal such a bad thing?". We just need to see things like NTs and they need to see it from our perspective. Both of us make too many assumptions.

autism is a bad thing. I can not live on my own. have a job. drive. I will never get maried. I will never have a child. I have trouble with comunitcation. I have troble with thigs like having a shower. I can not tie shoe lases. there is lots of things that are hard. they would not be hard if I did not have autism. i would go to university if I did not have autism.

I think it depends on how you see yourself and the way your autism affects you personally. I'm not going to get into any media BS or charity groups or what knot, but the personal acceptance or struggle we go through.

I often have conflicting feelings on my autism mainly during my cyclic moods. To me it gives me intense focus and the need to create for a practical purpose. Also, the extensive memory on a subject quickly and the gift of mimicry. I use all to my advantage.

I assess my strengths and weaknesses. Routine and planning is important if I want to minimize the negative symptoms, i.e meltdowns. I have to really work with my fear of change.

Then socializing happens and I don't get nervous about what to say or what people think about me. I'll pick up on my social blunders as they happen and hopefully will brush them aside. I go back to them later when I'm probably becoming anxious or even depressed. Something that is not connected to autism.

Actually, I have very narrow focused social anxiety these days. It's funny to me because even my anxiety focuses on details. But these days impulsiveness is more of a problem than saying nothing. I could still say nothing but I'm on medication that makes me chatty.

So, I mostly view my autism as something that doesn't cause too much stress. I have a few times wanted to walk into a busy road because of realising how socially inept I am but this was during a depressive episode. Co-morbids can make my autism symptoms worse.

Sometimes I want to drop the label and not think about having it, and sometimes I can get into that frame of mind, but one thing I like about the label is that I don't care if I don't fit in and I don't get socially awkward.

My negative symptoms creep up on me and I can feel that it's a lot worse. Fear of change keeps me from travelling and I miss out on so many experiences because of it.

So, it depends what you really want out of life and how you focus on the symptoms. Yes I'm unemployed, living with family, struggle with occupational things and am limited in my experiences due to a severe fear of change that I've had to live with all my life. I can be driven crazy by breaking a routine too. But I think the special interests are worth it. I'm an honest person too. I was reading about how an author was saying every person is not the same when talking to different people, i.e friends, bosses, co-workers. They seem to change something about their personality just for those individual people. I can't do that, not even on my ADHD meds that make me talk more. It's one reason why I've kept my main character autistic. So, I think we're more ourselves. We don't become shaped by the society we live in and that is freedom to me. Freedom of mind and choice at least.

I think if you have to define autism you have to do it by individual to individual. I know severe autistics and their families who don't see themselves/child/sibling as disabled.

I dont think its "such a bad thing". Its no advantage and its affecting you, but for some people its simply a part of their life you have to deal with, and not the nighmare from Elm street. Its the same with people that sit in wheelchairs, or only have one leg, or have hard asthma, or are deaf, ... Yop, its a misadvantage. And there are some few happy, lucky people, that never will have to deal with anything horrible in their lives, no friends that commited suicide, no babies they have lost, ... Whyever, somehow people started to think during the last decades, that everybody had a "right" for a perfect living and if its not happening, then there must be a cause, ruinining your perfect life you instead could enjoy.

And thats simply nonsense. If you never will have to face a serious problem in your life, you simply will have amazing, unbelievable luck. And there is no cause to freak out: There were always misadvantaged people out there, in earlier time due to the lack of medical care, even much more. And people and societies dealt with it. And now, with our hypermodern society, all our hypermodern gadgets, ... suddenly we shall be to dumb as society to deal with something, that people with less ressources were able to handle? The only problem I see, is that children are nowadays a lifestyleproduct. In earlier times you simply got children, and they were as they were. Nowadays you choose to get a child, when its the perfect moment in your life, to add it to your planned life in the way you plan it and ... and then there comes that horrible unplanned unperfect child and ruins the perfect plan.

Its not the unperfect child that ruins everything, its the dreaming of an perfect life. For my oppinion: Yop, sure things could have been better. Could also be worse. I am not starving, I am not homeless, I dont die on cancer without medical care...so no need to act as if I would.

I consider autism a specialized tool. Aspergians tend to be awesome at their passion, and if society wouldn't try to shove menial jobs as entrance tests to getting jobs involving skills, we would likely be doing well.

I almost never feel disabled.

Because the majority of people are not autistic and many societies do not value autistic traits.

With Down's, people know what to do. Most people with Down's Syndrome are people you can relate to in a similar way as to an NT child. The kind of person who likes to feel superior to somebody different can also do this very easily with a Down's person--you can look at him or her for two seconds and know they are different.

On the other hand, a lot of us are harder to pin down that way. The spectrum for us is much broader than for Down's. Many of us look like anybody else unless we're having a bad day or you watch us closely, yet there's a sense that something is a bit different. I think it makes a certain kind of person uncomfortable that we're strange to them, but a person on the spectrum might also be smarter than they are. It makes the smug superiority thing, and the paternalistic caring thing, more complicated.

Well before I ever thought to apply this label to myself, I noticed there was always one person in every group I encountered who just had to point out that I am weird or different. These people sometimes were openly annoyed when I succeeded in life where they had failed--a former coworker even became verbally abusive because I was thinner and my then-boyfriend (now my husband) and I were talking marriage whereas she had just failed at her diet and was dumped by two guys in a short period. To her, it was infuriating that a freak like me would get those things while she could not. Those people tend to be loud and to speak for others whose views they do not necessarily represent, which (I think) gives some other NTs a bad rep. Probably not all of them think it's as terrible as some people make it out to be.

I'd also like to add that it is called a spectrum for a reason. For some people, it is intensely disabling. For others, it is hardly an issue in day to day life. I think circumstance has much to do with it as well--one person who is given help and support early in life may be able to live independently, marry, have a fruitful career, and succeed in life by any standard may start out with the same level of disability as a person who requires a great deal of lifelong assistance because of a lack of help, support, and resources. This is very sad to me--THAT is a lot of what is so bad about autism, in my mind.