Should I stop posting here?

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I go to a private school for students classified as SSN (Significant Special Needs). The teachers as well need special certifications to work there. Some of the kids are severely disabled. LF autism plus intellectually disabled and cerebral palsy and the like.

Ezra you are not a trouble maker. The other teenage person, in my personal opinion, is bordering on it however, but I totally get that it's not your intention.


But what you have to understand about older diagnosed people on here, as a couple of other members here have pointed out to you on this thread, is that they have already lived through a lot of crap in their lives, and then they come here and feel like they're getting more crap thrown at them -- even if only "in general" -- by the younger diagnosed here.


Also, it's extremely frustrating to hear people on here talking about "high functioning" people who "drive and have jobs" meaning that automatically "they have no impairments."


YOU did not say that but the other person who was also posting these doubtful thoughts yesterday did, and together with your posts it felt like an insult.


Because, you have NO idea what impairments these people do have. I've said this many times but it never seems to get heard:


Just because someone is doing things that look good "on paper", ie, wow, they are driving a car, they are working, they got married, it actually doesn't mean that "oh well then, they are clearly not experiencing impairment, why do they have a diagnosis? I think it's being over-diagnosed, therefore."


What nobody can even know unless the person tells them, is that even behind some of these "functioning" achievements, there can be a WORLD of pain and struggling just to have ever achieved them or keep doing them. And many adult in fact experience ugly burnout after a few decades of trying to keep up these NT-like high functioning things in life.


Just because someone can do them doesn't speak to how hard it is for them. I work but you don't know about all the stress I go through just to tolerate the effort to keep that up. I#m now burning out so badly I take too much time off and things are heading for a crisis.


It's this stuff behind the scenes that feels ignored and disbelieved when people like yourself and the other young person in yesterday's postings express that basically you don't think these people should even have a their diagnosis because YOU don't deem them to have impairments. There are impairments you don't even know these people are having.

One more reason why these topics can inflame some people, myself included -- you Ezra have already asked previously, at other times, in other threads and posts, how come is it that all these older people never got noticed and tested when they were children?


That is a legitimate question and lots of people have come forth and explained to you the answers why.


Yet you still later express what can only be called ongoing skepticism and cynicism, leading a person to quite reasonably believe that it's no longer so much a case of your not understanding or not knowing why, but at this point it feels more like you simply don't believe why and have hardened into a belief that these people are just falsifiers, period.


It has been explained to you yet you come across as someone who has rejected those explanations.


That doesn't make you a trouble maker but it does explain why some people may lose patience and feel upset by the continued expression of skepticism, because at the root of it, it's a rejection whether intended or not.


It's also not helpful to tell people they're being "hysterical" or to take a chill pill. I don't appreciate being called hysterical just because I'm calling someone out on something I think I need to make very clear to them -- and yes even though you didn't mention me by name, we all know I'm among those targeted by that statement.


I hate to be arguing with a fifteen year old. It doesn't feel good. But at the same time, a fifteen year old with as much intelligence as you have arouses my suspicions when he has asked for and received many times an explanation about older or high functioning people and yet continues to posts doubts and suspicions.


You can't expect people not to lose patience with that as it IS very hurtful after what some of us have ourselves lived through already.

Actually me and that other teenager are pretty much on the same page.

And yeah, I am not going to be able to fully grasp or be able to absorb someone's 50 years of baggage that they keep crashing down on my head. Amazing I haven't had an overload meltdown from it yet.

The more I see you write, Ezra, the more I believe you will succeed in life in some manner.

To be honest, I didn't have your smarts at 15. At that time, I had lots of knowledge of facts--but very little common sense, very little street smarts, and I didn't listen to others, so I kept on being stupid.

Many people who need help with everyday things succeed in something they are excellent at. The technology of computers and the Internet offers many opportunities for this. It's not automatic, even if you you don't progress from here on in, that you will be totally dependent upon others.

Have you read much about Stephen Hawking, the man who can barely move yet comes up with these great physics theories? He's a man who was able to leave his first wife, and immediately marry another woman.

Also: Helen Keller, a woman who was both blind and deaf. Read up on her, too. I wouldn't be surprised if she was classically autistic as a young child, then saw the light.

Thanks a lot for what seems very close to a snide tone in that post. And you're not the only one in danger of ill effects from these discussions -- I was very unwell last night and I took off work today, not that it matters to you or anyone else. Just putting that out there -- you're not the only one who can have a meltdown, shutdown or other ill effects from the stress of these interactions.

I'm not "crashing" anything down on your head. I'm re-stating things that you show evidence of being unwilling to take onboard.

Something else pertinent that in fact the other poster raised in another completely unrelated thread -- she is at this present moment, at the age of 18 to 20 (it's not clear as she said 20 but her info at the side panel says 18), higher functioning and more independent than I was at her age.

Indicating somewhat that she may be able to become even more independent and high functioning than I am even after 50 years. I was considered a hopeless case at your age and at her age.

Another illustration of how some people on the spectrum -- I'm not saying all, I'm saying some -- actually can find that with help and support they can improve in their ability to achieve certain stageposts, as they get older.

You have a ton of support around you. There is every reason to believe that as you get older and have these supports, you will probably achieve more in life than I have managed to do in my messed up trajectory.

I wouldn't be surprised if you are here at age 30 as an app developer or something, making so much money that I'm asking to borrow my rent money.

And your wife is telling me where to go.

Seriously, the one mistake I think a younger person may make in comparing themselves to older or "more functioning" people is that they themselves are not finished yet in the process of growing and learning and coping with more in life, and the older people were very often once less functional when younger too, to one degree or another.

This whole controversy and the resulting arguments are really upsetting to me. I guess I should not be reading this stuff. Seeing other people argue over this is just really distressing.

I'm distressed also and I never wanted to be drawn into this dragging on, but I'm tired of the way this comes up so regularly, this issue of level of how severely affected, and one set of people constanty questioning the very validity the other, by any other name.

It is a spectrum. Even those who decide the official diagnosis criteria have embraced this. There are always going to be people of varying ability, achievement and impairment, and not all of it is even going to come across in posts online, unless everyone posts their entire life stories or remembers to point out every negative.

There are people here way better functioning than I am, yet it never occurs to me to go: "Why do they have a diagnosis? They don't seem impaired. Is it being over diagnosed?"

But the people who are so-called less functioning than I am do this a lot to the others "more" functioning.

It gets explained but never really accepted. I'm as tired of it as anyone.

LET. IT. GO.

That is because you throw way too much at me to be able take in. Feels like you are just continually beating me over the head and raking me over the coals. I'm not someone you take your lifetime of frustration on. I am a cognitive impaired child and you are 10 years older than my parents. I have been out of school for six weeks because of a life threatening illness. A couple of days ago is the first time I ever really brought it up. Not your entire lifetime, a couple of days ago. Please find someone else to take all your frustrations out on. And I don't mean the other teenager. Thank you.

I'm not "taking anything out" on you. I have already stated it does not feel good to even be having this tense interaction with someone young. I'm fully aware of your situation and your age.

I'm also aware that you are very intelligent and I'm not prepared to condescend or patronize you by stating things in any other way than I would to another person, an older person, etc.

I'm posting what I believe or hope to be things that answer your own arguments/questions, things which you don't appear to accept as none of this is the first time you have questioned the validity of the impairment levels of others.

I'm done with this. You're playing the pity game when I have striven to do you the favor of not insulting your intelligence by posting anything other than things I know you can handle and comprehend.

I have always admired you and had no problem with you until you began more than once in different ways to express lack of acceptance of people like me.

You have been playing the pity game a lot more than me. I just dished some of it back at you. You go on and on about how I am a bigot towards "people like you" which is A LIE You are making false claims againt me. Your conduct towards me has been the absolute worst.

Last edited by EzraS on 11 Feb 2016, 9:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

This is now a complete farce. Don't worry about ignoring me, you've now lost any last bit of respect I had for you as it's nothing but a mud-slinging match now.

But one thing remains true -- you are needling a set of people that you outright don't believe should even have their diagnosis. That's never going to be okay and you're upset that anyone called you out on it. I'm also not the only one who did so.

I'm done with this BS.

I agree with this. We're not making any more progress, or coming to understand each other better. Ezra is entitled to his opinion, and we are entitled to ours, and at this point it's pretty clear those are two different things. It's okay.

There's a fine line to being entitled to an opinion, and making a habit of calling into question the validity of the diagnoses of a grouping of people, something that has always caused problems on here and isn't okay.

I'm no angel by a long way, but I wouldn't dream of doubting a differently or better "functioning" person's diagnosis or impairment. It's not a competition. It's not a severity merit game. But I'm not the one making it be so.

*Eats jelly love hearts.*

You are a lying against me. There is no one hear that I know if that I believe should not have their diagnosis. This is something you made up in your head against me. And then gone after me tooth and nail over it. You are very right about all the BS though.