Autismus - ohne wäre die Normalität gestört

 

 

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Autistics – unsound?

To this day it is often stated that autistics are ill, unsound. Is that true?

It is just as true or false as the assertion homosexuality or sinistrality to be unsound or ill. The term „unsound/ill“ is a cultural one, not one that´s fixed in nature.

In 1974 the American Psychiatric Association (APA) effaced homosexuality due to an enactment from the previous year off the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders code: DSM, the previous version DSM-II – not least owing to the scientific results of Evelyn Hooker. Until then homosexuality was considered to be a mental-health problem.

Quelle

But apart from philosophic considerations everyone should be aware, that those classifications as well reflect society´s sway. Related to autism the term „unsound/ill“ is therefore without a doubt affected by hostility against the different (Xenophobia). Who marks autistics or autism as „unsound/ill“ discloses him/herself to be unsound oneself or at least unreflected, sotosay.

Homosexuals, like autistics today, have been alleged that they were less capable, a point of view that most would consider absurd today:

And 1935 he wrote in a letter to his mother, that even homosexuals – through analysis – can obtain „harmony, peace of mind an full capability“.[24]

ibidem

That what makes homosexuals fall ill isn´t their homosexuality but the social marginalisation. Nothing different applies to autistics either, essentially.

Something near it was aimed at women not too long ago, who weren´t considered ill but completely retarded:

In those days in Berlin reigns the Kaiser, in Paris the Eiffel Tower amazes, in London the tube causes quite a stir – and women have to wear tight dresses, must neither study nor work without permission of their husbands, nor have independent means, let alone vote. In the second half of the 19th century young girls are laced in menacing corsets and prepared for the sole purpose of their life: They were to be married off as advantageously as possible. They are considered weak and unable of intellectual achievement.

Quelle

Thomas von Aquin, one of the most important philosophers, are amongst others accredited the following statements (we didn´t verify it so far!):

Woman is an error of nature […] a kind of maimed, botched man […] the highest consummation of humankind is only the man.

Girls sprout from faulty semen or clammy breezes

 

Main features concerning the collision of autistic characteristics with a non-autistic environment

Not all autistics may perceive all of the specific perceptions as represented. To archieve barrier-freeness for all autistic-kind it is however necessary to cover each aspect.

Autistics do not filter sensory stimuli, but perceive them more or less undistinguished and permanently have to decide with an active mental effort, which stimulus to put a special attention to. Therefore can f.e. the pleasant non-autistic mixture of sounds turn into a barrier for autistics to orientate themselves in an environment.

Each requirement to filter through sensory stimuli draws upon mental capacity, somehow being a veil which permanently has to be pervaded. Which stimulus and to which grade affects an individual autistic depends on his/her unique character. Like every other person as well, autistics are partly rather visually focused, partly rather acustically and partly otherwise as well.

The more single barriers are to be found in a situation, the more the overall barrier-ness. A considerable psychic effort is most likely, which oversteps easily, what non-autistics would voluntarily take upon themselves. Autistics however are used to permanently go to their limit, but that´s far from being psychically healthy. These permanent efforts result in syndroms, which can comply with the Burn-out. It can be a horrible experience to be exceedingly incriminated through situations, which apear to be taken for granted by other people. This can lead to a considerable self-esteem as a looser, to psychic traumas, whose reasons the non-autistic environment can´t even begin to fathom.

Who is forced to live in a world that isn´t shaped according to ones disposition, can develop considerable self-doubts. The insight that not oneself is the problem but the unfitting shaping of the environment seems farfetched as long as there doesn´t exist a contact to the autistic subculture.

Remarkably small people are obviously not able to reach the topmost rack in a supermarket without a ladder. The differece in reception of autistics nearly doesn´t show, particularly because most autistics have learned, through imitation of essentially alien behaviour patterns, to blend in. Therefore most people react very different than they do in the case of a small person. Support is not to be expected, because the problem doesn´t show. Who f.e. does the shopping for a obviously bodily healthy person that claims to be momentarily not able to do it? Wouldn´t it be wrong, maybe, to support a shyness instead of giving encouragement to do so themselves?

Attention: This listing is due to it´s structure fit to support pathologizing clichés. That´s due to the thematically set und doesn´t offer an explanation how to judge the described charcteristics absolutely.

Movements

Autistics who spend time in an environment shaped to just non-autistic needs often meet a lot of moving objects. In natural surroundings on the other hand there are rarely quick and interlinked movements. Gras and trees swaying gently in the wind, here and there a bird flies. Those movements mostly range in an acceptable limit for an autistic who´s not too nervously strained through other barriers of the daily life.

To react sensibly to movements in a natural context makes sense easily. The variaty of forms in nature has its manageable limits.

Quite different f.e. the traffic in urban streets in combination with flickering neon-advertisements and varied gaudy designs of cities. A single moving object in the field of view should be manageable for most autistics. But even frequently appearing, rapidly moving single objects can lead to a considerable strain. The more a szene with a lot of different partaking movements. Especially inappropriate are different directions- and speeds of movement. This alone allready can cause a complete breakdown of the reception because this stimuli can´t be worked out timerelatedly.

3D-Vision

A lot of autistics seem to have no or strongly reduced abilities to three-dimensional vision. This has been changed f.e. to Donna Williams through individually adapted glasses, with which she claims to be able to receive her surroundings remarkably more vividly. Experience of the ESH has it, that this effect is rarely known even to circles of experts.

The three-dimensional view is important for the evaluation of distances and the size of objects. Both relate to one another. Who can´t estimate a distance very well, doesn´t know how far away an object is, and who doesn´t know that, can´t estimate its size.

Detailzoom

Another effect to make the estimation of the size of an object incalculable is the feature of some autistics, to zoom in on details in their vicinity via a „tunnel vision“ like through an object lens. That can as well unconsciously happen. It may seem therefore to some autistics as if f.e. a bus is considerably closer or far than it actually is. Who allready handled such a zoom, knows, that a view through the zoom can put completely out of focus what happens directly adjacent to oneself.

It´s anybody´s guess, that this in itself quite useful quality can get out of hand in a context of permanent excessive demands.

K.O.-patterns

Some patterns like grids and grills or grooved moving stairs can set autistics temporarily out of order, if the look hits them. Amongst autistics it varies which and how much patterns trigger a susceptibility.

Hence it would be desirable to eleminate those compositions, especially if the opportunity arises, due to barrierfreeness off public areas.

Reflexions

Those can be perceived still stronger than by non-autistics.

Brightness

For some autistics the brightness of daylight is overly glaring and wearing. Therefore some autistics are always wearing sunglasses. This like a lot of other things shouldn´t be tried to make an autistic to overcome out of a missionary understanding. Principally autistics should be encouraged to live their individual style, because more often than it appears to be the case with non-autistics there are well-founded reasons to it. Compare to breeze and „too warm clothes“.

Autistics are often able to orientate in a quantity of light that is „dark“ as far as non-autistics are concerned. It is out of place if non-autistics to impose their impression of „right“ brightness upon autistics and hence have autistics to cope with a too intense glaring. Autistics are occasionally able to distinguish their surroundings while non-autistics find it impossible to see the hand in front of their face. This intensity may be just fine and comfortable for autistics.

Artificial light

Blinding light like spots on a car or traffic-lights are strong single-stimuli. A further problem is the too low chopping frequency of flourescent lamps, which will presumably be the only ones available in a few years.

Color filter and artefacts

Under stress or without at first detectable reason the visual reception of some autistics can assume a strong colour fault. That can lead to problems where signals are rendered unnoticable or writing on coloured ground becomes unreadable.

Artefacts as well can supply to the visual reception. Artefacts can f.e. be swimming lines or flying dots.

Synaesthesia

An over-average lot of autistics are synaesthetics. Means, that involuntarily associations are taking place, which tie different senses together. F.e. the smell of roses provokes a visual impression.

Synaestesia is proven to support a higher ability to memorize, because the memories get a better grip.

Change of the familiar view

The overall-impression of a location can change considerably for an autistic through for non-autistics marginal changes. F.e. problems with the orientation may appear just through a unaccustomed altitude of the sun with the resulting changes of the shadows.

Cut trees, mowed gras, all that can interfere with the orientation of autistics. It depends on the individual an the actual condition (the previous nervous impacts during the last months which are accounting for much), how strong the effects are.

Varieties in shapes and styles

The variety of natural shapes is as allready mentioned manageable. That´s different with industrial products. Permanently appear new, unknown shapes and designs, which at first can´t even be gripped. This increased compexity of the daily-life surroundings hampers the systematization of steric structures and the orientation, exhausts awareness for survey and grading. Subjectively this can as well be considered rather pleasant like listening to the radio while doing office-work for NA. The individual concentration diminishes verifiably, but that is lost most of the time to the people (due to wanting self-evaluation of all people).

A surrounding with a lot of rather unknown objects can confuse autistics. The orientation can be especially reduced in such a surrounding, because benchmarks are unknown or doesn´t fetch the attention. Such unknown objects can render known structures irrecognizable or hard to identify.

In a figurative sense this goes not only for the visual but for all other senses as well.

Civilizing sounds

Through non-autistics shaped locations emit generally a wide variety of sounds. Non-autistics describe their experience that sounds can provide a pleasure for them. Owing to their nature they rather shy away from an acoustic insolated laboratory. Most of them flee those rooms in a panic after a short while. It is understandable therefore, that the non-autistic majority install more or less unconciously a certain sound-hurly-burly in their locations as a background, a mark of identity and home. To autistics this may appear completely different as allready outlined in the introduction to this section.

Sound intensity

Autistics receive the surrounding stimuli not only unfiltered but as well more pronounced than non-autistics. Relating to sounds this means, that usual noise is received still louder. With language it leads to the impression of non-autistics that autistics speak too hushed, because non-autistics have a less developed hearing and it is uncomfortable to raise the voice. Everyone knows that from contacts with hearing-impaired people without hearing-aid.

Frequency range

Many autistics hear sound even in a range of frequency, that adult non-autistics generally don´t, f.e. some cries of bats, the device to scare away marten in parking cars or buzzing and crackling in electric conductions.

Therefore it may wrongly appear to non-autistics, as if individual autistics would suffer delusions, because they obviously react to something which can´t be detected by non-autistics. The cliché to be dependent is hence superbly confirmed. In a toy-shop there are devices to measure frequencies available, which can sort that out. Especially non-speaking autistics can suffer from this sounds, leading to grave selfmutilations after years of continuous electric buzzing in the walls.

Here an awareness should develop, that the odd reactions of autistics allways have a reason. If not this, than another. To deny it means in a lot of cases the denial of support and the thoughtless destruction of complex courses of life with horrid costs to be met by public funds to keep under lock and key the debris of once promising but unrecognized personalities. Autistics often are considered to be mentally disabled because they don´t react the way non-autistics are accustomed to from themselves.

Smells

According to the sounds it goes analogically for smells and flavours. Irregular appearing smells can be irritating. A lot of autistics detest perfumes on people or especially on themselves.

Temperature

Autistics often have in daily life a rather vague reception of temperatures or just dismiss it due to the many stimuli they have to cope with allready. But curiously to fetch a cold is seldom the case. It may be helpful to provide a thermometer. Some autistics may sweat and freeze at the same time, maybe the impression of a vague reception of temperature is due to the fact, that single impressions of temperature aren´t put together like it is the case with non-autistics, but are perceived separated.

An autistic who is immerged in something may not feel it, if he f.e. pours boiling water on his hand, and receives ist mayby just rationally.

Differences in temperature f.e. after entering a building can irritate and furthermore temporalily distract autistics.

Airmovements

Airmovements affect the tactile sense. Some autistics are especially sensitive about this. Particularly soft airmovements like a gentle breeze can affect a heavy sensory strain, often more pronounced than a continuous, substancial airmovement. To dress oneself to cover most of the body may have its origins here. To refuse an autistics to do so, because in some seasons it seems to be „to warm“, can mean to expose someone to a sensitive distress, because it generally doesn´t reflect on the outside and therefore isn´t detectable for non-autistics, but affects heavily to the soul and can result in serious traumata. Strong wind on the other hand can be a pleasant sensation for the same autistic, because it applies a similar pressure like a Squeeze-Machine and therefore provokes relaxation.

Touches

Many autistics react really sensitive to spontaneous touches of other people. In touched parts of the body the feeling of being numb and dead or burningly painful can remain for days after the contact. Owing to this unpleasant experience a lot of autistics don´t even like it, if people get too close without agreement. If possible a distance should be established that correspondes with the reach of the other person, because a lot of autistics allready feel threatened out of experience, the more because they can´t evaluate, when another person actually is going to touch them without agreement. Basicly thats a normal human reflex of protection, which is considered „unnormal“ or „exaggerated“ by non-autistics, just because it is not due to the mutually expected in a non-autistic majority. And this majority claims to be the better, the „healthy“ part of society as opposed to the seemingly alien, and therefore doubtless to be right.

It should be conceded to autistics to leave the the seat to oneself unoccupied in public transport, especially when it becomes crowded. Because a stuffed public service vehicle is allready a strain due to the condensed stimuli.

Disgusting feel of surfaces

Some surfaces affects some autistics really repulsively and similar to visual K.O.-patterns, even spontaneous emetic. It is disadvantageous to outfit f.e. handles with such textures.

Uneven and irregular terrain

Like every other person an unstructured terrain requires more attention from autistics. In the woods that may not be a problem due to absent stimuli of non-autistic shaped surroundings. In a built-up area it can further diminish the ability to orientate.

Not included are regionally structured or with haptic signals outfitted flooring, which can rather sub-divide the space sensibly and hence provide a disburdening effect.

Even smooth but slightly angled terrain can irritate autistics considerably due to the equilibrium sense.

Fellow men as possible threats

Especially fellow men can due to their autonomous acting appear threatening to an autistic. Their actions are often not predictable, the empathy of non-autistics for autistics owing to their different nature of experience is often alarmingly low developed. Will a person start a conversation which meaning is lost? Will be owing to the lacking mimic guess that the autistic isn´t well and therefore even more enquire or try to lighten things up? „Good intentions“ often are the exact opposite of „good“, every autistic knows that too well. Not a good fundament for meetings with other people on public ground.

Order

Its attested to autistics to appreciate ritualizations. This isn´t true so across-the-board, but before an autistic confronts oneself with the daily hell of stimuli, all has to be in order as much as possible. To act flexibly under the considerable strain of stimuli beyond the known, secure and controllable retreating room of sorts is hardly managable, because no-one is able to think reasonably under such a heavy strain, which confronts autistics generally in daily life. Therefore it is really important for autistics to come across a relieable order in all aspects of life that are affected by the strain of stimuli. The purpose of this order is to prevent by all means to have to think in this situations.

Respite

An autistic under strain to whom is put a question in an inscrutable way, be it formally or contextually, may need a while to answer. This goes accordingly for every other reactions as well. Who has more to cope with has even more to sort out. Impatience displayed in gestures, enquiries, etc. add to the difficulties of autistics furthermore. A body language that suggests to NA obliviousness should by no means be misinterpreted to be an unwillingness to answer.

Unsettled issues

Very irksome for autistics are delayed procedures where the outcome is as jet unclear. That can especially mean dealings with public agencies or ongoing judicial proceedings over a great many of months. Autistics handle such proceedings mainly serially, are therefore eager to sort cases out quickly to turn their attention to other things afterwards. Simultaneous unsettled requests can put a heavy strain on autistics and result in incapability of action because the open issues can´t be forgotten, unless the autistic has been taken so far that nothing matters to him/her anymore anyway.

Barrier-freeness gets an important impact here, because generally nowadays the answer to those difficulties is to get the affairs of an autistic done by a non-autistic. But he thinks in completely different ways and can´t be as competent as the autistic, and that´s a tough burden for the latter. Non-autistics are furthermore, from an autistic point of view, wayward and don´t understand a lot of wishes. The upcoming costs goes at the expense of the community, which wouldn´t be necessary, if the order of proceedings were designed especially barrier-free for autistics, means a acknowlegdement of high priority and announcements of delay owing to inevitable enquiries including a note when to expect the answer. It should seriously be taken care of to put these requirements into action through the referee, that it is understood how important this priority is for autistics to take an autonomous part in the society. It just can´t be, that citizens, who are well able to sort out their own affairs, are hindered via such barriers to do just that, only due to unconquerable general conditions. It also just can´t be, that autistics renounce a right and refuse the sanction of injustice inflicted upon them, just because the barriers are too unsurmountable to cope with.

Link

Here (extern) is a shorter and more recent text with similar aim to be found, which may add and can be critically prized.

Autistics – nonautistic imputations

This page is a „Wiki“. Means, every registered user can edit to improve.

There are a lot of characteristics which are imputated to autistics, which under closer examination not only reveal to be highly questionable but as well that, funny as it seems, fit in comparison rather to average non-autistics than to autistics. This may appear absurd indeed to a lot of people, but under closer examination the coerciveness is often remarkable.

Imputations and reality

  1. Autistics have an underdeveloped social-competenceOne of the crucial points in the pathologizing of autistics allegedly is a lesser social competence. The question arises, what exactly is to be understood by social competence. Is it all about mastering a language? It doesn´t seem as if todays non-autistics rank, owing to a barbarian-understanding (barbarian = someone who doesn´t speaks the own language and who therefore isn´t understood but just „bar bar bar“) other non-autistics in this category. That wouldn´t sit well with a „globalized“ world of speedy transporting and communication. The contact is too easy to uphold such a social marginalization. And even considerable cultural distinctions are respected nowadays, at least those areas with a socially widespread material prosperity.

    To get in contact with members of other cultures is easily possible these days, whereas its´s quite different with autistics, allthough such possibilities are available in some parts of the internet. This possibilities are largely unknown, which as a fact limits their accessibility considerably. If autistics in common internetfora reveal themselves and doesn´t seem to fit the usual clichès a lot of users are uncertain, which often leads to an exclusion of the autistic. The reproaches are often amazing, the user alleged to be a fake and his/her reports would even discriminate disadvantaged people or make fun of them. The „gravity of the situation“ aren´t compied. And actually – how is the common member of a forum to know who takes part in a forum. As a fact this leads unluckily to a cruel exclusion of autistics, so far as they reveal themselves for what they are in their usage of the forum. This as well restricts the accessibility, the presence of autistics in the internetcommunity as a means for autistics to be a barrier-free stage of communication.

    Systematically isn´t detectable that „social competence“ should be applied to cultural habits. Regionally defined cultures sometimes show a lower part which can´t be ascribed to socially learned predisposition. With subcultures, cultures, whose members still have to find each other in a regional community, it may appear different, especially if characterlikenings are touched (f.e. gothics). Deaf Pride and Autistic Pride can be classified here as well. According to wellknown mechanisms of generation gap the communical appraisal processes dynamically and most of the time isn´t declared objectively.

    As long as autistics lead a life under halfway suitable conditions they are highly social-competent amongst each other. Teamwork (after a familiarization, like as well NA pass through – because as a majority they find each other more easily, generally they familiarize in childhood) works out more easily in fact than amongst common NA, who owing to their nature allways as well develop a social behavior as a pack, which disturbes teamwork on a stark plane considerably and results in economic wastage that counts milliones each year. In general, ideas and correctness imply a lot more to many autistics than to common NA, who mostly rather think about drawing a personal advantage out of everything, no matter if it endamages the collective or not. That leads to the amazing fact, that autistics amongst themselves obviously cooperate a lot more effective than NA seems to be able to be and as well show a higher developed social competence.

  2. Autistics are doomed to feel permanently forlorn or Autistics are to commiserate with because they rarely feel somethingA lot of autistics are terribly forlorn and lonely. Therefore some even wish to be dead. But under closer scrutiny this problem becomes obvious to be socially evoked. Autistics as a minority are rather distributed and are marveled at, but suffer under a lot of ugly clichès. Autistics aren´t computers, if maybe to outsiders we appear to be due to a different body-language or owing to barriers don´t seem to react.

    Autistics do have deep feelings, as well deep collective feelings. But the realm of feelings of autistics actually seems to be quite differently structured from average non-autistics. Autistics don´t consider this to be a disadvantage but, quite the reverse, regard it as a paramount blessing. The realm of feelings of autistics is a perfect solution, complete in itself. Contrariwise we know, that a lot of non-autistics feel lonely despite many „friends“ and especially owing to their nature are longing for openheartedness, but have difficulties to put it into practice, because their social behavior as a pack effects them strongly as well and overrules the „noble“ mental and spiritual needs. A lot of religions seem to be downright determined for non-autistics to become more autistic, whereas wellknown religious personalities may have been autistics themselves, who just couldn´t wrap their heads around how most of the people live their life. So f.e. it´s written of Moses to have been „lumbering of mouth and lumbering of tongue“.

The german version is longer. Do you want to translate more of it?

Autistics and the Stockholm-Syndrom

Humans need to be treated humanely. If that´s not given, they tend to pretend as though it would. A special relationship logically exists to persons, who influence the own life. Occasionally, that goes as well for those who do something with us which really isn´t appealing to us. Be it hostage-taker, hopelessly retrograde therapists or parents.

Unaffected persons, to whom just their infringements of rights are revealed, doesn´t realise, that even the greatest criminal has his human aspects, which maybe partly can be likeable as well. The victim is in certain circumstances interpersonally close to the perpetrator, is searching security and a human role model.

Discrimination of involuntary minorities in day-to-day life is due to their lifelong duration a severe crime. Who can pull it off out of oneself to endure a serious measure of cruelty done to oneself without suppressing the atrocity, to play it down? It needs sturdy human reference, which a lot of autistics lack.

Autistics, being to this days a seriously discriminated minority, are taken ill with the Stockholm-Syndrom, which prevents those single autistics to represent their interests appropriately or to even halfways detect, which injustice they endure. Symptomatic is a conspicuous accumulation of points of view of autistics, according to which everything would be in essence quite fine the way it is. Certainly, everything can be worse. Who is tortured with red-hot iron is relatively well, it could be worse after all. The slave is frightened about the repeal of the slavery, about the uncertainty to leave a accustomed role. Those slaves actually existed, they aren´t a fairy-tale. They as well where taken ill with the later so-called and discribed Stockholm-Syndrom of a rather wide-ranging definition, which as well includes crime-traumas sustained long-term.

Above an active stand up against rights and freedom of barriers for the own minority this sprouts highly absurd flowers, like autistics even justify the murder of other autistics commited by their parents through uttering their sympathy. It´s a tough job to handle „us autistics“. This symptoms are as well be found with other people, which are commonly considered to be human waste and just euphemistically are called differently: „the dispossession of awareness revises chatteringly the arguments of the head-master …“ The slave reprimands his fellow slave, who was disobedient towards his Master and Owner and points out, that his punishment of 40 lashes of the whip are wholly justified. Twisted world. Suffering souls.

There has to be an end to it.

Autistics taken ill with the Stockholm-Syndrom can´t take up a responsible activity during their indisposition in the community of interests. We ask for some understanding here. Helping activities they can probably carry out. With the search for an appropriate psychologist the ESH is gladly of assistance anytime.

Autistics – swan oder golem

An image seems still to be prevailing of autistics as golems, an an unfinished, incomplete non-autistic, who only through fancy therapies and a lot of efforts can halfway be mended to become a real human being, whereas humankind is considered to be the roughly average character of non-autistics. Through the nonautistic kind the world shall recover, sotosay – so what´s new?

Maybe Andersens „Ugly Duckling“ as well would have been under therapie and surgery, to at least become a more or less right duckling. If the other ducks wouldn´t have been just disconcerted and searching for their groupidentity – but as well had wanted to help the duckling with a seemingly human attempt to find happiness – like it is done these days amongst humankind with involuntary minorities.

Very lucky indeed the duckling has been, that in its time the duckkind didn´t reach where humankind is today in a wide range. Because only a relatively undisturbed and not through training brainwashed swan is in the position to discover sometime where he belongs, where he fits.

Autistics – nothing else

waffle, not just a few reader may think. Too obvious seems the impression of diverse disabilities of autistics. Too less known is the fact, that autistics amongst themselves indeed feel empathy and are able to sensetively communicate in a certain way with each other, wich NA themselves at least partially can´t grip. That, which the majority doesn´t see, doesn´t feel, is impossible to be considered. The involuntary minority without an own, strong culture however aims itself against its disposition and therefore against its health, hence seems to be, mistakenly, rarely viable under such adverse circumstances. It is lost in an alien surrounding, often exposed to just different parents or friends, whose partial affection is interwoven with continuous discrimination, who aren´t willing or able to just basically summon the necessary measure to come close to an understanding. What´s left is mutual disconcertment, which wears down the minority and contribute to the impression of the majority, the minority wouldn´t be viable without support. Without a trace of a doubt the standard created by the majority is accepted and forgotten, that a minority, given the part of a dominant culture, certainly would have considered its own needs, which is why obstacles and hindrances of the daily life are in fact due to the minorityrole, not to their qualities, which includes strong points and weak spots proportionally to the majority.

Autistics – integration

Integration with two sides:

  1. A coloured person can´t get no job because of his colour. Therefore he is put into an „Administration“ to integrate. He is taught there, by people who are mainly convinced of the inferiority of his race, to use white make-up to better blend in. Doing as he´s been told, he gets the job to clean the toilets. His cause will serve as an example to demonstrate successful integration to further participants of similar courses.
  2. A coloured person can´t get no job because of his colour. Therefore an „Assistant for integration“ is allocated to him, who helps him to stand up against illegal discrimination. The assistant spots such discriminations in a number of companies and sends documentations about it to the responsible antidiscrimination-department, which can impose a fine. This way he finally gets a job as a product-designer.

For most people the first version sounds absurd, assumedly. If suchlike came to happen, the outcry would be considerable, probably.

For autistics, version 1 is to this day normality, though.

But the german basic law states:

Art. 3

[…]

(3)No-one must, owing to his gender, origins, race, language, home and homeland, believes, religious or political convictions, being put to a disadvantage nor favoured.

 

Autistics – a minority

Parallel culture with a wide variety of languages and difficulties to understand one another tend, under certain circumstances, to circle each other suspiciously. Variety of languages? Yes, autistics stress owing to their character disposition language quite differently, grant the verbal part of language a greater significance than non-autistics generally do.

Latter communicate preferably through hinting body-signals, the tuning of the voice, etc. Vastly verbal communication (f.e. purely written via internet) appears therefore to be sparse and less attractive. Autistics often tend to have a far more casual respect to their bodys, to consider it to be more like a tool than a part of their person or even themselves.

Essentially for the building of misunderstandings is the cluelessness about existing differences. In some areas of the world a headshake means confirmation and a nod rejection. A member of the minority of autistics who expresses him/herself according to his/her nature mainly verbally, without tensing and moving the body like non-autists prefer to do, most likely leads to the impression of non-autistics, that those signals transport the stirring of emotions.

It follows that amongst non-autistic language an autistic appears to be apathetic, indifferent, weak, depressiv, dead, etc. Few NA will consider the thought, that an autistic just rarely communicates through the body, because NA know, that this bodylanguage is a mighty if subconscious expression of themselves. Hence the large amount of books and courses about bodylanguage. They are not all just bought by autistics, either, but above all by NA who really want to learn how to lie through bodylanguage as well.

That much said it would be, for a NA based on his/her self-consideration, completely out of question to assume a fundamentally different disposition of communication, which is not learned but part of the character of a person. Here the NA-empathy crumbles to dust, which only works, if similarity in their own receptions of the world and those of their fellow humans can be detected. Being a minority autistics are highly restricted to use their natural given empathy. If the majority-ratio were the other way round – who wouldn´t claim that NA instead of autistics would experience themselves to be aliens.

Because a lot of people tend healthyly to jugde themselves including their character to be positiv, based on this very misunderstanding a lot of NA tend, after this unheard of strangeness came to their attention, to feel sorry for it to be an inadequate deviation:

„But sauerkraut with gravy is just so delicious! I´m sooo very sorry that you can´t enjoy it. You must be ill! You can´t imagine what you are missing! Go get some help, why don´t you!“

The arrogance of the majority is known for their tendency to make minorities outcasts. What can be part of mutual pressure of conformity, f.e. in a generation gap, in a self-choosen minority becomes fastly a far-reaching traumatic experience. The pressure of conformity is not aimed against freely choosen convictions but against the own unchangeable so-being, the person itself.

Seemingly the majority needs minorities existentially to define itself and abuses them for this means in a contemptuous way. Alternatively contributive effects of inside and outwardly „Others“ are seldom considered to contain ideals, for those ideals just even bring the other-ness to mind.

Such outcasting creates grave damages like the huge costs a war brings on an international level or inhuman circumstances and un-equal opportunities of outcast minorities on a civil level.

While on the other hand outcasting of this kind doesn´t fit with the christian roots of our modern ethics a lot of money is meanwhile spent to undo the effects of outcasting. But because a lot of members of majorities as well as the amongst each other unfamiliar minorities consider discrimination very common indeed and just don´t notice it any more, something very surprising happens:

Those through in many cases inefficient structures and corruption still increased costs to at least partially undo outcasting are considered basically to be taken responsebility of through the minorities themselves. The costs which arise for the police are thrown at the victims: „Why did you get yourself beaten up and so cause an expensive proceeding“. This weird logic only works, if an arrogant majority is sure enough to be unaffected and hence without further disturbance of their ego can freeze their empathy as far as minorities are concerned.

Autism – the question about the definition

Every now and then we got the hint that we, being a community of interest of autistics, don´t provide a clear definition of autism. Indeed such a definition never has been found on this site.

The pathologizing, deficit-orientated definitions not only are worthless owing to their utterly arbitrary cultural assessment, they often list as well alleged symptoms, which aren´t in fact especially autistic but rather an expression of commonly human psychological continuous stress. Due to still often adverse – if avoidable – circumstances of life of autistics we are exceptionally often in such conditions and as well show more often such behaviour. This certain overlap represents just a statistical effect. Then again we think, speaking of autistics, of quite a group of persons who are, owing to this term, in medical perception. But there is no valid definition known to us to be considered sufficiently fitting, therefore we are so honest to not stand up for any such definition.

Autism is a real existing archetypal being, which nevertheless despite it being a fact is hard to grip. Non-autistics don´t know how autistics feel. Autistics don´t know how non-autistics feel. That leads to a certain difficulty: who shall compare what seems to be so fundamental different?

We autistics every so often come to the conclusion, that peculiarities attributed to autistics on closer examination and, above all with growing insight, in actual facts fit again and again amazingly a lot better to common non-autistics themselves. How comes? A negativ projection of own, not achieved values to the unfamiliar?

Who´s got a definition to offer is welcome to discuss it with us, preferably at the comments.

Autism – the stereotype

A german proverb has it: “Among blind the one-eyed is the king!“ But this proverb is not true: „Among blind the one-eyed will end in a lunatc asylum!“

Heinz von Foerster

Well, an uniform stereotype certainly doesn´t exist, because stereotypes generally don´t go back to a joint root. Nevertheless there is a mighty trend:

Autistics consider only themselves, and in a social-harming way at that. They sponge their community, behaving ruthlessly. Autistics are our common enemy, those who have never even heard about lasting economy. That, in any case, has f.e. to be the autism-impression provided by the Organisation Post-autistischer Ökonomie, who where not inclined, even after it being pointed out to them, to change their discriminatory name.

„The post-autistic economy is an in the year 2000 in France arised movement of students of economy, who were dissatisfied with the agreed on opinion in the economic field as beeing solipsistic, impractical and unrealistic.“

Autism: solipsistic, impractical, unrealistic.

Used in political practice autism is applied to call the opponents unrealistic. In case that someone who isn´t acting quick-tempered can´t be despised as being „emotional“, the autism-stereotype has to be abused.

But: is that the way autistics really are? Who´s interested may continue to read the other pages.

Here and now a so far well hidden secret will be disclosed: Autistics are human beings as anybody else as well.

Autism – the term

What kind of name is that, actually? Does it suit to describe oneself?

The medically used word „autism“ has its origins in greek, „autos“, wich kann be roughly translated with „self“, „on its own“ or „alone“.

The same root can be found in the terms „autonomy“ (autos = self; nomos = law) and „automobile“ (autos = self; mobilis = movable). „Autonymity“(?) as opposed to „anonymity“ describes the fact to do something using actually the own name (autos = self and onyma =name instead of: an = not and onyma = name). To be „autochton“(?) means to be old- and long-established (autos = direct; chthon = soil/ground, home).

The gift of reflexion can be considered positively. Particularly in a society, whose members often suffer to loose themselves. The term „autism“ in its etymological natur is therefor rather flexible and includes outright spiritual dimensions. A compliment. Just the prevailing stereotype is annoying.

To call oneself an autistic – in principle no problem.

(?) Never heard those words before, meself. My dictionary refused to spit out how to spell them as well ;-) *Your humble translator*

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