[dijit]

I'm going to be rude now, but I don't mean it to be taken that way.

"I know a guy with a leg missing, and he can still run, so clearly someone who has lost their legs is able".

I have had the discussion a bunch of times, I'm beginning to think that nobody other than me has spent a significant amount of time with severely autistic people.

Yes, some autistic people can mask quite well, and, some are mild cases.

But the crucial issue that most autistic people have is: they don't even become aware that they're being rude unless they spend active effort in first identifying, then understanding, then trying to fix it.

I'll tell you something else too: most people are uncomfortable with criticism, it makes them defensive and clam up. If you make someone defensive, enough times, then the situation becomes infected and very emotionally charged.

Now, imagine you have an illness that prevents you from processing your emotions properly, and the whole world is unkind to you, and you can't really understand why, but people call you rude.

It takes a lot of bravery and integrity to really reflect on that soberly.

Please, I implore you all to stop pretending you understand autism because you know someone- or a bunch of self diagnosed people, I keep seeing it[0], autistic people have great difficulty controlling how they're perceived, that's the whole issue.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37200502

[FireBeyond]

> I'm beginning to think that nobody other than me has spent a significant amount of time with severely autistic people.

I'm going to say that your definition of "severely autistic" is actually mild to moderate at worst.

The definition of "severely autistic" I know of and have seen in personal experience (family) and in my career has nothing to do with "masking" and such.

It's being a late teenager who is effectively non-verbal, who wore diapers until age 12, who has an "anchoring dog", a 150lb Newfoundland that was trained from birth with audio recordings of him screaming or tantrums, that acts both as an emotional support, but as a literal anchor - tethered to him so that when, as many severely autistic people do, he starts to wander based on internal stimuli - the dog can just sit down and tense up and say "Not unless you plan on dragging a very large dog with you that is trained to stay still when it notices you walking away from your family".

Things along those lines.

> they don't even become aware that they're being rude unless they spend active effort in first identifying, then understanding, then trying to fix it.

This is demonstrably not RMS. He is quite aware of this, and quite openly states he has no intention of apologizing for it, let alone "fixing it".

[dijit]

The “severe” autism that I used to experience, at least the most severe that I experienced was non-verbal, sometimes with violent outbursts.

But of course there’s a whole range.

What concerns me though is that when I’m on the internet, people talk about autism like it’s a quirky character flaw that can be overridden with moderate effort.

Which feels criminally ignorant.

[TheTaytay]

Hasn’t the definition of autism in the DSM changed to the point of requiring only a single characteristic to be “technically” on the spectrum, whereas it used to require many more criteria? I think it’s literally “not what it used to be”.

It seems like a diagnosis that would benefit from more distinguishing words so as not to conflate people at different ends of that spectrum.

It must be infuriating or Bewildering to see someone knowingly nodding along saying, “oh yeah. I’m autistic too,” when other autistic people you know literally aren’t capable of doing that.

[KaiserPro]

> nobody other than me has spent a significant amount of time with severely autistic people.

Yes, most people have not met someone with more than mild autism.

I think the other issue is that people are confused as to _what_ autism is (it doesn't help that its a massive fucking spectrum) For most people, meeting a dutch grandmother for the first time would assume that they count as autistic.

I run a "uniformed organisation" for kids, and as we make sure that we take _all_ kids regardless of who they are, I bump into a large amount of interesting diagnosed and undiagnosed conditions. Currently I look after siblings, one who is mostly mute and diagnosed, and the other who is very much lightly on the spectrum.

There is another kid who is both ADD and autistic(Diagnosed). He is prone to RMS-like behaviour. If you talk to him in the right way, he can understand why certain behaviours are to be not repeated. However, he is and remains a teenager.

[prmoustache]

I am not diagnosed as autistic and also have trouble understanding why people can call my interactions rude as I just tend to try to be honest and precise.

It just happens that I don't like hypocrisy.

I am not an antisocial and consider myself a very polite person and will often say hello and wish a good day to strangers when I am riding my bicycle in the trails or walking in a village / small town.

[edoceo]

This isn't even rude.

[tremon]

Calling a spade a spade is already considered rude in some cultures/contexts, so I think the most you could say is "this isn't even rude from my perspective".

[edoceo]

Feels like most of the time most folk are mostly speaking from their perspective. Do we need that reminder every time?