Autistic identity

What do you think about the growing trend for autistic people to -a think about autism as an identity and b- deliberately emphasise their autism/ ‘unmask’

Reply 1

Smeraldettoi

Original post by Cancelled Alice

What do you think about the growing trend for autistic people to -a think about autism as an identity and b- deliberately emphasise their autism/ ‘unmask’

Speaking as an autistic person I’ve always had my autism as an identity. I do mask to some extent at work and university but I’m not ashamed of being autistic by any means

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 2

Jatackbro

Original post by Cancelled Alice

What do you think about the growing trend for autistic people to -a think about autism as an identity and b- deliberately emphasise their autism/ ‘unmask’

I have autism, I mask it really well and it's part of me and it was hard to accept at first as my identity. I tried to hide it /mask it and thought maybe I have something else. In my classroom there is someone who also says the have autism but tells everyone around them about it. But I'm really private, I can not stand a single person knowing my private information because I'm scared they'll use it against me.

Reply 3

username5839543

Original post by Smeraldettoi

Speaking as an autistic person I’ve always had my autism as an identity. I do mask to some extent at work and university but I’m not ashamed of being autistic by any means

Feel free to not answer this question, but what do you mean by it being your identity? Do you view it on individual level or a group level?

Personally I think the ability to mask is mostly a brilliant thing. Why would an average person want to exclude themselves from mainstream society?

Reply 4

Ciel.

no opinion really. might be a good thing that will help fight the stigma surrounding autism? it's not like they're hurting anyone by being open about it so

Reply 5

username5839543

Original post by Ciel.

no opinion really. might be a good thing that will help fight the stigma surrounding autism? it's not like they're hurting anyone by being open about it so

I don’t think it’s about fighting or reducing stigma around autism or at least there are a lot of other ways one could go about it beyond choosing to not use the skills that you have.

Also I don’t know how accurate it is to say that none of this is harmful because I think that there is a lot of misinformation being spread around and autistic people are being encouraged not to use the skills that they may have. TBH with you, if the only information I had about autism was the stuff you see on social media, I wouldn’t believe that I have it myself.

Reply 6

username5839543

Original post by Jatackbro

I don’t mind telling people but I get very touchy if people suggest that I might be on the spectrum.

Most people have an unrealistic idea of autism, they don’t realise how broad a spectrum it is, the upside to this (there aren’t many) is that most people can’t accurately recognise it in other’s.

Reply 7

Ciel.

Original post by Cancelled Alice

i guess there is a lot of misinformation on social media, yeah
idk why but some people on tiktok will even fake mental health issues for views. there's quite a lot of people faking DID on tiktok. it's so strange. same with tourette's syndrome

Reply 8

Smeraldettoi

Original post by Cancelled Alice

Like I view it the same way as me being lgbt, it’s something I’m born with and I’m not ashamed of it. I refuse to internalise the negativity from the neurotypical majority society that we live in that being autistic is a defect or wrong in anyway.

Masking is exhausting which is why I don’t always do it in every social situation. To the unaware neurotypical we seem normal but it costs us energy

Reply 9

username5839543

Original post by Ciel.

Like I am no mental health expert and I am unwilling to comment on whether DID is a real disorder because of this but there was literally someone on tiktok who claimed that their alters individually had different food allergies. Hypothetically I suppose that a mental illness could cause someone to develop a delusion along those lines.

https://adc.bmj.com/content/106/5/420 - interesting read on social media and functional tic like symptoms.

Reply 10

Ciel.

Original post by Cancelled Alice

i do believe it's a real disorder, although a very rare one
but it's so obvious that a lot of did tiktokers are fake, like it's ridiculous when they pretend they can switch super easily and all alters willingly talk about themselves on camera when a lot of people with did aren't even aware of the fact that they have it.

covid and tics? or jesus, i can't believe that we're still not over covid.

Reply 11

username5839543

Original post by Smeraldettoi

I was thinking that some people might experience autistic identity in a similar way to some LGBT identities, but I didn’t initially want to bring it up because it might not make me very popular.

Do you think that a neurotypical majority society is wrong? The way you talk about it sounds as though you might

Reply 12

Smeraldettoi

Original post by Cancelled Alice

Well, I’m both so really once you’ve figured out how to accept one it just kind of comes naturally sooner or later that you accept the other one. Personally I’m very positive about both my autism and my queerness, I view them as gifts. Friends often tell me I view things differently to them and it gives them alternative perspectives.

I think it’s wrong to view it as a bad thing, unless the autism is severe and hampers day to day life. But even then even if it does people should have basic respect for one another and not use “autistic” as an insult imho

Reply 13

username5839543

Is it always a matter of stigma though?
In regards to autism ( and perhaps ADHD too), bad communication is never going to be good communication,

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 14

username4460622

Original post by Cancelled Alice

Personally I think the ability to mask is mostly a brilliant thing. Why would an average person want to exclude themselves from mainstream society?

I'm not the person you replied to, but masking is rather a heavy mental load and often results in burnout (hence the high suicide rates among autistic people). Though I do mask in public - I'd have been bullied and most likely beaten up by now if not - there's no way I could do it all the time.

Reply 15

username5794123

Original post by Cancelled Alice

What do you think about the growing trend for autistic people to -a think about autism as an identity and b- deliberately emphasise their autism/ ‘unmask’

Personally, I find this a two way topic. Whilst I like the idea of autists embracing their identity and sharing that with the public, there is an element of social stigma which could deter this trend…

I’ve seen another post by you questioning if this is all about stigma and my take on it would be yes, to an extent. Many people follow the negative stigma that is prevalent, and that causes neurotypicals (I dislike this word as it causes a division) to treat autists in ways that they don’t want to be treated. However, being more expressive about autism will most likely cause others to do the same, and finding other autists in real life would be easier - which, imo, is good for socialisation as they understand themselves better than NTs understand us.

I should note that I’m not hating or bashing neurotypicals, but merely stating that overall, they understand us less than autistic people understand each other.

Reply 16

username5839543

Neurodivergent vs Neurotypical is another concept that I can’t get my head around. Take dyslexia as an example, it’s only a problem because of how society works, in some contexts even in this society traits associated with it can be beneficial.
The same thing could be said for ADHD, some phenotypes of autism and a couple of other things I can’t think of right now.
But why on earth is things like schizophrenia placed into the same category, it’s never going to be a good thing, I’d say the same thing about any other mental illness.