Terraria Community Forums

From a medical and legal standpoint it’s a disability

The use of disability as a term makes it easier to get accomodation which is a good side effect of an unfortunate word. Reminder that tomatoes are legally vegetables even though they are biologically not. Legality is not objectively correct or infallible necessarily.
The term disability doesn’t sit well with me personally as it can be considered degrading imo.
Disorder is a far more neutral word than that.

I should mention that I myself am autistic so I have thought about this a lot. Accommodation is necessary for some autistic people not necessarily because they’re disabled, but because their way of thinking and interpreting the world around them isn’t considered the “default” by societal norms.

I can elaborate on this further but I feel like that’s enough as is.

Autism is 100% a disability, for some people it doesn't affect them that much negatively, but for others, like me, it's terrible, so definitely a disability. Also, I personally don't have a problem with the word disability as it's accurate, it 'disables' your 'ability' to do things.

Eh, I feel like most of that is stigmatic and a result of us being the minority. Most of the issues of being autistic come from outside sources such as people not being very understanding or singling out those they view as “unusual”
This stigma and lack of understanding can make it seem like a disability but I have grown to understand over time that it’s a label and nothing more.

There's an awful lot that we still don't know or can't define about Autism - its complicated. In at least the EU and US it is considered a disability from a medical and if required legal standpoint but that isn't something to be taken negatively. It can even be beneficial to some people, its a very broad spectrum and every individual case is different.

As I’ve grown older I’ve noticed that autism actually enables me in ways that other people struggle with, you just have to look hard for those things. It’s not as simple as being disadvantaged or advantaged like the connotation of the word “disability” implies.

Also yes I agree that the label can be (and often is) beneficial, however I don’t like the specific weight behind the word itself if that makes sense.

Makes perfect sense, but I doubt that it will ever realistically change any time soon. Due to how complicated it is and how "guess-work" identifying it can be, it'll probably remain as a disability even if an individual has a better time with numbers, language or memory etc due to it likely also impairing any one aspect of your mentality. It's a good term to have, as it helps protect against discrimination.

I suppose growing up in a rural area of the US made me a bit cynical of the term. It was often weaponized there.

Personally, I'm autistic, and I've found that the only disadvantage I have is not understanding neurotypicals as well.
But I've also found that I can learn much faster and more efficiently than neurotypicals, and I'm also more mentally stable.

Disability is bad, and I'm tired of pretending it's not

this was interesting to read, actually.
The issue I see with it is that autism is not exclusively restricted to social anxiety, as autism doesn’t even prevent socialization. The sensory issues suck for sure (I have them as well even in some of exact same contexts like washing my hands and showering as it feels like things are squirming under my skin when I do those and I hate it).

I had a lot more to say on the subject but the character limit here is quite restrictive, so I’ll basically summarize by saying that you should look into the effects of autism more as social anxiety and autism are not necessarily the same thing.
(It would have been like 7 messages and no one wants me to blow up their notifications like that)

I saw you edited your message and I would like to say I did read your entire blog post and the images at its conclusion. However there are several symptoms of autism aside from the ones you have mentioned which is why I’m asking you to look into it further.
I don’t consider autism an illness because unlike my depression and anxiety and possibly even DID, it’s not objectively bad.

And I have lost a lot to my social anxiety, more than I can bear disclosing. I think that one X-men image you posted doesn’t really work here because of that. I certainly hope you haven’t lost a career and fell out with family members who you still don’t want to talk to because of it. That’s only the tip of the iceberg and arguably some of the less severe things that’s happened.

So please don’t discredit me because “you’ve suffered more” or “I’m not trying to improve my mental health and would rather stay unhealthy” because neither of those things are true. In the past couple months alone I’ve made some radical changes to my lifestyle to try and improve my mental and physical health, and I’ve been through a lot and would rather that not be dismissed.

I didn't mean to dismiss you, and I'm sorry if it came off that way. I just wanted to say that the majority of the time, autism is objectively bad and causes massive amounts of suffering.

I don’t think repetitive thoughts and speech or fixations on a few niche specific subjects are rare or objectively bad, personally.