I have a good friend who’s been going through this stuff. He’s an adult, and he is married, but he still needs support, because he’s not really fully able to function without some support.
The number of infantilizing remarks that he receives on a weekly basis is honestly shocking, and across the board they all come from people whose job it is to help him.
I think the craziest remarks I’ve heard are from those who seem to think my Autism is due to terrible parenting. I’ve heard everything from “your parents didn’t do enough to stop exposer to toxins” to “I would never let my kid be like you”
I can’t unmask even a little without becoming a political target. My existence seems to deeply bother some people.
For most people like that, it’s not your existence, it’s what it represents. And that is making them face their fear of helplessness (that they’ve been told you represent).
Let me explain… (warning, long rant incoming!)
They are terrified of the fact that people can Follow All The Rules, do All The Right Things, but still end up with ‘bad things’ happening to them with no way for them to ‘fix it’. These people fear more than anything the fact that the universe is a cold, random, uncaring place where shit just happens and we’re all just along for the ride. They will do whatever it takes to avoid this truth.
These types of people want a charm that can fix any problem that comes up. They want to believe that this is an orderly universe where hard work and good deeds are rewarded and bad things only happen to bad people who do wrong things.
They can’t stand the fact that some problems aren’t fixable, that random bad things happen for no good reason even to ‘good people’, that they too might suffer and possibly even die for no good reason.
Now, you’ll notice this has nothing really to do with Autism or being poor or whatever their latest boogeyman of the week is. And that’s because wealthy elites and fundamentalist assholes have figured out how to co-opt and weaponize this fear, and use it to get people to go along with their ideologies.
And they want people who work. Who can take orders, who go out and complete those orders, who can slave in their factories and give them money and obey them unconditionally. And to get people who do that, they create those boogeymen.
So they tell these people things like ‘if you’re homeless, that’s means you deserve it, because you are a lazy failure who refuses to work!’ And, ‘If your kid has autism, it’s because you aren’t devout enough/staying away from the things I tell you to/avoiding vaccines/whathaveyou.’
It’s just a snake oil salesman creating a problem and selling a fake cure. They just pick autism as a stalking horse because autistic people don’t work well in the ‘factory worker’ mould they sell as the solution to all problems.
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with autistic people, so much as they are told there is something wrong with you, and since autistic people often don’t fit the worker mould that these talisman-hunters are told is the solution, they can ‘see’ that what they’ve been told must be ‘right’.
Sometimes you get this reaction with cancer patients too, although the uber-wealthy make bank on cancer research, so the ‘hate’ for a cancer patient isn’t as mainstream. But it’s still there. ‘Have you tried essential oils?’ ‘I hear this new diet of nothing but oranges will cure you!’ ‘Maybe you just need to eat healthier.’
I have a good friend who’s been going through this stuff. He’s an adult, and he is married, but he still needs support, because he’s not really fully able to function without some support.
The number of infantilizing remarks that he receives on a weekly basis is honestly shocking, and across the board they all come from people whose job it is to help him.
I think the craziest remarks I’ve heard are from those who seem to think my Autism is due to terrible parenting. I’ve heard everything from “your parents didn’t do enough to stop exposer to toxins” to “I would never let my kid be like you”
I can’t unmask even a little without becoming a political target. My existence seems to deeply bother some people.
For most people like that, it’s not your existence, it’s what it represents. And that is making them face their fear of helplessness (that they’ve been told you represent).
Let me explain… (warning, long rant incoming!)
They are terrified of the fact that people can Follow All The Rules, do All The Right Things, but still end up with ‘bad things’ happening to them with no way for them to ‘fix it’. These people fear more than anything the fact that the universe is a cold, random, uncaring place where shit just happens and we’re all just along for the ride. They will do whatever it takes to avoid this truth.
These types of people want a charm that can fix any problem that comes up. They want to believe that this is an orderly universe where hard work and good deeds are rewarded and bad things only happen to bad people who do wrong things.
They can’t stand the fact that some problems aren’t fixable, that random bad things happen for no good reason even to ‘good people’, that they too might suffer and possibly even die for no good reason.
Now, you’ll notice this has nothing really to do with Autism or being poor or whatever their latest boogeyman of the week is. And that’s because wealthy elites and fundamentalist assholes have figured out how to co-opt and weaponize this fear, and use it to get people to go along with their ideologies.
And they want people who work. Who can take orders, who go out and complete those orders, who can slave in their factories and give them money and obey them unconditionally. And to get people who do that, they create those boogeymen.
So they tell these people things like ‘if you’re homeless, that’s means you deserve it, because you are a lazy failure who refuses to work!’ And, ‘If your kid has autism, it’s because you aren’t devout enough/staying away from the things I tell you to/avoiding vaccines/whathaveyou.’
It’s just a snake oil salesman creating a problem and selling a fake cure. They just pick autism as a stalking horse because autistic people don’t work well in the ‘factory worker’ mould they sell as the solution to all problems.
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with autistic people, so much as they are told there is something wrong with you, and since autistic people often don’t fit the worker mould that these talisman-hunters are told is the solution, they can ‘see’ that what they’ve been told must be ‘right’.
Sometimes you get this reaction with cancer patients too, although the uber-wealthy make bank on cancer research, so the ‘hate’ for a cancer patient isn’t as mainstream. But it’s still there. ‘Have you tried essential oils?’ ‘I hear this new diet of nothing but oranges will cure you!’ ‘Maybe you just need to eat healthier.’