pressurized metal container blues: paisleytie: Reactions to those who have self-diagnosed:“But you don’t…

nothingaboutus-withoutus:

thebluedream:

paisleytie:

Reactions to those who have self-diagnosed:

“But you don’t really have depression! You’re just sad!”

“But you don’t really have social anxiety! You’re just shy!”

“But you don’t really have Asperger’s! You’re just a nerd!”

“You’re just using it as an excuuuuuse!!!”

“You must…

Hmm, to a point, but I often find the experiences of self-diagnosed Autistics to be vaaaastly different from my own. They didn’t go to special ed classes. They didn’t grow up knowing they were disabled, or being told they would never be able to live independently, or work, or have sex. A lot of the social aspects of disability were optional for them, or or things that have changed more recently, and these differences are one of the problems I have with the “a self-diagnosis is JUST AS GOOD as a medical diagnosis” crowd, even outside of the fact it enables a culture of self-identification into a minority class.

Yeah but I mean - I don’t know if not going to special ed classes is any form of a privilege - I also missed out on a lot of help that I could have really used. I was diagnosed, but I was diagnosed late.

I think self-identification into a marginalized class is fine as long as the class is dependent on something within someone’s brain. People self-identify as trans* as well (obviously no one requires a professional opinion to be trans*. granted gender is obviously different than a disability, but I think the main reason we have to take people’s word on both mental disabilities and gender identity is because we can never know what is going on in someone’s head). And there also are huuuuuuge financial reasons why someone could not get a diagnosis for a mental illness.

But I think the point of this post was to show that people are disbelieving of mental illness whether someone is self-diagnosed or not.

You think going to special ed classes provides HELP? The main purpose of special ed classes is/was to prepare you to work in a sheltered workshop. They fold clothes. The one I was in in 9th grade I was given middle school work to do, because my education wasn’t a priority. At the previous school I was just outright abused.

No, there’s no professional opinion required to be trans, but a trans woman who is presenting as female is going to be the target of more transphobia than one who is presenting as male. It doesn’t mean that either woman is less trans or one has cis privilege, but there is a difference.

Similarly there are other Autistic people who receive more ableism than I do, by virtue of the environments I am in and the resources I have to fall back on. My point is that ableism (and oppression in general) are not one-size fits all and people experience it to different degrees, even people of the same race, gender identity, social class level, and so forth.

Well that depends on the special ed program and whether or not it is incredibly ableist.

But autistic people who don’t have self-diagnosis are not presenting in any way differently to the way I am presenting. And they may not appear to the general public as any less autistic than someone with a diagnosis. So I don’t see the correlation really.

Ableism isn’t one size fits all, obviously - it is inter-sectional like all oppression, but I don’t think diagnosis necessarily increases the ableism that one experiences, and I think we should respect the diagnoses of people regardless of whether they diagnosed themselves or got a professional opinion.

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reblogged from thebluedream
originally posted by paisleytie-deactivated20130213