A lot of people's ignorance isn't deliberate. While there are hate groups out there (do your own research I'm not advertising them here), there are also people who despite their great empathy (yeah right...) have problems thinking others might not think in the same way as them.
Neurodiversity is the argument, largely proven true although looked down on in the 20th century, that people have different brain types. These aren't the brain types of mental illnesses, these are the brain types of different healthy minds.
What do I define mental illness as? This might be important to address before someone thinks I back it. The two things I'd look for (only one has to be correct) is a desire to destroy others/ourselves (depression for example) or a delusional state outside dream life where it's natural to imagine things (ie if you're hallucinating with no outside influences it's likely you're unwell).
Nowhere here do I mention logical thought. Nowhere here do I mention prefering solitude to other people or vice versa. Nowhere here do I mention empathy. Of course, if I'm insane then this makes no sense so try to rationalise it yourself. I'm a logical individual, who learned to read at 3 by herself, who dislikes social interaction, who has deep interests (I admit when we're tortured by the hate groups and unsupportive families these interests get dangerous. When a neurotypical is placed in unsupportive family environments they join gangs. My interests are healthy: a nonviolent computer game (sims 2), a game not on the computer (scrabble) and poetry, which involves coming on this site. I also have a passion for this stuff (neurodiverse rights I guess it might be called). Am I mad? If you think so, you'll think I'm wrong. If you don't think so I'd love to see where this attitude is coming from.
Neurodiversity benefits society, I would argue the neuroatypical more than the neurotypical (my computer geek bias maybe?
). Neurotypical people are very helpful in getting on in ordinary life, I would argue it is helpful to have at least one raising a kid as kids sometimes need cheering up by someone who's good at empathy. They're entertaining on TV, although sometimes it's better to turn on a documentary. They are good at being politicians (personally I'm too anti-state to say good politicians but I guess objectively they are). Basically, the jobs we need neurotypicals for are the social and caring professions we once forced on women (more women ARE neurotypical but we should also allow a guy with that personality type to get the job and not persuade women like me who're neuroatypical to get the jo
.Neuroatypical (I'm focussing on aspies here, sorry if you're another kind of neuroatypical but I'm focussing on what I know
) people are good at jobs especially in science, computing, dictionary jobs, independent research jobs and certain political roles. They're amazing working behind the scenes at banks. Fame comes later with them, less TV based (excluding documentary) more encyclopedia based jobs, ie they're more likely to be the geniuses/child prodigies you read about than the really funny people on TV shows like Big Brother.We need both kinds of people. Both kinds of people should exist. Neither is unhealthy.
I should know. I have a proper disability. Something which never gave me any benefits. It's called dyspraxia. I would love for the hate groups out there to stop focussing on hate and start giving their money to charities to help people with that. More importantly, there are real disabilitis and diseases out there which are a lot more serious than just my dyspraxia. Heart disease (my grandma died of it), cancer and AIDS to name just three. These don't provide people with incredible logical minds. They kill people. If people care about mental illnesses rather than physical they should also focus on curing life threatening things (I admit I'm less knowledgeable here but one example I can give is depression)
A lot of these hate groups claim to be looking for a cure for neurodiversity. Firstly, I'll say this sounds awfully like a cure for different sexualities such as homosexuality or disobedient slaves such as drapetomania. Neither of these, I'll clear up now, are real mental illnesses. They're simply a result of people being different, either because they were healthy black individuals who were enslaved or because they are healthy gay individuals who like members of the same sex (sexually, romantically or both, friendship with the same sex isn't a sign of homosexuality
). Let's look at that claim though. The wildest fantasies of some of the founders match my description above of mental illness. If these people were talking about downs syndrome kids (who really are disabled), I would dislike them for it. Because they're talking about healthy kids whose only misery is living with parents who hate them, I really dislike it. What are these two famous cures? One is driving off a bridge. A woman claimed she wanted to cure her neurodiverse child by driving off a bridge. The 'only' problem according to her was her neurotypical kid was also in the car (and presumably that she was driving...) Does this strike anyone else as crazy? 'I'd like to kill my child it would be an amazing cure for the way s/he thinks'. The other proposed 'cure' was very similar. Apparantly one woman sometimes hopes her kid walks off and drowns in a nearby lake. Say this was a child with learning disabilities (like dyslexia say). Would it be healthy to want that? With a completely healthy kid there's not only the morally disturbing element of it but also the fact there's no real reason for it.OK. Do any of the mothers (or fathers) out there reading this ever have fantasies about this with their kid? Anyone have these fantasies about family members or friends? Personally I don't even fantasise like this about my enemies. I think a mother who thinks like this must be mentally ill. I mean, fantasising about your kid's death? Yeah, right, that's sane...
Other 'cures' proposed are teaching the kids to act like neurotypical kids. Less physically damaging, more psychologically damaging. The kids from the start of these 'treatments' are healthy. At the end, I hope for their sake they're just unhappy and healthy. Being told the way you think is 'wrong' when it's not can lead to real mental illnesses, though. Personally I think there are people who've come out of this 'treatment' trying to be 'normal' but mentally ill. Some of these people have gone on to act violently/commit suicide/both.
Treating healthy people as though they need to change has a long history. Anyone here gay? The ex-gay movement also does this. Anyone here left handed? If you're over a certain age you might remember being forced to use your right hand to write with at school. Sometimes this 'treatment' is so psychologically damaging the people turn to violence.
I think even if the 'treatments' don't lead to mental illness there are far better things to spend money on (esp tax payer money). These things include the many illnesses I've discussed: the physical like cancer, the mental illnesses like depression and other problems like my dyspraxia. Once we've done that we can focus on seperating women (who I think are unwell anyway) from their children if they fantasise about murdering them.
And as well as that? We should focus on accepting people, whether it is their personalities, sexualities, race, gender, social class or something else which makes them different to us. We should accept there is no 'should' between healthy behaviours. We should stop making mass generalisations about people.
If this has been obvious, I apologise. If this has come as a surprise to you, I'm glad to have enlightened you. If you are still ignorant and hating, I pity your reality.
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