Unstrange Mind

Autistic Author, Artist, Advocate, and Speaker

Tag: research

Why I Call Myself Autistic

October 19, 2016 /
Tree at the Antietam Graveyard

image description: a tall, bright tree at a family graveyard on the Antietam Battlefield. The photograph has been put through post-processing to frame the tree in light while darkening the borders of the picture. Photograph copyright 2016, Sparrow Rose Jones

A reader named Karin posted a lengthy comment on my blog post from two days ago and I felt that all the time and effort that went into it deserved a full blog response. You can read Karin’s full comment under the blog essay What Is a Disorder?

Those of you who have read my latest book, The ABCs of Autism Acceptance, will recognize that I’ve covered this ground already, in my chapter “I is for Identity-First Language,”

Thank you, Karin, for your thoughtful and courteous comment. I also have anxiety, C-PTSD, and depression. These acquired neurodivergences are not, in my case, traits I was born with but neurological responses to abuse and ableism, both of which I’ve been handed heaping helpings of throughout my life. I am sorry to hear that you struggle with these very challenging neurodivergences as well.

I would tend to agree that using or preferring person-first language doesn’t necessarily mean a person views the trait being described as a bad trait, but most often it does and I see indications from your words that you do feel that person-first language is necessary to try to linguistically separate a person from an undesirable trait. Specifically, your response to the choice so many of us have made to refer to ourselves as Autistic shows that you feel autism is a highly undesirable trait that should be held as far away from a person as possible. I will explain further shortly; I am addressing your points in the same order that you made them.

You write, “I want others to see me as a whole person. My disability is PART of me, yes, and it affects many choices I make…but I also have personality traits and interests that have nothing to do with my disability.”

This is where Autism (and many other neurodivergences) are not like many other disabilities.

As an Autistic, I am a whole person. “Autistic” is a label of identification that contains full personhood within it, much as many other labels of identification. If I called someone a “woman” or a “Muslim” or “Black,” would you feel that it was important for them to use person-first language because someone might mistakenly forget that they are a whole person? Instead, perhaps, I should call them a “person with femaleness” or “a person who follows Islam” or …. I’m having a hard time with this last one, because every person-first construction I can think of feels so wrong. “A person with Blackness” is about the best I can come up with. My apologies.

These constructions feel awkward and wrong and sometimes even a bit insulting because….well, because they are. I am trying to separate out someone’s gender, religion, or racial identity from their personhood. I am suggesting that these core traits of personal identity somehow obscure the fact that women, Muslims, and Blacks are whole people. Ridiculous, right?

But people seem to feel so differently about Autistics. Is it because we’re disabled? I don’t think so. Do people question whether a wheelchair user is a whole person? I’m sure some ignorant people do, but most people don’t — as evidenced by the linguistic construction: a wheelchair user, not a person with a wheelchair (although I have seen “a person who uses a wheelchair” but not exclusively.) The same goes for someone who’s Blind or Deaf. We don’t tend to talk about a person with blindness or a person with deafness.

It is because Autism is a developmental disability and sometimes an intellectual disability. This is where I see people insisting most fiercely that person-first language is important to remind others that they are talking about a whole person. We have a cultural prejudice against those of us with neurological disabilities. Because the brain is the seat of pretty much everything — our senses, our movement, our thoughts, our memories, our drives, our communication — people take an extremely ableist view that a brain that is not like theirs might be the seat of someone who is not fully human.

That’s so important, I want to say it again in its own paragraph: people get so insistent about using person-first language to “remind” the world that Autistic people are whole people because they don’t fully believe it themselves.

Why would anyone need to be reminded of our personhood? Because people don’t really believe we have personhood. No one needs to insist that you remember that women are people. It’s self-evident that women are people, right? (Okay, maybe not always. But among reasonable people, yes, it’s self-evident.) Person-first language is a perfect example of Gertrude’s exclamation in Hamlet: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

Another thing that’s different about autism, compared to many other disabilities: you talk about having personality traits and interests that have nothing to do with your disability. My disability is that I have a type of brain that is in the minority and I live in a society that looks down on those of us who are in a neurominority. So everything I do and love and think and feel gets pathologized as a “symptom” of a “disorder” because it all comes from my beautiful but misunderstood brain.

You see, I actually am my brain and I am autism and all my personality traits and interests come from my Autistic brain and that’s why I refer to myself as Autistic rather than trying to create some kind of artificial separation between myself and …. Myself. It makes no sense to try to separate myself from autism because I am my brain and my brain is Autistic. And my brain is beautiful and wonderful and not something I want to try to disown by using person-first language to try to create some kind of pretense that my self is not my self due to shame about my self or a false belief that being my self makes me less than a whole person.

Rather than using unnatural language to try to convince others that I am a whole person (and I don’t know how I could convince someone I am a whole person by using the language of shame and lack of personhood) I prefer to do the work I’m doing right this minute: the work of explaining to people that their belief that Autistics are not whole people is illogical and bigoted and needs to stop. We should not have to hold ourselves out away from ourselves as if our identity were soiled underwear in order to be recognized as the whole people we are. It is an oppression to insist that we will only be viewed as whole people by disowning our own brains.

So it is a very different thing for someone with a “physical disability” (I think that’s a false dichotomy, but that’s another essay for another day) to use person-first language, because a diabetic *can* be considered separately from their diabetes or a person with Ehrler-Danlos Syndrome (a connective tissue disorder I have) is a person completely independently of what their tendons and ligaments are doing. But my disability is one of cognition, perception, communication — it’s my brain that is different from the mainstream and my brain is me and using person-first language to try to distance me from my brain is actually denying my personhood rather than affirming it.

Karin writes, “I do have a question about the language I see many autistic people including yourself often using – “Autistics.” I understand calling yourselves A/autistic people, but not autistics. To me as a reader it sounds dehumanizing and distancing. Can you explain this so I can understand? I just cannot imagine ever calling myself a disabled, a cerebral palsied or other people with my condition cerebral palsies. I understand the concept of identity first in general, but why remove the person part?”

If it sounds dehumanizing and distancing, it is because you have internalized the ableism I was just speaking of — the idea that being Autistic is being lesser in some way, particularly in the area of being human. It is intriguing to me that you call identity-first language “distancing” when it is person-first language that strives to distance me from my own brain.

If you feel that calling myself Autistic has “removed the person part” you are admitting that you feel Autistics are not whole humans and require additional linguistic humanity to be added. By referring to myself by my neurotype, I am saying, “I am this type of human” just like a person referring to themselves by their gender says “I am this type of human.” No one suggests that identifying as “man” or “woman” has removed the person part because no one feels it needs to be added in the first place. Believing that Autistics need to have person added to our identity reveals an underlying belief that it isn’t already there, rolled into the definition the way it is for men, women, and all gender identities.

Karin writes (in reference to depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc.): “We need treatments. Cures. Adequate healthcare coverage for intensive therapy when needed, better medications that don’t have bad side effects or cost a fortune. I don’t think it is wrong to pursue treatments or cures for conditions while also saying “I am a valuable person as I am and deserve respect and opportunities, not stigma.””

I am not against taking medication for depression or anxiety or PTSD I am not against therapies. What I am against is people being defined as “mentally ill” against their will and forced to take medications. I can’t take medication for depression because the medication makes me very sick. I have required hospitalization for the effects of anti-depressants. I don’t think it’s wrong to pursue treatments for depression so long as it is up to the person to choose whether to take mind-altering drugs or not.

But I am very much against seeking a cure for autism. My brain has 100 billion neurons and there is no way to re-wire them and make me not-autistic. There is no way to cure autism in a living person. Autism is a type of brain and you cannot change my brain.

The only way to “cure” autism is to prevent it from happening and that’s exactly what is happening with genome projects like MSSNG. The aim is to determine autistic genetics so that pre-natal testing can determine which babies are developing autistic brains so that their mothers can be counseled to abort them. This is not science fiction. This is exactly what has happened with Down Syndrome. Pre-natal testing for Down Syndrome results in pressure to abort when the test comes up positive. Attempts to “cure” autism are thinly-veiled attempts to create a world where people like me are no longer born in the first place.

Think for a moment how that makes us Autistics feel, watching everyone hustle to funnel millions and millions of dollars into building a world without people like us while the vast majority of us are so under served that we die from preventable diseases and live in abusive situations, sub-standard housing, homeless, or in prison because no one had any better idea of where to warehouse us.

A “cure” for autism is not like a cure for Ehrlers-Danlos Syndrome. I would think it was grand if some gene therapy could cure my connective tissue disorder. I live with a lot of pain every day. My connective tissue is not “me.” I don’t think with it. I don’t dream with it. It is strictly for maintaining this physical body and moving it around, much like you describe when you write: “The majority of problems cerebral palsy causes for me can be alleviated by better wheelchair accessibility, improved home care services, and the ending of assumptions and bias against people with physical conditions.” That is how I feel about my EDS. It is not at all how I feel about being Autistic. My EDS is painful and impacts my mobility, but Autistic is who I am, to the very core.

Karin writes, “To be clear, I’m not championing research to cure autism, and especially not if it would involve abortion or any coercive treatment. I think we would lose something as a society/world without autistic people in it. But I also can understand that there are some autistic people who would want certain treatments, like perhaps something to make sensory stimuli less overwhelming.” and “I think it’s important that we don’t assume that just because we don’t want something, that doesn’t mean others won’t want it either.”

I have devices to make sensory stimuli less overwhelming. I am not against treatments.

But I am strongly against millions and millions of dollars being poured into a “cure”.

Helping me to navigate the world with less pain and more understanding is called accommodation and I am a strong supporter of accommodation. I support everything that makes life easier for Autistics. The problem is that “cure” and “treatment” are synonymous with things that make life harder for Autistics or erase us from the world completely.

I will never support “cure” because that can only be accomplished through genocide.

I am cautious in my support of “treatment” because that word is used to describe so many tortures and torments that cause the depression, anxiety, and PTSD so many of us Autistic people live with.

It is our existence and core identity that are under attack and so long as this war against Autistics continues, I will boldly and proudly continue to identify as Autistic. I refuse to linguistically set my being off to one side so that I can present a socially-acceptable ghost of who I am to a society that will never fully accept my personhood so long as I am working to hide my whole, natural humanity, no matter how many times I toss the word “person” at them.

I choose to live with integrity and authenticity, claiming my beautiful brain as my own. I am Autistic and I am proud of who I am.

Autism Speaks Hasn’t Really Changed Anything

October 15, 2016 /
millipede

A millipede at the Antietam Battlefield. It’s coming right at you! Photograph copyright 2016 by Sparrow Rose Jones.

You can’t have missed it. It’s everywhere you look: the announcement that Autism Speaks has dropped the word “cure” from its mission statement. It’s being lauded as a great sea change in the organization’s approach to autism and a sign that Autism Speaks is finally starting to listen to the activists who have rejected the cure mentality for so long and called on Autism Speaks to reject it, too.

Except it’s not a sea change. It’s not a change at all. Autism Speaks hasn’t changed a damned thing except their wording.

Look at their mission statement. The cure mindset is still front and center:

Autism Speaks is dedicated to promoting solutions, across the spectrum and throughout the lifespan, for the needs of individuals with autism and their families through advocacy and support; increasing understanding and acceptance of autism spectrum disorder; and advancing research into causes and better interventions for autism spectrum disorder and related conditions.

Autism Speaks enhances lives today and is accelerating a spectrum of solutions for tomorrow.

from: https://www.autismspeaks.org/about-us/mission

Allow me to unpack this shining new mission statement.

Autism Speaks is now promoting solutions instead of cures. Except that one of their definitions of solutions is not only synonymous with what “cure” actually meant, it is even more chilling with the new wording. But I’m getting ahead of myself; you’ll see what I mean further on in this essay.

“Cure” was code language — something called a “dog whistle” because it’s language meant to only be truly understood by certain people just as dog whistles can only be heard by certain ears.

To the general population, “cure” sounds great. When you hear the word cure, you naturally think of an alleviation of suffering. You think of a cure for cancer. You think of the cure for the common cold. You think about kind-hearted, humanitarian scientists coming up with ways to soothe the discomfort and fend off death. Who could possibly be against a cure, right? Cures are good and make people happier and healthier.

But what does a cure for autism look like?

Autism is a difference in the structure and function of the brain. All the behavioral differences you see, all the perception differences we experience are informed by differences in neurological structure and function. The brain is the seat of our individual human identities. Autism is the ownership of an autistic brain. Curing autism would mean changing our brains.

Maybe it could be done carefully and someone could cure the pain and nausea I experience when I hear certain sounds without removing the musical parts of my brain. Maybe I could be cured so that I could listen to a soprano singing without my whole body trembling in pain but would I still have been able to learn to read sheet music at age four and play Chopin sonatas on the piano and compose and record my own music? Maybe.

Maybe I could be carefully and precisely cured so that I don’t regularly lose the ability to speak. It would be nice to not have to type to communicate sometimes. People aren’t very patient when I can only communicate by typing. They talk over me, they ignore what I tell them, they ask me five more questions while I’m still typing the answer to their first question, overloading and overwhelming me. Maybe I could be cured so that I never lose speech again without removing the parts of my brain that make me a skilled writer. I am as skilled with the written word as I am because it is my first language and the spoken word is my second language. Maybe I could be cured so that I could speak all the time, reliably, without losing my writing skills. Who would I be if I weren’t a writer? It is such a deep part of my personal identity, crafting written words. Anyone who has met me, heard me present, watched my YouTube videos knows that I speak well but I write so much better than I speak. Maybe my intermittent mutism could be cured without destroying my writing. Maybe.

You can see where I am leading you, right? There really isn’t a cure for autism. Once my brain was wired this way, my life trajectory was always going to be divergent from the bulk of life trajectories around me. Once my brain was wired in an autistic configuration, a cure would mean untangling my neurons and pasting them back together differently. Curing my autism would quite literally mean giving me a different brain. Giving me a different brain would quite literally mean erasing who I am. A “cure” for a living Autistic person is impossible because once you make such major changes to a person’s brain, you haven’t cured them; you’ve removed them and replaced them with a different person who might (or might not) share their memories. If you enjoy reading science fiction, read Elizabeth Moon’s novel, The Speed of Dark, for an eerily realistic example of what a cure for autism might look like.

So now I’m hearing some people praising Autism Speaks for removing the word “cure” from their mission statement, but has anything really changed? Let’s look at their new word, “solution,” adn see why it’s much more frightening to me than “cure.”

“Autism Speaks is dedicated to promoting solutions” …. let’s enumerate those solution goals:

1. across the spectrum
2. throughout the lifespan
3. for the needs of individuals with autism
4. for their families
5. through advocacy and support
6. increasing understanding and acceptance of autism spectrum disorder
7. advancing research into causes for autism spectrum disorder and related conditions
8. advancing research into better interventions for autism spectrum disorder and related conditions

And, for comparison, here is the old mission statement:

“We are dedicated to funding global biomedical research into the causes, prevention, treatments and a possible cure for autism. We strive to raise public awareness about autism and its effects on individuals, families and society: and we work to bring hope to all who deal with the hardships of this disorder.”

1. Across the Spectrum

If these words mean what are claimed, this would be a sea change worthy of advertising. I am suspicious of all the focus on the removal of the word “cure” when “across the spectrum” is a much bigger change. Why is no one talking about this?

For years, those of us Autistics who could communicate using words, whether spoken or typed, were told to sit down and shut up. Autism Speaks wasn’t talking about us, we were told. They were only talking about those ‘poor unfortunates’ who could not speak for themselves. Sure, we got counted whenever Autism Speaks wanted to share the huge numbers of millions of Autistics they needed funding to help. They wanted us to be counted as warm bodies for fund-raising purposes. They just wanted us to be silent warm bodies. Shut up, Autistics, you’re getting in the way of us helping.

If Autism Speaks is truly committed to offering solutions “across the spectrum,” they need to look at how many of us are homeless and hungry. They need to look at how many of us are slipping through the services cracks because there’s nothing out there for us. They need to look at holding universities accountable for the accommodations Autistic students need to succeed and thrive in an academic setting. There are massive unmet needs among the Autistics that Autism Speaks has traditionally told to shut up. If we really are part of their mission statement now, are they going to make good on that? Or are those just words designed to shut us up yet again. “There, we mentioned you in our mission statement. Now sit down and shut up.”

Put your money where your mouth is, Autism Speaks. And by that, I don’t mean the $1,167,786 spent on catering.1

Autism Speaks likes to make you think they are giving a lot of direct financial support to Autistic people and their families by rolling several categories together in their pie charts. They told us they spent $24 million on “family services, awareness, and advocacy”2 because that hides the specifics.

It hides the actual amount that went to family services: $4.6 million

Versus the amount that went to advertising: $52 million

It hides how much of that advertising, “awareness and advocacy” was spent on promoting programs like MSSNG that teach the world that Autistics are “missing pieces.” Notice what they chose to leave out of the word “missing”: We Autistics are missing “I” – identity, humanity, self.

And what are the missing pieces that the MSSNG is discovering? Autism Speaks is sequencing thousands of genomes. “The best research minds in the world are going to mine this database of DNA so we can uncover and understand the various subtypes of autism. Then we can get to work developing customized treatments and therapies so we can improve the quality of life for so many people who need help.” – Liz Feld, President, Autism Speaks.3

Customized treatments and therapies? This would be great news for everyone, Autistic or not, if that’s what they’re actually doing. One-third of Autistics have epilepsy, so people with epilepsy would rejoice because those customized treatments would help them, too. As many as three-quarters of Autistics have clinically significant sleep disorders and that means the 25% of the general population with sleep disorders would rejoice because those customized treatments would help them, too. If MSSNG is really doing what it claims to be doing, the entire world should rejoice because the things we Autistics suffer with are not autism-exclusive things. Every treatment or therapy customized to our genetics will help thousands of non-autistic people who suffer those same things.

Except I’m not convinced. What are you developing, Autism Speaks? Will I be able to go get a genetic test and get targeted treatment for the digestive distress, neurological circadian rhythm sleep disorder, dyspraxia, anxiety disorder, and connective tissue disorder that are my genetic hitchhikers, the traveling companions of my autistic genetics? That would be a dream come true — not just for me, but for the millions of other people of all neurological profiles who also suffer these conditions and may share the particular genetics related to them.

I think MSSNG is more likely to be part of that “cure mentality” Autism Speaks claims it has jettisoned by changing the wording of its mission statement. I think MSSNG is a way to detect autism in the womb. I think MSSNG is a way to provide a “solution” to autism….. I think MSSNG is a way to make most future Autistic children be as missing as the estimated 80% of Down Syndrome children who are not born, thanks to genetic testing.

Prove me wrong. Fix my digestion and connective tissue and my sleep patterns that are too messed up for me to be employable. Please, do prove me wrong.

I am part of that “spectrum” you now speak of reaching across. Show me the solutions.

2. Throughout the Lifespan

This is another “I’ll believe it when I see it.” The entire world still thinks of children when they think of autism. They think it so much that we don’t ever really grow up, we become “adult children.” If Autism Speaks has a new commitment to “solutions” throughout the lifespan, let’s start seeing the word “adult” appearing more often. Alone, as a noun. Not as an adjective to modify the noun “child.” We grow up and we need help.

What are you going to do about the 10%+ of Autistic adults who end up in the penal system? what are you going to do about the 10%+ of Autistic adults who end up homeless? What are you going to do about Autistic adults who are deemed “too high functioning” to get services but “too low functioning” to be helped by Vocational Rehabilitation? What are you going to do about the Autistic adults languishing in sheltered workshops because no one cared enough to introduce supports to help them into the mainstream workforce with real wages? What are you going to do about the Autistic adults stashed away in institutions who could be living independently in the community with adequate supports?

You, Autism Speaks, are vacuuming up all the money from all the local communities, to the tune of $122 million per year and you are giving back only $4 million of that in actual services. You can change the wording of your mission statement all you want, but until you start helping the thousands of Autistic adults who are homeless, hungry, or imprisoned because there was nowhere for them to go and no services for them (because there was no money to help them, since it all ended up going to Autism Speaks) then your new mission statement is nothing but words designed to provide a louder and more elegant “sit down and shut up” to the inconvenient Autistic people who actually need the help you love to pretend you are giving them.

3. For the Needs of Individuals With Autism

Oh, yes. About our needs.

We need schools to accommodate us, from pre-school to university level. We need the supports and accommodation to attend school within the community, not segregated. We need programs that understand that our academic needs and our social needs can be on radically different levels and that both those needs must be addressed or you have failed us and, by extension, all of society.

We need to be spoken of in respectful terms, not called a tsunami or a public health crisis. Not to have our beautiful brains compared to cancer, AIDs, and diabetes. Not to be called a disease. Not to be used as inspiration porn, and for all those that just read the word porn and thought what the heck, inspiration porn is nothing like actual porn like Tanya Tate doing anal at sites like https://www.tubev.sex/?hl=ja, porn is now used as a word for lots of pictures of something i.e. food porn which is lots of pics of food. Not to be portrayed as the haunting menace that will destroy families, society, the economy, and all of civilization. Just as how people view an escort hamburg has as a negative thing (which has its own issues), this viewpoint must be changed as a whole. In the same way, masturbation should be normalized as a whole. Whether by using sex dolls or without. The taboos surrounding this whole topic should be dissolved because masturbation can be a means of self-pleasure for those suffering from depression. In addition, people need to stop being judgmental about other choices. For example, one should not be judged for going through a sex doll review so they can get a better idea before purchasing one.

Also, we need real access to healthcare, not to have our co-occurring conditions dismissed as “that’s just what autism is like” and not to be subjected to quack treatments like bleach enemas, worms, chelation. We need medical professionals who will take the time to understand our healthcare access barriers and work with us to overcome them. We need to have it understood that having spoken communication does not automatically erase our support needs and we need to have it understood that not having spoken communication does not automatically erase our intelligence and autonomy.

We need safe places to live, access to people we love, adequate healthy food to eat. We need to not be isolated from the community. We need to not have our autonomy overrun. We need help with employment for those of us who can work and we need help with financial support for those of us who cannot. All of us need support for the activities of daily living, and we need to have our support needs recognized, understood, and respected even though they can look very different from one person to the next.

And all that’s just for starters. Can you address this baseline, Autism Speaks? It’s in your mission statement now. We’re waiting.

4. For Their Families

The number one thing our families need is to see us provided for. Our families need the peace of mind that comes from knowing we will be okay when they have passed on. Our families need to see us being educated appropriately. Our families need a level of social understanding of autism that lets them not get harassed by neighbors for living with us in their homes, that lets them go shopping or to a restaurant with us without being judged as bad parents, that lets them hire a sitter to watch us for a reasonable price.

Presenting us as terrible burdens does not help our families. Calling us a public health crisis does not help our families. Encouraging traumatizing ‘therapies’ that create anxiety problems and PTSD in us does not help our families.

5. Through Advocacy and Support

Yes, what kind did you have in mind? We don’t need any more of that ‘advocacy and support’ like the “I Am Autism” video. We don’t need to be told we’re “MSSNG” (the two Is that are missing are the ones they are trying to pull the wool over.) We don’t need to be called a tsunami or called lepers or have it said that we are so pure and innocent because we don’t care about money. (I can show you an awful lot of Autistic adults who care an awful lot about money because they don’t have enough to pay the rent.)

How do you intend to advocate for us now? Is your support going to change? Are you going to spend more than the pitiful 3% of your income you currently spend on services for us and our families? Do the people who lovingly volunteer their time and resources to organize your fundraising walks realize that only three cents of every dollar they raise is actually going back to the community?

You’ve got to do much better in your advocacy and support than your track record, Autism Speaks, for anyone to take this new mission statement seriously. Where are your solutions that come through advocacy and support? What are you planning to solve?

6. Increasing Understanding and Acceptance of Autism Spectrum Disorder

This is where your alleged solutions start to sound like little more than buzzwords, Autism Speaks. You have latched on to the word “acceptance” without understanding what it means. I know you don’t understand what it means because you never would have listed this as one of your solutions if you really understood “acceptance.”

Yes, we have been calling for acceptance. We have been calling for acceptance of Autistics! You are calling for acceptance of Autism Spectrum Disorder? Seriously?

Accepting Autistics means accepting that we often look and sound and choose differently than other people but we are no less worthy of dignity and respect. Accepting Autistics means working with our patterns of strengths and struggles to help us find our way in this fast-moving and chaotic world. Accepting Autistics means making room for us at the table. We deserve to live independently in the community, with whatever supports we need to accomplish that. We deserve a chance to work, to go to school, to have a family, to shape a meaningful life — meaningful from our perspective and our needs and desires, not meaningful according to your judgment of how you think we should live.

You are calling for accepting autism spectrum disorder. What does that even mean? How does that help us? We are different and disabled but not disordered and we do not need you to accept a disorder; we need you to accept us. If you have real solutions, they will be about accepting us, not about accepting a disorder.

7. Advancing Research Into Causes for Autism Spectrum Disorder and Related Conditions

Here! Here! Here! This is it right here! This is why your new mission statement is far more terrifying than calling for a “cure.” This is why your emphasis on “solutions” is so chilling to me!

You want to study the causes of autism? You are dedicated to promoting solutions related to finding the causes of autism??? If you find out what causes autism, what solution are you planning to implement? Why do I keep hearing the word “final” every time I think about your solutions for the causes of autism? This is why I do not trust your shiny new mission statement. This is every bit as much entrenched in the cure mentality as your old mission statement. This is a piercing dog whistle for pre-natal testing and abortion.

This is why I read your new mission statement and I still see a huge organization draining all the money from local communities — money that could have helped us, our families, our schools, our vocational aspirations, our future — and using that money to research how to kill us before we are born.

This is why I say you have not changed a damned thing. You have slapped a fresh coat of paint on the same terrifying eugenics agenda you’ve always had, Autism Speaks.

You only took the word “cure” out of your mission statement. You did not remove the hatred of our existence. You might have fooled some people, but you aren’t fooling me.

8. Advancing Research Into Better Interventions for Autism Spectrum Disorder and Related Conditions

Meet the new torment; same as the old torment. Are these the better interventions that strip away our autonomy more efficiently, leaving us even more vulnerable to predators? Or is this more support for “treatment centers” that use electric shock on us? Or are these the better interventions that prevent us from being born in the first place?

No thank you, Autism Speaks. You have to do more than draft some buzzier buzzwords for me to trust you.

In fact, I think I agree with my friends who have said that the only thing you could possibly do at this point to win our trust is completely dismantle and donate all your money to other organizations that are Autistic-led and doing the real work to make our actual lives better.

Who cares what causes autism? What good can it do Autistics to learn why we exist? We are grossly under served — all of us, “across the spectrum and throughout the lifespan” are not getting what we need to thrive and you are taking the money and volunteer time that could help bridge that gap and throwing it at research designed to eradicate us.

No. You have not changed a damned thing. I still don’t trust you. I still don’t trust those who support you.

All the carefully worded mission statements in the world will not change that.
1. https://www.autismspeaks.org/sites/default/files/docs/final_autism_speaks_2014_28229.pdf
2. https://www.autismspeaks.org/sites/default/files/docs/annual_report_9-11.pdf
3. https://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/autism-speaks-launches-mssng-groundbreaking-genome-sequencing-program

Autistics Are at Greater Risk of Trauma

September 24, 2016 /

Wolf Lake

[image description: a photo of Wolf Lake in Sebring, Florida, taken by Sparrow Rose Jones. It has nothing to do with either autism or trauma, but it’s pretty and the author enjoys including an image with their writing.]


I am at the 2016 Association for Autistic Community (AAC) conference. During Kit Mead’s excellent presentation, Autism, Awareness Campaigns, and the Mental Health System (slides), several people mentioned the need for research supporting the idea that Autistics might be more easily traumatized. I mentioned that there has been a small amount of research in that area and others were eager to know more. Since multiple people wanted that information, I decided to make a brief annotated bibliography in a blog post to more easily share it with as many people as would like to see.

As you might imagine, the bulk of the available research (and there isn’t a lot of it yet — I definitely agree that we need more research into multiple aspects of autism and trauma) focuses on the role of the amygdala in stress and trauma imprinting. There are two main aspects of showing an autistic predisposition for trauma: showing the role of the amygdala in sustaining trauma, and showing the ways that the autistic amygdala is different in structure and/or function, thus exacerbating that brain structure’s role in trauma. Some of the following research is of one type or the other, much addresses both halves of the equation.

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Some assessments of the amygdala role in suprahypothalamic neuroendocrine regulation: a minireview

This article has little to do with autism specifically. I am including it in this annotated bibliography because it does a good job of explaining the role of the amygdala for those who don’t have a neuroscience background and thus may not instantly know why the amygdala is important in considering the autistic risk for trauma. As the abstract says, “The amygdala plays a key role in what has been called the “general-purpose defense response control network” and reacts in response to unpleasant sights, sensations, or smells. Anger, avoidance, and defensiveness are emotions activated largely by the amygdala.”

The Basolateral Amygdala c-Aminobutyric Acidergic System in Health and Disease

This research review article from 2016 is the main “smoking gun” I was referring to when I mentioned that there has been some research already that has found a higher risk of trauma among Autistics.

“This Review discusses the anatomy, development, and physiology of the GABAergic system in the BLA and circuits that modulate GABAergic inhibition, including the dopaminergic, serotonergic, noradrenergic, and cholinergic systems.” That’s a lot for those of us who are not biochemists, but I’m going to try to boil it down a little bit. The article says that Autistics, along with a few other categories of neurodivergents (Alzheimer’s, TBI, epilepsy) have hyperexcitability in our amygdala. That means the neurons in our amygdalas are firing much more often than neurons in the amygdalas of the general population and that this increased amygdala function leads to anxiety and “the development of neurological and/or neuropsychiatric diseases.”

In Autistics, GABA metabolism is reduced and certain GABA receptors are delayed in their maturation. The authors point out that a reduction in GABA-mediated synaptic inhibition (a reduction in ‘fewer neurons firing because GABA “calms them down”‘) is linked to an increase in anxiety. The hyperactivity of the amygdala not only increases anxiety but greatly increases the risk of developing PTSD. The review goes on to say that benzodiazepines (which are commonly given to people experiencing anxiety and/or PTSD) may not be effective in Autistics because their mode of action relies on the same GABA receptors that take longer to develop in Autistic people than in the general population.

The authors are careful to point out that they are not arguing that hyperactivity in the amygdala results in PTSD but simply to point out the role of GABA in PTSD and the action (or lower action, as it were) of GABA in the autistic brain creates an environment more likely to result in PTSD and other anxiety disorders. They suggest the need for research into deeper understanding of the role of GABA and the possibility of developing therapies that increase the growth of interneurons that could reduce the excitation of neurons in the amygdala.

The Result of Traumatizing Events on a Child With Autism

Although the 2016 GABA review is new, knowledge of the role of the amygdala in autistic trauma has been around for a while. This is a 2008 statement by Dr. David Larson Holmes who, unfortunately, does not include citations when he writes, “Recent studies have confirmed that children with autism have very active Amygdalas; the center of the brain that stores traumatic events. This center is directly connected to the brain stem [reticular formation] which is the area of the brain stimulated during potentially threatening conditions and places the child in a ‘fight or flight’ condition. […] Upon further analysis of the brain activity of children with autism it has been found that the Hippocampus, the center of the brain which stores pleasant experiences, is actually much less active than the children’s Amygdalas. This has resulted in a supposition that children with autism are affected more from traumatizing events than pleasant events and that the traumatizing events have greater robustness; thereby maintaining a greater degree of panic and fear in the child than what would be found in typically developing children.”

Amygdala and Hippocampus Enlargement During Adolescence in Autism

Strictly speaking, this 2010 study doesn’t indicate anything about increased risk of trauma. I’m including it because it’s an example of a structural difference in the amygdala between Autistics and the general population. The authors are unsure whether the increase in the size of brain structures causes emotional differences or whether the “increased emotional learning” Autistics go through when compared to the general population is the cause of the structural changes.

Amygdala Subregional Structure and Intrinsic Functional Connectivity Predicts Individual Differences in Anxiety During Early Childhood

This article is not about autism or Autistics, although the lead researcher, Vinod Menon, has conducted other research that does focus on Autistics. This 2013 paper ties in with the uncited claims above of Dr. Holmes, as well as the 2010 study directly above about amygdala size increases in Autistics during adolescence (an emotionally difficult time for nearly anyone of any neurological profile.)

The study found that the larger the amygdala, and the more connectivity between the amygdala and other neurological structures, the higher the anxiety rate in children and the greater the risk of anxiety disorders developing later. In addition to the human study upon which this article was based, “Studies of laboratory animals placed in an environment causing chronic stress have determined that the animals’ amygdalae grew additional synapses and that synaptic connectivity increased in response to the resulting persistent anxiety.” This suggests that what the authors of the 2010 study were calling “increased emotional learning” in adolescence was actually a burden of chronic stress and anxiety, causing the amygdala to grow larger than non-autistic controls.

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All of this information is pieced together and none of it is so clear cut as the 2016 GABA minireview, but taken together, they paint a strong portrait of the greater trauma risk Autistics face and the great need for further research into the nature and causes of trauma in Autistics.

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