Whose Planet Is It Anyway?

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Pardon, Your Support Group Is Showing

Originally posted July 2005

The title of this post was inspired by a comment made by one of the more militant members of an aspie forum, on what she thought of support groups: "If I want support, I'll go to the bra department at Target."

I don't have a gripe with the concept of support groups in general. They can be very helpful for cancer sufferers, crime victims, and others who are struggling to cope with traumatic misfortunes. But I'd really like to know what asshole decided to set up support groups for autistics. I'm guessing it was one of the politically correct dorks who insist on using person-first language and would never use the word "autistics." Here's what I have to say to those shitheads-with-dorkiness: My personality is not a disease, and I wouldn't be caught dead at an autism support group. Oh, and by the way, you are most cordially invited to plant a big ol' kiss on the keister of this person with PDD, which stands for Pissed-off at Discriminatory Dumbasses.

Since when was group therapy an adequate substitute for civil rights? Every day, in autism support groups, people are encouraged to yammer on about the misfortunes of their autism, which generally consist of such things as not being able to get a job, or an apartment, or decent treatment at school because of their "condition." The psychologists and social workers who run these groups make soothing sympathetic noises and offer advice along the lines of how to make eye contact, how to stop stimming—in other words, how to pass for a non-autistic.

Just imagine if there were "femaleness support groups" where women were taught to cope with employment discrimination and other "impairments" of their gender by learning to behave more like men. Or "blackness support groups" where people of color were advised to deal with their "social problems" by learning how to bleach their skin and how to sound white in a conversation.

This all goes to show the total disdain that psychologists have for autistics, as well as the extent to which the psychs have warped their clients' view of the world and of themselves. No one with a shred of self-respect would voluntarily seek out such degrading "support." Hell, even a lab rat probably has a better opinion of itself.

The autistic community, as you've undoubtedly noticed, is in dire need of consciousness-raising efforts. As an antidote to the psychs' relentless brainwashing, I recommend a visit to the
Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical for a look at how the situation might be reversed if autistics were in the majority.

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