I have spent majority of my adult life operating under the idea that I'm on the spectrum. I have no problem sharing that detail of my life as I sit in front of a computer for more than 8 hours most days and would identify as introverted and eccentric in my own ways.
What I found interesting is that as I experimented with lowering my screen time and doing more analog activities, my symptoms that had me believing I was on the spectrum started to disappear.
I became more extroverted. I regained my attention towards a single task. I no longer exploded with anger or frustration when I was overwhelmed. I even started to accomplish things I never thought I would and see side projects to completion.
At a certain point, I said enough is enough with regards to coping and dedicated each new day to working on these challenges. I don't think I'm the same person I previously identified as. I mean that in a good way.
The article mentions this a bit later:
> Most people who struggle to find stable employment also contend with things like intergenerational poverty and/or trauma, cycles of abuse, mental illness, systemic discrimination, disability or neurological disorders. Not only are these all chronically stressful and traumatic circumstances, they have all been linked to a high incidence of impaired executive function.
I would agree here. As I started to face my childhood/generational trauma, mental illnesses, and other regular things you question as you approach 30, I started to find much more peace with everything. On-top of that, I started to find what I'm passionate for and continue to work towards that each day.
I think everyone has their own journey to go through, but I do believe it's possible to change drastically as an individual.
Really interesting to hear about the link between the things you were spending time on and thr person you were. We forgot how much the things we do affect who we are.
It makes me think of the idea in that book the shallows: Where every tech advancement also removes a skill or connection.
Writing meant we lost our oral tradition and the social bonds that came with it;
Maps made us better at navigating but we lost touch with the spaces we were in;
The clock gave our days structure but we stop depending on our bodies to tell us when we were hungry or tired.
I do wonder how many subtle things we are giving up for the privilege of using computers and participating in a global digital culture.
I played a lot of sports and I'm very much on the spectrum. I didn't have any coordination issues though. I do find physical activity makes me feel better in general but it certainly doesn't "reduce" my autism. I have gotten a lot better at dealing with it as I've gotten older though (I guess many would call this masking).
I agree that everyone has their own journey, I don’t agree that life is equally difficult. But I do think we should think very carefully before making any attempt to try to equalize life to avoid making it worse. For example, I think grievance culture is counter productive.
Personally, I have ADHD by way of a genetic mutation. As I get older (30s) I’m getting more and more chronically fatigued. Something I presume is plaguing Hannah as well - it tends to kick in ~20s. I also think my crazy math ability is liked to it as well. While I would swap CFS for a lot of other disabilities I’m not so sure about giving up my math ability.
I was always "geeky" and a little behind in terms of socio-emotional development. In recent years I started wondering if I was on the spectrum.
But the more I've delved into it, I've come to the conclusion that no, it's just that I was geeky + raised in a home with abuse, and that when you don't get your emotional needs met in childhood, you skip a lot of developmental milestones and have to make up for them later.
There's more than one reason to feel like you don't "get" certain things about social interaction.
38 here, and really started to make headway with my spectrum issues in my early 30s.
And I think you are absolutely onto something about having “analog” activities. I started playing sports in my 30s (oh god my joints), and learning to move through real 3D space and real the subtleties of other people’s body language and movement was a real breakthrough for me.
Now…that does present a bit of a chicken/egg problem. Because I had just terrible proprioception growing up. Awful. Clumsy as all get-out. Which tends to go along with spectrum disorders.
> I have spent majority of my adult life operating under the idea that I'm on the spectrum
Has this changed over time? Your opening sentence kind of suggests that it has, but you do not return to this idea. I'm curious what your current opinion is.
Saw her most recent special (Hasn't been on Netflix or anything) last August in Darwin, and it was a pivot back to more standard comedy. Mentioned some of her issues, but far less rant-orientated than Douglas or Nanette.
I think this sentiment would be good motivation for her to keep on going. For one, a lot of comedy is based on grievance and grudge and presenting them in a novel light. And she is shedding light on subjects, that could use a more honest representation in mainstream culture.
And as a dutch person, I was happy that I could finally watch a comedian with my wife, that didn't have the rapid fire of separate jokes and at some random point just... ends. Instead I could watch a show with her that had theme and an arc, and also wasn't afraid to just put the audience in uncomfortable position and leave them there for a while. It really felt like going to a dutch comedian, and I was surprised to see this have any success in the US market.
I like this quote because it doesn't make any sense. It's obvious that not everyone operates with the same level of ability. Some have more ability than others, which necessarily means some are below average. Stating that "average ability is a human right" doesn't change the mathematical reality.
And from it a management philosophy which needs to be more prominent: the goal is to strive for the best output each employee is capable of by shaping their environment to serve them best. The goal is not to hold each employee to the same standard and punish the below average.
Autism has become a catch-all for "people who are weird". "Neurotypical" is the vaguely condescending opposite. Notice the sneer when she refers to "neurotypical 'experts'". The basic idea is that people who are weird are a subjugated minority, oppressed by people with boring, normal brains.
I don't doubt that Hannah Gadsby is weird but I think life is hard for everyone, including normal people. I think the struggles she enumerates are common: most of us have crises of identity or meaning, many of us feel intense insecurity, cut off and isolated from others. This isn't to minimize her suffering, it's to say that suffering is normal.
I have a strong objection to people who freely talk about negative experiences. Some of the people I respect the most have had extremely negatives experiences but mention them only with great reluctance. There's something about that that seems right. Columns like this debase the currency: by exalting empathy and understanding as the highest values, they devalue them.
I have over the years developed an ever increasing disillusionment with the quality of medical providers. Not all of them, mind you, but it seems just as rare to encounter a smart, extremely competent doctor as it is a random person in the general population when one would expect the selective process to result in a much higher proportion. The sneer is well deserved. The attachment of “neurotypical” is inappropriate because it is unnecessary.
> Some of the people I respect the most have had extremely negatives experiences but mention them only with great reluctance. There's something about that that seems right.
This reminds me of the recurring story of the apparently happy upbeat person committing suicide to the surprise of almost everyone around them. Hiding your demons to survive and overcompensating chasing respect and accomplishments is one way to cope, this sometimes results in a quality life, other times it is just masked suffering. Promoting this ethic can be extremely toxic trapping people, especially if from childhood, into being afraid of letting anybody know about their problems.
I don't think it's a sneering to point out that if most people who talk about something lack the direct experience of having it, they may not represent it well. Personal experience gives folk's different perspectives. Autism certainly seems to.
And whether the struggles she enumerates are common or not, if suffering is normal and near universal as you suggest, I think it's good to ask, does it have to be so? Are there things we can do to make the world better?
I think not talking about something is unlikely to change anything.
> I don't doubt that Hannah Gadsby is weird but I think life is hard for everyone, including normal people. I think the struggles she enumerates are common: most of us have crises of identity or meaning, many of us feel intense insecurity, cut off and isolated from others. This isn't to minimize her suffering, it's to say that suffering is normal.
"Everyone feels those things you describe" was how coworkers and supervisors dismissed a partner's attempts to seek accommodation for their auditory processing disorder.
This person had test results showing they struggled significantly more than others in noisy environments to focus or understand spoken language, and showed them to said coworkers and supervisors, who still insisted that "everyone finds that stuff distracting." Yes, but here are the scientifically validated, objective test results showing it is significantly worse for them was her response. They didn't care. They decided that "everyone goes through this sort of thing, this person is just fragile."
Your attitude is also strikingly similar to how people dismiss talk of racism and sexism. "I'm a guy and people are sexist to me" and so on.
> I have a strong objection to people who freely talk about negative experiences.
Says the person who went out of their way to post a comment complaining about people seeking accommodation for their disabilities (and I might add, has decided that they're mostly all a bunch of fakers.)
> Some of the people I respect the most have had extremely negatives experiences but mention them only with great reluctance.
Maybe they only mention them with great reluctance is because you're not a safe person to mention them around.
I think autism has become the IBS of neurodiversity, and will be retired someday just as the diagnosis of “hysteria” was retired as a catch all for women’s issues a century ago.
> I have a strong objection to people who freely talk about negative experiences. Some of the people I respect the most have had extremely negatives experiences but mention them only with great reluctance. There's something about that that seems right. Columns like this debase the currency: by exalting empathy and understanding as the highest values, they devalue them.
I'm not sure I understand your objection. The struggles people go through and their ways of overcoming them help shape who they are, and sharing the journeys of these struggles can help people undergoing similar experiences. Especially when it comes to something as isolating and widespread as understanding self-identity. While I'd agree that yes, most people have similar struggles with identity/insecurity, her struggles with undiagnosed autism are relatively unique, and there is value in sharing her story and learning from it.
I find it bizarre how uncritically the social construct of doubling the ranks of the mentally ill/disordered in the course of decades has been introduced. There is no way in the last few decades the amount of mentally disordered people has expanded so greatly, it must be the case we're simply calling more people disordered. The growth of mental disorders is starting to plateau now but things are still growing.
I find it all to be part of a modern fetishization of victimhood as as something that ought to give you entitlements without responsibilities, and consequently has greatly expanded the ranks of victims in society. I find it straight up bizarre in some sense that a student in an elite school will get academic accommodations and access to amphetamines on the pretence they just can't be as successful as other students when it has to be the case many of these students would end up at community college or state school without the drugs and be fine. It's kind of like to me an athlete playing for a crappy school team getting diagnosed with "strength deficit disorder" getting on steroids and breaking records and this is justified with all sorts of pseudoscience about how steroids actually have the opposite effect on muscletypicals (proving steroids are a drug for only those with legitimate medical need) when the entire sports team is on steroids. We also give them a headstart in all races to ensure that they don't have any performance anxiety.
Re: Experts, The expert she's referring to, more than anybody, is Simon Baron Cohen and his research has been replicated many times yet only applies to MOST but not ALL autistic children. He famously applied the Sally-Anne test to autistic children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally%E2%80%93Anne_test to demonstrate "mind blindness". I would say the biggest issue with the research is that it took place is 1988 and autistics are not remotely the same group of people that they were in 1988, so it wouldn't even surprise me if autistics were no longer mind blind in this way, since autism is not even remotely consistent in its definition across time. I sympathize with any criticism of "Experts on autism" because they have shown nothing but incompetence as a group.
you're fairly judgmental, you think there's a way people should be, and other ways people should not be. this is exactly the type of attitude that exacerbates the alienation autistics already feel.
You have a very acerbic approach to the notion that other people have developmental disorders apparently borne out of a persecutory delusion that they have developmental disorders solely to declare the way your brain works boring, and brandish your ignorance about them with unusual glee. If someone tells you they're dyslexic, do you lash out at them because you think they're trying to throw shade on your boring normal ability to read?
Autism is not a catch-all for people who are weird. Psychiatrists diagnose autism using a set of defined criteria where autistic people differ from the average population, where those differences are not explained by other disabilities that often result in similar differences (https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html).
It's true that we don't have a full understanding of autism, or explanations of why individuals vary in the specific symptoms they exhibit, but that doesn't mean the diagnosis is a random label applied to anyone who is weird, it means that psychiatric conditions are often difficult to understand, and that we need more scientific research to understand them better. People with schizophrenia would also be considered "weird" by most of the population, but we don't label them autistic because of that. I, and I think many others, consider Snoop Dogg a bit weird, but I wouldn't attribute that to autism; I would attribute it to his Snoop Doggness.
Gadsby isn't saying that autistic people have a monopoly on suffering, but that autistic suffering comes from a specific set of limitations, and not understanding what those limitations are, or thinking that you could just rid yourself of them through sheer force of will is very frustrating. Paraplegic people also suffer, but it's not because they have limited social cognition or hypersensitivity to sensory input, it's because they lack the use of their legs in a world largely designed for those that can walk. Paraplegia is, however, much more visible and more easily diagnosed that a developmental disorder: we can easily see that paraplegics cannot move their legs, and paraplegics can easily see what people who can walk are able to do that they can't.
Developmental disorders are much harder to see: you cannot peer inside an autistic person's brain function and see how their brain functions, and autistic people cannot see inside the workings of allistic brains to see that they're using mental "limbs" that they cannot exercise. It'd be cool if we could! but science has a ways to go before we can.
The complaint about neurotypical parents and medical professionals isn't that they're oppressing or subjugating autistic people, but that they're describing the condition from the perspective of someone who lives without it and can't easily conceptualize that experience--the diagnostic criteria can identify who has autism, but they can't describe how it's shaped their lives. For lack of a more elegant description, if you're disabled, hearing someone who shares that disability "i know that feel bro" with you helps immensely to alleviate feelings of isolation, much more than a doctor explaining the diagnostic criteria you meet.
Your strong objection to people talking about negative experiences and view that emotional repression is a virtue are yours to hold if you so desire, but I hope you understand that many people don't feel the same, and will consider you a callous, oppressive person if you try to enforce that opinion as the correct one by treating their sharing their problems as a personal attack. This isn't a criticism of your boringness for lack of a developmental disability, it's a criticism of your wanton disregard for others' experiences and unjustified, self-centered offense that they have the gall to talk about them.
[+] [-] thenerdhead|4 years ago|reply
What I found interesting is that as I experimented with lowering my screen time and doing more analog activities, my symptoms that had me believing I was on the spectrum started to disappear.
I became more extroverted. I regained my attention towards a single task. I no longer exploded with anger or frustration when I was overwhelmed. I even started to accomplish things I never thought I would and see side projects to completion.
At a certain point, I said enough is enough with regards to coping and dedicated each new day to working on these challenges. I don't think I'm the same person I previously identified as. I mean that in a good way.
The article mentions this a bit later:
> Most people who struggle to find stable employment also contend with things like intergenerational poverty and/or trauma, cycles of abuse, mental illness, systemic discrimination, disability or neurological disorders. Not only are these all chronically stressful and traumatic circumstances, they have all been linked to a high incidence of impaired executive function.
I would agree here. As I started to face my childhood/generational trauma, mental illnesses, and other regular things you question as you approach 30, I started to find much more peace with everything. On-top of that, I started to find what I'm passionate for and continue to work towards that each day.
I think everyone has their own journey to go through, but I do believe it's possible to change drastically as an individual.
[+] [-] Pearse|4 years ago|reply
It makes me think of the idea in that book the shallows: Where every tech advancement also removes a skill or connection.
Writing meant we lost our oral tradition and the social bonds that came with it; Maps made us better at navigating but we lost touch with the spaces we were in; The clock gave our days structure but we stop depending on our bodies to tell us when we were hungry or tired.
I do wonder how many subtle things we are giving up for the privilege of using computers and participating in a global digital culture.
Thanks so much for sharing it was insightful.
[+] [-] zeroonetwothree|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cjbgkagh|4 years ago|reply
Personally, I have ADHD by way of a genetic mutation. As I get older (30s) I’m getting more and more chronically fatigued. Something I presume is plaguing Hannah as well - it tends to kick in ~20s. I also think my crazy math ability is liked to it as well. While I would swap CFS for a lot of other disabilities I’m not so sure about giving up my math ability.
[+] [-] Arete314159|4 years ago|reply
But the more I've delved into it, I've come to the conclusion that no, it's just that I was geeky + raised in a home with abuse, and that when you don't get your emotional needs met in childhood, you skip a lot of developmental milestones and have to make up for them later.
There's more than one reason to feel like you don't "get" certain things about social interaction.
[+] [-] perardi|4 years ago|reply
And I think you are absolutely onto something about having “analog” activities. I started playing sports in my 30s (oh god my joints), and learning to move through real 3D space and real the subtleties of other people’s body language and movement was a real breakthrough for me.
Now…that does present a bit of a chicken/egg problem. Because I had just terrible proprioception growing up. Awful. Clumsy as all get-out. Which tends to go along with spectrum disorders.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] appleflaxen|4 years ago|reply
Has this changed over time? Your opening sentence kind of suggests that it has, but you do not return to this idea. I'm curious what your current opinion is.
[+] [-] vecplane|4 years ago|reply
Nanette 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWJhMnYv6Mg
Can Nanette 3 be about autism?
[+] [-] CPLX|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twoneurons|4 years ago|reply
She's got talent to do more interesting things than complaining about the same over and over, in a dead end road.
[+] [-] Gugabe|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] todorus|4 years ago|reply
And as a dutch person, I was happy that I could finally watch a comedian with my wife, that didn't have the rapid fire of separate jokes and at some random point just... ends. Instead I could watch a show with her that had theme and an arc, and also wasn't afraid to just put the audience in uncomfortable position and leave them there for a while. It really felt like going to a dutch comedian, and I was surprised to see this have any success in the US market.
[+] [-] stevage|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bsder|4 years ago|reply
I really like that quote from her on multiple dimensions.
[+] [-] simulate-me|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colechristensen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slibhb|4 years ago|reply
I don't doubt that Hannah Gadsby is weird but I think life is hard for everyone, including normal people. I think the struggles she enumerates are common: most of us have crises of identity or meaning, many of us feel intense insecurity, cut off and isolated from others. This isn't to minimize her suffering, it's to say that suffering is normal.
I have a strong objection to people who freely talk about negative experiences. Some of the people I respect the most have had extremely negatives experiences but mention them only with great reluctance. There's something about that that seems right. Columns like this debase the currency: by exalting empathy and understanding as the highest values, they devalue them.
[+] [-] colechristensen|4 years ago|reply
> Some of the people I respect the most have had extremely negatives experiences but mention them only with great reluctance. There's something about that that seems right.
This reminds me of the recurring story of the apparently happy upbeat person committing suicide to the surprise of almost everyone around them. Hiding your demons to survive and overcompensating chasing respect and accomplishments is one way to cope, this sometimes results in a quality life, other times it is just masked suffering. Promoting this ethic can be extremely toxic trapping people, especially if from childhood, into being afraid of letting anybody know about their problems.
[+] [-] WesternWind|4 years ago|reply
And whether the struggles she enumerates are common or not, if suffering is normal and near universal as you suggest, I think it's good to ask, does it have to be so? Are there things we can do to make the world better?
I think not talking about something is unlikely to change anything.
[+] [-] KennyBlanken|4 years ago|reply
"Everyone feels those things you describe" was how coworkers and supervisors dismissed a partner's attempts to seek accommodation for their auditory processing disorder.
This person had test results showing they struggled significantly more than others in noisy environments to focus or understand spoken language, and showed them to said coworkers and supervisors, who still insisted that "everyone finds that stuff distracting." Yes, but here are the scientifically validated, objective test results showing it is significantly worse for them was her response. They didn't care. They decided that "everyone goes through this sort of thing, this person is just fragile."
Your attitude is also strikingly similar to how people dismiss talk of racism and sexism. "I'm a guy and people are sexist to me" and so on.
> I have a strong objection to people who freely talk about negative experiences.
Says the person who went out of their way to post a comment complaining about people seeking accommodation for their disabilities (and I might add, has decided that they're mostly all a bunch of fakers.)
> Some of the people I respect the most have had extremely negatives experiences but mention them only with great reluctance.
Maybe they only mention them with great reluctance is because you're not a safe person to mention them around.
[+] [-] whodunnit|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barbs|4 years ago|reply
I'm not sure I understand your objection. The struggles people go through and their ways of overcoming them help shape who they are, and sharing the journeys of these struggles can help people undergoing similar experiences. Especially when it comes to something as isolating and widespread as understanding self-identity. While I'd agree that yes, most people have similar struggles with identity/insecurity, her struggles with undiagnosed autism are relatively unique, and there is value in sharing her story and learning from it.
Apologies if I've misunderstood your comment.
[+] [-] faeriechangling|4 years ago|reply
I find it all to be part of a modern fetishization of victimhood as as something that ought to give you entitlements without responsibilities, and consequently has greatly expanded the ranks of victims in society. I find it straight up bizarre in some sense that a student in an elite school will get academic accommodations and access to amphetamines on the pretence they just can't be as successful as other students when it has to be the case many of these students would end up at community college or state school without the drugs and be fine. It's kind of like to me an athlete playing for a crappy school team getting diagnosed with "strength deficit disorder" getting on steroids and breaking records and this is justified with all sorts of pseudoscience about how steroids actually have the opposite effect on muscletypicals (proving steroids are a drug for only those with legitimate medical need) when the entire sports team is on steroids. We also give them a headstart in all races to ensure that they don't have any performance anxiety.
Re: Experts, The expert she's referring to, more than anybody, is Simon Baron Cohen and his research has been replicated many times yet only applies to MOST but not ALL autistic children. He famously applied the Sally-Anne test to autistic children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally%E2%80%93Anne_test to demonstrate "mind blindness". I would say the biggest issue with the research is that it took place is 1988 and autistics are not remotely the same group of people that they were in 1988, so it wouldn't even surprise me if autistics were no longer mind blind in this way, since autism is not even remotely consistent in its definition across time. I sympathize with any criticism of "Experts on autism" because they have shown nothing but incompetence as a group.
[+] [-] fsckboy|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twayt|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] fivre|4 years ago|reply
Autism is not a catch-all for people who are weird. Psychiatrists diagnose autism using a set of defined criteria where autistic people differ from the average population, where those differences are not explained by other disabilities that often result in similar differences (https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html).
It's true that we don't have a full understanding of autism, or explanations of why individuals vary in the specific symptoms they exhibit, but that doesn't mean the diagnosis is a random label applied to anyone who is weird, it means that psychiatric conditions are often difficult to understand, and that we need more scientific research to understand them better. People with schizophrenia would also be considered "weird" by most of the population, but we don't label them autistic because of that. I, and I think many others, consider Snoop Dogg a bit weird, but I wouldn't attribute that to autism; I would attribute it to his Snoop Doggness.
Gadsby isn't saying that autistic people have a monopoly on suffering, but that autistic suffering comes from a specific set of limitations, and not understanding what those limitations are, or thinking that you could just rid yourself of them through sheer force of will is very frustrating. Paraplegic people also suffer, but it's not because they have limited social cognition or hypersensitivity to sensory input, it's because they lack the use of their legs in a world largely designed for those that can walk. Paraplegia is, however, much more visible and more easily diagnosed that a developmental disorder: we can easily see that paraplegics cannot move their legs, and paraplegics can easily see what people who can walk are able to do that they can't.
Developmental disorders are much harder to see: you cannot peer inside an autistic person's brain function and see how their brain functions, and autistic people cannot see inside the workings of allistic brains to see that they're using mental "limbs" that they cannot exercise. It'd be cool if we could! but science has a ways to go before we can.
The complaint about neurotypical parents and medical professionals isn't that they're oppressing or subjugating autistic people, but that they're describing the condition from the perspective of someone who lives without it and can't easily conceptualize that experience--the diagnostic criteria can identify who has autism, but they can't describe how it's shaped their lives. For lack of a more elegant description, if you're disabled, hearing someone who shares that disability "i know that feel bro" with you helps immensely to alleviate feelings of isolation, much more than a doctor explaining the diagnostic criteria you meet.
Your strong objection to people talking about negative experiences and view that emotional repression is a virtue are yours to hold if you so desire, but I hope you understand that many people don't feel the same, and will consider you a callous, oppressive person if you try to enforce that opinion as the correct one by treating their sharing their problems as a personal attack. This isn't a criticism of your boringness for lack of a developmental disability, it's a criticism of your wanton disregard for others' experiences and unjustified, self-centered offense that they have the gall to talk about them.
[+] [-] tonguez|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] whoisthis111|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]