I didn't think much of it. I'd 'come up' with a bunch of neurotypical 'transients' with sad family lives who partied and crashed where they could.
A couple of years later I thought maybe I'd look him up. I found a few news articles stating he (an adult) was "missing", autistic, and "ran away" from his "caregiver." Stated that he "functioned at a 12-year-old level." The autism part maybe explained some eccentricity, but I could not square that last part with the person I'd met. He seemed to know what he was doing (?) Based on the articles, he'd run away at least twice. No mention of parents, only a "caregiver."
It was just weird. He was very, very chill, and very chatty. He didn't seem in distress. I suppose one could recast my first impression of rambling free-spiritedness as "functioning at the level of a 12-year-old"...? Just odd. I never did find a way to contact him.
"caregiver" is a big red flag for me. I'm on the autistic spectrum. My parents took a different tact and let me become an emancipated minor at 15. I'm not gonna say they did their best or that that was a good thing to do... I cannot as an adult fathom just letting the kid go to the wolves... but I survived.
There is a massive contingent of people that HATE autistic people and feel like it's something to be "fixed". A lot of them frame that hate as helping.
There are tons of laws and very questionable care giving organizations. The history is brutal. Frequently they are handed over to people who get into the role of caring for these people because they want to beat and rape people who can't complain (see Jimmy Savile). This isn't that dissimilar from the highly publicize Britany Spears conservatorship. There is money in taking care of an adult with "the mind of a 12 year old" also you can beat and rape them if you wanna.
There is an old and "hippie dippie" model for spectrum disorders where they refer to them as indigo children and they claim that kids used to be called that because the baby was replaced by fairies and now speaks truths beyond their years. Look at the classic traits of a vampire. Being scared of water, can count things very fast, maybe has surprising strength and old wisdom.
Autistic people aren't extra wise, they span the range of dipshit to genius like any other category of people. Autistic people do spend a lot of extra energy trying to predict a world that is confusing and hostile to them and when they vocalize how they navigate said world, it creeps people out who have to deal with a society that says lying is wrong but the rule actually is "fuck it, do whatever you can get away with."
If you get hooked up to "caregivers" that take away your agency and you are an outlet of justifiable (to the abuser) sadism for them you can't run far enough. The state will put you back in their arms.
Autism Speaks is a eugenics organization. Autism does not mean a person is unaware of the world around them, actually quite the opposite. Also the messaging that autism can be a super power is the same thing in disguise (see the most recent Predator movie or Baby Driver). It's a sensory disorder. It's not a lack of emotion, it's that overload frequently makes it difficult to respond to people and situations as "normal people" expect so abuse becomes a default mode for "caregivers". There are organizations that are CURRENTLY advocating for electric shock or physical harm to help "correct" autism.
Yeah... (speaking about the perspective of a hypothetical person in a situation of abuse) Change your name, run away, hop trains. RUN if you can because you're autistic enough to see that people will always abuse you in any situation where you're put into the care of the ghouls that own your name. Even the Arc and Autism Self Advocacy Network have some massive problems including putting autistic people with weird abusive special interests into positions to hurt people who just want to live their fucking lives.
I recently saw this video by a fellow I really relate to where he lays out all the things I say in a fit some times but... yeah. They lay it all out. The history of helping the disabled is pretty wrought with not checking in with the disabled. Also, I think they are a hilarious humorist and the rest of their stuff is fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOlEjWaejAw - You Don't Seem Autistic - or - How I Learned to Love the Meritocracy _ Woohooligan Comedy
My father was not very involved because my mother didn't want him to be. To this day she is enraged that she was suckered into marrying a defective person because she felt sorry for him. She booted me out the house at 18. I was quasi-homeless for the next few years, sleeping in my car, at friends', sometimes at my grandparents'. Nothing permanent. I'm going to cut this story short because it doesn't really go anywhere. 2006-2012 were pretty good for me, and by conventional measures too.
I've been entangled with the mental health system too many times to list. It's a fraught fucking thing. A real mind-fuck. We didn't have the word 'gaslighting' in those days.
I've had very little interaction in life with people I relate to, other than my brother. That's why this video is ... relieving, or something like that.
No matter what, guard your grill with your fam but they did what they could and are flawed like the rest of us. Tigers won't change their stripes. Be who you gotta be and try to share some comfort and kindness where you can. Also give Whooligan a like and follow if you think of it. They don't have a lot of attention and I think they do solid effort and deserve more.
I detect a very familiar kind of traumatic shock in this story here. I currently experience manic terror masked by what looks like jokey beats told rapidly on loop for what I suspect are similar reasons. Who failed you doesn't have to define you though. They will probably still fail you but, probably they don't want to and don't know how to be different and wish they could be. Not your problem to fix. Because you're human and talking to me right now I think I can say with very strong confidence that your chosen family needs you to slow down the tape enough to share your light.
It makes me pretty happy that this video resonated with you. Find your people, be kind, know yourself. Guard your grill because the world is getting weirder. You're a goldmine and ghouls wanna deplete you. Surround yourself with folks that value your modes and can help you with the parts you don't get that well and you can trust to tell you the truth. Rinse, repeat.
I'm sorry if that's preachy sounding, but everything feels like hell to me today. I very much feel for your struggle how you explained it friend.
On a different note, it just occurred to me that we talk a lot about impostor syndrome, but never about the kind I had. Usually it’s about one’s skills and ability. I never had that, but I had it really, really hard about my class, and that never went away, either.
Relationship with your mom sounds awful... I'm strained with both of my parents for different reasons.
Let me know if I can help with anything. I'm datafaucet on twitter http://twitter.com/datafaucet
And I hope whatever you're going through gets better soon... hit me up if I can help.
I suspect this has something to do with the fact that many of these have grown up in environments where you are good at technical stuff or you are less than those who are (i.e. the US). They know that many autists will straight smoke their ass in all things STEM and they deeply resent being dealt a losing hand to those "weirdos". Others are just straight up sadists/abusers. The more I hear stories like this, the more I believe the courts practically seek out these sick fucks to be "caregivers" and such. Something is pathologically wrong with this entire area of society.
I suspect its worse than that. I suspect courts don't care if the caregiver is a sick fuck, because the sick fuck is offering to fix the problem of a disabled person existing with needs.
That's mostly it.
What, exactly, does the language police do differently from what you did?
But if someone compares me to anyone from Big Bang Theory I go off on a rant until they are glazed over about how I'm not trying to diminish the atrocities of slavery or how wrong minstrel shows are but also this is for sure "nerd face" and then wait... just wait... for way later in the party and say bazinga.
Just kidding with the bazinga thing. I'd never say that. It disgusts me.
Simply stigmatizing whatever words people decide to use in a mean way isn't a real solution to any problem. I resist sacrificing the word "Autist" to the god of the euphemism treadmill because it's the noun form of "Autistic" and is two syllables. If we stigmatize that word we won't address the actual stigma but we will be forced to resort to more pained and awkward language.
Feels somewhat contradictory.
In terms of abuse, stigmatizing the word "Autist" won't prevent abuse, it will enable it.
Language that expresses negative feelings about a group of people will always exist, all one can do is have influence over the exact language that is used in that expression and the context in which people use certain language. Censorship doesn't stop abuse, it changes how abuse is expressed. In this situation, if we censor "autist", people will still probably continue to use the word, but use it in private more often, and it will become more of a pure slur. People who use the word "Autist" also use "Autistic" as in "Autistic screeching" as a slur/backhanded compliment (And autistic is truly uncensorable) with a very similar connotation, so by stigmatizing "Autist" and giving it a more severe connotation consequently, you are actually increasing peoples ability to more fluently express their distaste of autistics by making the word "Autist" more distinct from "Autistic". Increasing peoples ability to express their distaste for autism more easily is the opposite of what censorship ought to aim to do.
One day I was fixing one of the computers in the office and he happened by. Nobody was around. He saw what I was doing and apropos of nothing he launched into something like, "You know, this place doesn't matter. Nothing here is real. Out there, a few years from now, you'll be in college, or working for fucking Microsoft or some shit. You know where I'll be? I'll be driving a forklift or changing somebody's oil if I'm lucky." No jokes. No smile.
The suspense is terrible, I hope it lasts.
Dude so in Chile, most of the world, a guardian can pay a shrink (a malpracticing psychiatrist, that's what that means) $400.000 (like $500) and he or she will 100% accuse him of any condition desired. Will. In United States the price is higher, depends on the state, basically on the chance of getting caught, and good psychs will just refuse. But they won't turn the guardian in, the good psychs are not in charge, the shrinks are in charge (like the Sacklers, being a shrink can make you a billionaire[1]). But a shrink can diagnose bipolar, schizophrenia, cannot take care of himself, retardation[2], what are the others...autism...paranoia...early-onset dementia...um...I read so many books about these things, why am I having a hard time rattling them all off...but at any rate, these are not diagnoses. They are also accusations. If false and public, they are slander. They justify harm, you can justify brain surgery, like a lobotomy but with better marketing. Same as an accusation can justify harm, putting someone in prison. And turns out, they all make the pretense of being scientific, but none of them are falsifiable (you have no way of proving them false), so why bother calling psychs who use them doctors if they're not even scientists? (Psychs is a more neutral term than shrink, psychiatrist is too big a word, takes too long to say, and means 'attendant of the soul' which is innacurate.)
And there are some great psychs. Just a minority by design.
[1] If you actually do the math, the three Sackler brothers are each a trillionaire debtor because that's the poverty value of the suffering they inflicted. Thousands of 13th amendment violations, making people addicts means making them slaves, they made hundreds of thousands of Americans slaves. Just through psychiatric malpractice, by definition being a shrink.
[2] This one is dangerous because if you diagnose retardation and the retard gets the best score in the country on the SAT, you might not look so smart yourself.
They held me for a miserable month. The justification given by the hospital doc was I "Didn't have a plan." That last bit can be good or bad depending on their assessment of your plans.
yes, I'm fortunate to have a very good doc now. I've had a few decent ones. Most could be replaced by a kiosk - take a quiz, dispense Big Pharma pills.
Can you give more context? Generally if someone is suicidal, “having a plan” is not a good thing, because it is beyond a vague intent, and it is a very strong signal of danger. Depressed people are queried about plans to help judge the possibility of suicide: you imply that was the risk that your mother was worried about.
My mother was annoyed that I was living at home without a job.
“You reminded her so much of your father, so you were banished. And you wonder why you’re so hypersensitive and why you can’t trust anyone but us.”
Of course a good psych is like finding a ten dollar bill on the sidewalk, whereas a shrink is getting mugged. They don't have the same absolute value.
It's like the only thing they care about really is that you never reach the courtroom and sue.
This. And then they'll just try another one.
Eventually one accepts the bribe and then it's set in stone because EVERY other professional will demand to read the previous "diagnosis" and they'll almost never deviate.
Just imagine if when you went for a second opinion on your radiology exams the new doctor demanded to know the previous diagnosis before making his own.
You'd laugh out loud because of the bias.
In psych fields it's considered the default and not doing it might actually be considered malpractice.
And that's why I talk about this all publicly, I care a lot about my privacy and THEREFORE I share this, so that it isn't known exclusively by the people I hate the most, by traitors of patients. Privacy isn't nobody knowing your secrets, well obviously it is but at this point that's a fantasy. Says right on the box cryptography is about forcing the government [or anybody else] to torture you. Beyond that point? Cryptography is useless. In fact I used 1Password diligently before, during and after getting tortured, back in 2009. Really liked the app, good placebo. Didn't add up to shit, and it's not their fault. I voided the warranty.
So you divulge. If the worst people know your secrets, share your secrets. That actually increases your privacy. And it's the perviest thing, they think slandering me will ensure my silence, well it did for a long time, but come on. What is the solution? Literal Daniel Cussen twitter.
You can read my stuff at https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=daniel-cussen
I ... my childhood was fucking weird... I thankfully never dealt with malicious caregivers, but I know now that both of my parents were autistic and undiagnosed. My care was mostly severe neglect... I say it was bizarre, because I went to an expensive summer camp like $6k/yr if I remember correctly, but that was the only time I knew support and community as a child. Back at home, while my parents were millionaires (not anymore), I lived alone with my mom in a hoarding house with multiple holes in the roof and infested with both racoons and rats. So yeah... a distinct lack of socializing experience didn't help me.
Let me know if I can help with anything. I'm datafaucet on twitter http://twitter.com/datafaucet
I'm going to take you up on that. I want to get you to look at my sort of janky WebRTC+XMPP+Unity3D remote D&D... not game... more like puppet show... thing. heh. It is NOT my day job.
I've got a contingent of computer professionals and people I've played D&D with not working on it but playing along while I sort it out. I've got a really pretty OK chat bot foundation for it that is like the old BBS game Legend of the Red Dragon with forrest fights and stuff... but it's backed by a well groomed and totally NOT distributable database a friend made of the Pathfinder SRD and a pretty cool magic item and name generator I made. It's a containerized django project originally running an IRC bot that I have now ported to Discord... which I dislike but am ... whatever. Anyway.
Come look at my chat bot and meet my nerd friends (it's like six of us on a good day) and look at the 3D broken puppet show I put on top of it please. I would really like that.
I will ping you on twitter. I don't want to cross this account with the one I'm going to send you contact from on twitter... I guess since you asked if you could help, check my profile and shoot me a hello via email so I can confirm my identity easily. Please. If you don't get to doing that, we can do that later. I don't wanna be a chore.
Cheers. I really, really appreciate your work. It's effervescent. I've sent it to a dozen people personally and a few of them that are NT actually watched it and they enjoyed it but really, more importantly, you put things into place for them that I'm talking about but they don't get when it's just coming from me and it's made my life a lot easier in some places.
Also, can I buy you a new microphone? I would like to do that. I don't think it needs to be anything extravagant, but I'm an audio professional and your audio quality muddles the message and can be over stimulating at times even though I know what you said at source was great. Your video editing is tops. Let me buy you a mic. We can chat about what works for you in your setup and I'll find the perfect one.
EDIT: This is kind of the forum for I'd guess a lot of people on the spectrum or however we say it. I did not expect this to blow up but I really can't express how happy it makes me that so many the people discussing things here are talking about how much your video connected with them. That was a hard video to make. I think what you put together is going to help so many people and I really see it here. To type this gets my face all twisted and crylike which isn't my thing. Really. Thank you.
That was my goal with the video, even though I thought it was somewhat "lofty". lol
This is the first time I've been on the ycombinator forum. I created the account just to respond to this thread. I'm happy to reply here, although I may be slower to reply here than on Twitter.
I forgot to mention earlier that my lapel mic died in the middle of filming and I had to replace it... so some of that audio distortion on the video is likely because the original mic was failing at the time.
I'm at the point where he's talking about how he suspected he should get diagnosis's from two doctors to get on disability and he was right and he was told to go to a third doctor anyways. It might be hard for people to relate to how I've had to have a hard talk with people that they will likely have to fight for years to get on disability assistance regardless of if they're legitimately disabled and that you can be too disabled and lacking in support to get through the system to get disability support. I know why things are like that but it doesn't make it any less cruelly ironic.
This video is so fucking real it's unreal.
The magic words just about anywhere I've found are "this is effecting my job" and you just get whatever treatment you asked for. But if I overly autistically explain anything they wanna run me through the shredder and set new appointments. "You just don't seem autistic." Yeah... do you know how these tests work also I'm hyper-vigialant masking right now because it's 7:30AM on a monday and I just met you.
Is this a time where I could have used the word Kafkaesque and it actually applies? I'm half drunk and don't know where that would fit in. I've got little tiny bug feet. I don't really know what bugs eat.
This 1000 times. I’d be on the street if not for the wherewithal to complete a grueling application, and an address to stay at where they could send the rejection and appeal letters 18 months later. Because of that, I am comfortable, while the homeless are homeless even though they may equally qualify. Safety net has too large holes.
As far as I know it's not effective for autism, but ECT often gets namedropped for shock value by people who don't like psychiatry, and when it's used appropriately and consensually for disorders it can treat, it doesn't deserve such a bad reputation. The end result is that people tend to be very scared of ECT even when it could probably help them.
That's the keyword. It's usually coerced even when the institutions label it consensual.
Also the memory loss is usually downplayed but it's a huge issue.
Plenty of “neurotypical” adults suck at showing up to things on time, especially at 8am. Plenty of adults throw full-on tantrums or otherwise act like children in certain situations. Plenty of college students don’t know how to do simple things like wash their clothes or cook or keep their dorm clean. Honestly a lot of people can barely function alone and keep their shit together, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that person was one of them, but we don’t look at them like 12-year olds.
This is not good enough to hold a person captive, really.
edit: I read your reply and I'm going to stop engaging right here. Sometimes intuition is worth listening to.
His son is autistic, and will, given the slightest opportunity, walk out of the house and wander off. It's just something he does, no matter where he is or who he is with (local day cares refused to take him after awhile because they literally couldn't keep the kid safe from himself wandering or climbing after a certain point).
I worry for my nephew, because he has literally no sense of self preservation, and he is growing fast. At some point, he may need to be put in a group home, because he is nearly his mother's size (she's fairly short anyway) and my brother is the primary breadwinner for the family.
Don't wag your klep when you've nothing at all to go on about someone.
~~I deleted a bunch of shit. If you read that I'm sorry. Really, I know this stuff is hard.~~
In his case, he doesn't comprehend spoken language enough to carry a conversation. He can answer some basic questions, and says a few words to explain his wants, but he couldn't tell you his own last name. He can memorize and very accurately reenact conversations in cartoons or YouTube videos well after seeing it (they found that out when he rather inappropriately started quoting Spaceballs at school, which he apparently watched at some point).
As for this kid who disappeared for a few years? I don't know anything about him. I don't know anything about his parents, or his home life. Neither does the person I responded to, and neither do you.
To say that this is a terrifying scenario is just projecting.
Good luck man. I'm sure y'all are great people. I was a total. fuckin. prick. I am deeply sorry you had to read that.
- - - - -
Yes exactly. He has been "lost" for 3 years. He did not want to just hit the road. Children like warm houses unless something very... very... wrong is going on. He was smart enough to make it this far and dodge getting his name picked up. This article glorifies returning him to caregivers AS AN ADULT and frames him like he's some mank moron.
The family are likely to now, in perpetuity forever, have absolute power over him AS AN ADULT that can't be broken without the order of a judge; likely at a county level, if you want to know what that means... look it up, and it appears no one cares in the reporting. The family will be able to draw a caretaker paycheck from this too.
Even if he does love them and was just... lost or something? The facts in this case are terrifying and it is spelled out in black and white. He would rather never have a name and freeze to death than see them again.
We are, in this thread, I suspect, caring more than anyone anywhere does. This happens to so many people, every day. Lets talk about a pretty woman who I'd guess is neuro typical and is in the public eye for having broken a conservatorship... Britany Spears. Apply that to someone who doesn't have here fame and resources and just got called by the newspaper a slack jawed moron for having just wandered around and not died.
He can stay alive and hide his name for 3 years on the street. I have a feeling he could write some shitty python scripts and make $300,000 a year... but now he's put into the hands of who did him wrong and there is a state paper trail and it's going to be functionally impossible to get him out of that if he wants to all while incentivizing his care takers to keep him looked at as an idiot so they can draw a check.
I am not saying anyone involved feels that way or abuse has happened. I'm saying that the facts stated are happening and undoing the removal of agency with no question from this young man is unconscionable.
Yes... This does assume something VERY negative about the family.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
If he is ever able to exercise his agency, we will never hear about it and it will take years. How did you spend your 18-38? Was it being beaten with appliance cords by a drunk raping uncle who is just so pissed about how you're such a spaz all the time? Yeah, I'm sure the wheels of justice will just sort this out and it's all fuckin' fine.
Given his reluctance to give his name, this is highly likely to be what's happening here.