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Comment by mtnGoat | Hacker News Reader

This should read “autism CAN make travel a challenge”. Mine doesn’t, travel isn’t hard for me, frankly I see a lot of people getting more stressed and anxious about travel then I do. the blanket statements people make about these things like autism, adhd, etc are just getting tired and frankly need to stop.

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I get what you mean, but I also hate that everything needs to have 100 disclaimers, specifiers, and caveats as to not have someone correcting you.

Autism is a complicated topic, as it has various forms and severity (the whole spectrum thing), some people can live with it better than others, so as a reader of this article, I assume that the statement doesn't cover every. single. person. on Earth with autism. Yeah, I got that, you don't need to put that in the title, it's self evident if you take 2 seconds to think about it.

"autism CAN make travel a challenge"? Can? Everything can make travel a challenge, so it's now kind of a pointless title, the important part if it does make it challenge? What kind of travel, all kinds, or only longer ones? Or is it about going abroad? Is it about food? Then why not put all that in the title, too?

This also grinds my gears. Amazing how many people can see a story about someone having a sandwich for lunch and thinking "Um actually I didn't have a sandwich for lunch and can't possibly imagine someone having experiences different to my own so you need to edit this."

Even just "autism makes MY travel a challenge" would be better than the current emphatic generalisation.

Or even "MY autism makes travel a challenge". There's a spectrum of autistic traits and not all of them affect travel.

Or just "when being autistic makes travel a challenge"

And a lot of people without autism (or that it hasn't been diagnosed) who have issues travelling and managing unexpected stuff.

I have seen more and more of this stuff lately and just try to keep my mouth shut. "autistic people don't like exercise the way neurotypical folks do". I'm just like... ???

The one that grinds my gears is the one on TikTok where a girl took an autism assessment and got asked what 2 and 7 have in common.

They are both prime numbers?

You may be autistic, but also you might not. You definetely have something going on! :)

I love when the people standing up for me have no fucking clue what my life is like or the struggles I face.

It great really annoying when they tell me what my problems are, because I’m clearly a less reliable source than some article on a website.

By the time you embed all of the potential caveats, you've written the article.

Map/Territory, Time/Place, Context, pick your explanation for why you should stop picking every conceivable nit.

I got caught up in this myself, I was recently(ish) diagnosed with ADHD and I was struggling with some preconceived notions of what it would be like after seeing a ton of articles, social media posts, etc that seemed to all make ADHD out to be this singular experience that I don't match up with. (Even worse I had preconceived notions of what the medication would be like, which it has been great but it wasn't quite like I was lead to believe)

I have parts of it, and that's part of why I did not even think to get diagnosed until I was in my thirties. It wasn't until I said something to my doctor casually that the conversation came up.

I think these general terms can discourage people from getting help because their experience doesn't line up with headlines like that that imply if you don't have this experience you don't have it.

Yeah, diagnosis like ADHD and autism have been invented just to make sense of the various ways our brains can be different. There's a high rate of comorbidity between the two, and various other diagnosis, which means they are not really separate "diseases", but just collections of symptoms caused by some differences in brain structure.

Personally I have traits commonly linked to both ADHD and autism. I'm often afraid of change and desire structure, yet somehow I love traveling. I guess that my extreme boredom with repetitive daily life just overcomes the fear, plus some of my deep interests require travel.

On the flipside, traveling alone outside of my state (or more to the point, where I don't have 'control' over my own travel) makes me freeze with terror. Going through an airport? It's a cacophony of confusion, anxiety, and fear rolled into one. Will I get to the airport on time? Will the lines cause me to miss my flight? Am I going to the correct gate? Did I need to take the tram to get to the satellite gate? What if it's late? What if my flight is late? What if we're diverted? Where do I go into <airport I've never visited> to get a rental? How will I get the rental back and where do I go? What if the rental wasn't booked correctly? How will I get to the hotel? What time do I need to leave?

I could go on... But none of those concerns pop up if I'm traveling with someone else.

"Autism is <blank>" is always going to be incorrect. Everyone is different. I always appreciate those that recognize the differences and everyone's unique experiences [with Autism].

The best, most plausible-seeming description I've encountered is that autism is a collection of imperfectly correlated traits. One may be able to make "often" and "usually" and "sometimes" statements, but probably not "always"/"never" statements.

Is there a better description out there that manages to be true to reality?

It’s phrased that way to resonate with the intended target audience, people who identify with the premise.

A book of outrage would probably phrase it similarly if it wanted to target you instead.

It’s such a ubiquitous, pervasive tactic, it’s easy to overlook it when it’s happening.

How would you feel if you didn’t have breakfast today?

How much coffee have I consumed instead?

How much have you?

3 cups since then

Awesome

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