Letters to an Asexual #95 ("ACTUALLY, you have Asperger's")
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
- This is #95 of a series in which I read correspondence between me and people who have questions, comments, or--more often--misconceptions about asexuality. In this video, a dude insists I have Asperger's Syndrome and hollers that his psychology degree means he's right and I'm wrong. (Also, after becoming infuriated when I told him how irresponsible it is to diagnose people from a video, he how illogical I was being, then threatened me and called me a bitch.) I explore some elements of the autism spectrum and why people should not use autism or asexuality as insults.
but like, if he's even looking to get into the field of psychology, you'd think he'd know that psychologists don't go about making diagnosis willynilly nor do they act without empathy towards those they are trying to understand. it's quite troubling to think about these sorts working with the mentally ill or neurodivergent.
He shouldn't be allowed anywhere near people.
Yes. He said I was ATTACKING him because I didn't think diagnosing someone on the internet was appropriate, but once I cut off his opportunity to dump his ignorant opinions on me, suddenly disagreeing with him and not letting him trap me into listening to it sent him into a WHITE HOT RAGE. It's BAFFLING to imagine he might snap and yell "SHIT, BITCH!" at people if they won't ooh and ahh at his degree. He sure showed everyone here how bad a fit he is for that profession.
It's amazing how many free-of-charge psychological insights I have received over the years. Both hilarious and terrifying.
I know right? What's Mr. Big Shot with his degree doing marching around RUclips giving out free diagnoses like candy? Just goes to show you some of these people are just here because they wanted to become "your brain is wrong" cops.
@@swankivy I totally agree that he's probably not practicing (GOOD!)
I definitely wouldn't want to be their patient. His final behavior was very immature.
Yeah. And it's gross that he was hollering at me for being "insecure" (because evidently that's what you call it when some rando diagnoses you on the internet), yet all that had to happen to make him fly into a rage like that was to not appreciate his opinion and remove him from the conversation. THIS BITCH HAS THE AUDACITY TO ACT LIKE EVERYTHING I SAY IS NOT WORTH LISTENING TO AND TAKING TO HEART? I WILL HUNT HER DOWN AND PUNISH HER! Like wow, very childish. A type of childish I certainly did not display despite him claiming I am the childish one.
The psychologist that diagnosed me with autism and adhd felt the need to give me unsolicited advice about transitioning even though it had nothing to do with the exam. I only went to get accommodations in college , not some guy pointing out all the traits that make me dysphoric
As an autistic asexual myself, I think you came at the situation with a lot of nuance and grace. I love how you've addressed this issue in this video.
This dude's comment about "It's not insulting to say someone has Asperger's" is actually, ironically, insulting, because "Asperger's" as a term is no longer accepted in the autistic community. The reason is that Hans Asperger was a Nazi who participated in eugenics of autistic people, killing off those he deemed "low-functioning" and only allowing the so-called "high functioning" autistics to live (aka, those who could hide their autistic traits well enough to fit into society) The diagnosis has gone the way of functioning labels themselves: outdated capitalist terms that stink of superiority on the part of the speaker. To even describe autistic people as any sort of "functioning" is in and of itself insulting. It doesn't describe how *I* experience my autism, it describes how *someone else* perceives me to be. If the need arises where we must specify what the autistic person can or cannot do, we use the current diagnosis of levels 1-3 or even support needs labels. Eg. high support needs/level 3 autism would describe an autistic person who maybe needs a lot of support and has trouble living or working independently and is perhaps nonvocal, vs. low support needs/Level 1 that describes someone like me who can do lots of stuff independently and perform most daily tasks without any help but still acknowledges that I may need help in certain areas. I only discovered asexuality a few years ago after graduating from college (and in fact, your channel was one of the first resources I found!) and I struggled to be able to accept that I was, in fact, asexual because my internalized ableism said that I was only asexual *because* I was autistic. So guys like this who perpetuate that stereotype only damage people like me further. Also there's a common stereotype that is *extremely* damaging about autistic people in that we are perpetual children and we cannot possibly have or consent to sex. I personally don't like sex, but I know tons of autistic people who do like sex, and just because you have autism does not mean you cannot consent to sex.
Thank you so much for making this video and allowing discussions on this topic to be heard.
Thanks for the validation of my approach. Regarding "Asperger's," yes I had heard that was the main (if not the only) reason the term was discarded! I didn't elaborate in the video but you see how I read the phrase "obviously high functioning" in a goofier voice? That's why--I know how ridiculous "functioning" labels are and how insulting the whole concept is, and was thinking about how awful it was that he was trying to compliment me by calling me high functioning. And your comments on how "functioning" labels tie people to how they're seen or used by neurotypical society are eloquently phrased. And yes, it's so gross to set up a dynamic where certain adult people who are perceived as immature due to lacking specific markers of maturity are infantilized to the point that they aren't thought capable of sexual consent (or indeed of reliably knowing what they want--which as we know leads directly to disrespecting those wishes).
As an addition, Asperger also k!lled off 'high functioning' aut!stic people who happened to be female (because aut!sm was considered excessive logic and females could not be logical because they were emotional, so they couldn't actually be aut!stic, they were just difficult), as well as 'high functioning' aut!stic people whose skills were not useful to the German Volk and army, like for example what he called 'calendar people', people who could instantly tell you whether June first 1682 was a Tuesday or a Thursday. He called these people 'life unworthy of life', 'useless eaters,' and knowingly sent them off to be experimented on by his friend and colleague Erwin Jekelius, who was widely known as 'the mass m*rderer of Steinhof'.
Jekelius took pleasure in personally ending the lives of disabled people in t0rturous ways, and he was morally opposed to letting any of them slip past him. Even when H!tler's cousin came to plead for a family member's life, he didn't budge (though we don't know how hard she tried because she later married him, and I don't know about you but personally I wouldn't get married to someone who m*rdered my family members).
When mothers found out that their children were not in treatment to cure their disability at his clinic, but were there to be k!lled, some attempted to rescue their children, and failing that, pleaded for their children not to suffer as they d!ed. Jekelius made them suffer anyways.
Asperger co-founded a Eugen!cs organization with Jekelius and another prominent m*rderous Viennese guy called Franz Hamburger Asperger always praised his naz! colleagues while calling the non-naz! ones weak and pathetic and ineffective. Asperger was a member of the Austrian Catholic wing of the naz! party (and the atheist wing was against Catholicism, so this got him in trouble a couple of times. Asperger was willing to take risks for his faith, but not for the lives of disabled children). He was also an active member of several eugen!cs organizations.
Steinhof (renamed to Spiegelgrund) had hundreds of brains stored in jars in the basement. You want to take a guess whose brains those were?
Even Asperger's academic achievements have been greatly exaggerated. He was appointed leader of his clinic, despite being very young and inexperienced, by his naz! thesis supervisor Franz Hamburger (because Hamburger liked Asperger's politics). Hamburger was another prominent proponent of child m*rder. This clinic already had extensive knowledge of aut!sm, and dealt with aut!stic kids in a kind and understanding way. Asperger changed that.
When the naz!s invaded Vienna, Asperger's colleagues Georg Frankl and Anni Weiss fled the country, because they were J3wish. Asperger proceeded to plagiarize their work without crediting them, and twisted their kind attitude towards aut!stic children (these kids mean no harm, they're just different) into a more dem0nizing attitude (these kids are evil psych0paths, have no empathy, and must be tamed so they can be effective tools for the naz! army).
Georg Frankl and Anni Weiss worked with Leo Kanner after having fled to the US. Leo Kanner later also claimed to have discovered aut!sm on his own, and also didn't credit their work. But well he was also the one who helped them escape Germany so I guess you win some you lose some.
Edith Shaeffer's book Asperger's Children is a real eye-opener you guys. Honestly, this man was the literal worst.
If they were a professional they also would know that it is unethical to practice outside of their office.
I mean, it's not like he was actually issuing me a diagnosis in a professional capacity with a live prescription or using his legal name to represent his opinion as medical advice. But the flip side of that is what matters, really: he has no business pretending his assessment is a professionally authentic opinion that should be respected as such if he's doing it without my consent and outside the doctor/patient relationship. Very silly of him to expect that deference without the very basic first part of the process where I choose to access his services. (Plus as I said in the video I doubt he's ever actually practiced, because his inexperience and lack of knowledge of basic values is showing--not to mention how unacceptably furious he got when I countered his shitty opinion with "mind your business." HOW DARE I, right?? He has a psychology degree! I'm wrong he's right goodbye!)
Wow! He went from fake polite straight to profanity laden melt down.
Shocking, and yet so, so freaking predictable. YOU WILL NOT LISTEN TO MY LUKEWARM, OVERPLAYED OPINION? FEEL MY RAGE.
Jeez
I need to listen to this video whenever I start to feel impostor syndrome. I wouldn't trust that guy in any job related to psychology
Seriously. The first time a patient said they didn't like his treatment and decided to go elsewhere, maybe he'd show up at their house saying DON'T YOU DARE DROP ME, SHIT BITCH, FACE YOUR FUCKING INSECURITIES!!!! And then he'd get arrested.
Thanks for using 'variation' instead of disorder. I didn't event think about using variation to substitute it, but now I think I'll start using it more.
I've never been diagnosed as someone on the autistic spectrum, but I am neurodivergent in that I am dyspraxic (also known as DCD/Developmental Coordination Disorder). I'm also on a waiting list to be tested for ADHD. To be honest...I don't mind using DCD on myself, but when it comes many neuro divergent variations (and perhaps with autism in particular, as that is very stigmatized) I really always felt uncomfortable saying it's a 'disorder' (not that I'd jump on someone who *is* on that spectrum for calling it a disorder, that's entirely up to them. I just really don't like using that word and feel uncomfortable, particularly when I am not on that spectrum myself).
I hate that not being neurotypical is casually called a disorder, both in and out of the medical field - especially when it comes to the more stigmatized variations.
Oh yes, see I generally only call it "disorder" if I'm quoting some kind of medical perspective that sees it that way (like I did in this video) or I'm using terms someone has given to me to describe them. I do think of it as a variation, and even though I know some people do experience it as an extra difficulty for them, I also know not everyone wants to put it in the disorder box because of that (and some don't consider it to be anything except a less common way to think and be).
Like you said not all asexuals have autism and not all autistics are asexual. There is infact an asexual census carried out each year and I think the latest results published are the 2018/2019 ones which say only around 30% of asexuals are also autistic. I've taken one of those Autism Quotient tests online and scored 25/50 so I may have some traits but never been officially diagnosed as autistic. (I'm a 39 year old demisexual man)
Yeah I know about the census, I quoted the most current one at the time in my book a lot and I always look at the latest data becauae it's super interesting!
@@swankivy just got your book on Audible
@@gamerteblin2049 That is so cool, I hope you find it enjoyable!
Hmmmm. ''I have a psychology degree,'' yet he doesn't seem to know that we stopped calling it Asperger's for a very good reason. Definitely not the kind of person I'd trust a dx from - especially an armchair one.
When it comes to being neurodivergent, the longer I live, the more I think NTs are the ''disordered'' ones.
Also, it's just really sad that people cannot accept that people exist who have little to no sexual attraction in them, or believe that being ace is some kind of defect rather than a [non]sexual identity.
This is so silly, can't he see doing this undermines not only himself but the degree he uses to prop himself up? No shade to professionals, i'm sure most working in psychology would hate this kind of discourse trivialising the difficult job they do.
Good point, it really does undermine a professional degree if you use it to coercively assign people labels and then shriek about the perceived disrespect if your unwanted opinion is treated as...unwanted. Most likely he isn't working in the field or he would have used a specific job title to sound more authoritative. Also very much strikes me as one of those young, naive people who are just out of college and think there's just nobody smarter or better informed than their little self, because for them the world is still so small and black and white.
Am I the only one questioning whether he has a degree?
Honestly I doubt that bit is fake because it's probably the only achievement he's ever made and he's so furious that everyone he speaks to isn't impressed to the tips of their toes. I mean, he sure is impressed with his own self, bless his little heart. Someone who has a degree but can't get a job in the field OR someone who has a degree but has no practical experience in how diagnoses are actually made might actually be filled with the right balance of ignorance and unwarranted self importance to be making statements like he does.
@@swankivy Yeah, that works too.
God forbid both?
They never think of that possibility do they??
Why not both?
Not gonna lie, I did think you had a lot aut!sm vibes (and I'm aut!stic and aut!stic people are my favorite people, so that's a compliment) but if you say you looked into it and discovered it doesn't fit, I don't see why people wouldn't just believe you. Sounds like you've done your due dilligence.
The DSM criteria for aut!sm... well I'm just going to say I don't like the DSM one bit. It's not entirely wrong but it's definitely not entirely right. It lists external symptoms of aut!sm, in terms of how annoying they are for surrounding neurotypical people to deal with or how little sense we make to allistic people, rather than talking about why aut!stic people are the way we are and how we make sense in our own ways.
More current, better theories for what aut!sm is at its core are more like 'aut!sm is processing the world bottom up while being allistic is processing it top-down'. Aut!stic people first look at all the trees and then conclude that it must be a forest, neurotypical people immediately intuitively see the forest and might miss that it's actually a miniature landscape made out of broccoli. Neurotypical people automatically filter out irrelevant input, whereas aut!stic people can't do that. This makes aut!stic people slower to process things, and it makes processing the world more exhausting, but we're also more accurate and less prone to cognitive biases.
Read 'Unmasking Aut!sm' by Devon Price. It's the bestest book on aut!sm I've ever read and if you can't find it for free I have the epub file I could link to you. Obviously I'm not trying to convince you you have aut!sm. I'm just excited about a f*cking awesome book that I think everyone and their grandma should read, especially if they're around aut!stic people a lot.
I censor the word aut!sm because otherwise my comments get auto-deleted. RUclips thinks it's a slur.
PS RUclips comments are still character limited. The limit is at 10.000 characters. I know this because I infodump real hard.
Yeah, I think that since I have a really long attention span and care a lot about details, and tend to have special interests that I explore deeply, I've found a lot in common with similar people who happen to be neurodivergent. Just so happens that you don't HAVE to be neurodivergent to have those traits, but some of the behaviors that are often ascribed to aut!stic people are things I also do. But much to your point, that's very much external: when connecting with aut!stic people, they described INTERNAL experiences that I didn't recognize and realized I had to work to understand. It's basically exactly as you said--that something that looks like aut!sm based on behavior could be similar only from a superficial perspective.
The DSM has a lot of problems in how they define a lot of things (including asexuality!) so I'm not surprised that it has a misleading and inaccurate perspective on this too. Oh, and I know there's still a character limit on the text window on RUclips--it's just a far cry from when it used to be 500 characters.
I swear some people just want to cause trouble for us ACEs. When it come to people we have our adults and we have our grown ups. 😆