UPDATED BLOG POST! Archive (2018): Dyspraxia, Autism, Auto-Immune Diseases, Vaccines, Microbiomes, and the Mess of Anti-vaxxers
Dyspraxia, Autism, Auto-Immune Diseases, Vaccines, Microbiomes, and the Mess of Anti-vaxxers
Biological facts and genetics, as well as chemistry are not the same thing as pseudoscience…
***UPDATED BLOG POST!*** This is a blog post that I wrote before 2020. Keep that in mind please.
Several years ago, I read an article written by a licensed therapist, who argued that dyspraxia (when co-morbid with autism) is affected by how we on the spectrum digest food. And I wanted to laugh, so I did. Afterwards, I decided to write about it back when I still had my blog account on Medium before switching to Blogger. As someone who is autistic and has dyspraxia, I found it incredibly insulting. The mere suggestion that we can’t digest food as well because of being autistic? The gut is not a brain muscle.
Noticeably, lot of parents of autistic children will fall for the trap created by “psychologists” and autism warriors that claim their child’s digestive system and how we “react” to vaccines are “affected” by autism. Someone even can claim to be autistic and still have an auto-immune disease that affects their life. A lot of these licensed psychiatrists and neuroscientists (even therapists), who do not do the proper research, have no right to claim that they know more about autism than we do. Ya know, we, the actual people who are born autistic. Researchers these days…
It is quite amusing that people who are not actually autistic think that they can speak for an entire group of people. What is more amusing is when their ableist commentary comes in, saying that because I am “less autistic”, therefore I cannot speak for autism.
I am not less autistic. By saying that I am “less autistic”, my challenges are dismissed and some will try to tell me that: “I do not have real autism”. By telling someone they are severe, society dismisses their strengths. What is the number one thing anyone should do in research? Ask the primary source. Who are the primary sources? Us autistics. There are those of us who actually work in neuroscience… we exist in those fields (and yes, there may be autistics who work in neuroscience that want to be cured… they are choosing to not accept themselves). Eating certain foods and having them not digest properly has nothing to do with autism or dyspraxia. The gut and brain are two SEPARATE parts of the body that are connected in ways… but not in a way that would “cause autism”. Silly pseudoscience likes to claim a lot of things…. dyspraxia can be co-occuring with anxiety (and other things), and anxiety is not autism, nor dyspraxia. No neuroscientist, who is ignorant enough to agree with the false claims, would ever create a study that would have this conclusion…
Edit: This link will take you to a website with a lot of ableism in it’s text. Note how much wordage is false.
This “research” is falsified, misleading, and inaccurate. It sounds like some “researchers” are so desperate these days that they will resort to anything and write it in a report. Is this not what Andrew Wakefield did when he attempted to claim that vaccines “cause” autism back in 1998 (source)?
Before I continue typing, there is the need apparently, still, to re-iterate that vaccines do not and NEVER will cause autism. Mercury is handled delicately in vaccines, and is in most fruits we eat. Why are people afraid of something that they do not research themselves? Thimerosal does not cause autism, nor does aluminum. Aluminum has nothing to do with autism (nor does the flu shot!) I am not a hard science major in college and I know for a fact that not all people on the spectrum have digestion issues, nor do all people with dyspraxia. There goes everyone’s logic, because autism is still being blamed for things. This is because researchers are so desperate to know everything about us. IBS (otherwise known as Irritable Bowl Syndrome), statistically, has occurred in (for what we know of) between 25 and 45 million people, according to the International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders (source). And that is only IBS, for one example of a functional GI illness. I know for a fact that autistics can have IBS, but IBS is not autism. They are not the same thing. And IBS does not cause autism, nor does autism cause IBS. Someone could not be autistic and have IBS. There is no ‘Autism Epidemic’.
Autism is not a mental illness. It is not a disease. We are not sick! The parents and psychologists out there, who continue to refuse to accept, need to stop looking at us like we’re continuous puzzles that they need to solve. This is neglectful, toxic, and abusive thinking in society. The puzzle piece for Autism Speaks constantly reminds me that I am unsolved puzzle; a problem to society. We’re not burdens and we’re not diseased. To be quite frank, we deserve to have parents who accept us right away when we’re born. These people need to stop expecting their children to be normal when they are born. It is a toxic, selfish mindset. Change the way you’re raising your child by changing yourself. Don’t expect the child to be the only one to go through change.
For those who are unaware about PANDAS… it does not allow people to digest food properly. Some can experienced seizures, GI issues, and a lot of other problems. PANDAS syndrome is not an easy thing to live with. Before I get more into what PANDAS is, let me get into cure culture. In the disability community, there is quite a lot of conversation about cure culture. The mindset that disease should be cured, in which I agree with. But mental disabilities (which are not the same thing as mental illness) shouldn’t be cured. They are natural. Things like ADD, Autism, Down Syndrome, Fragile X Syndrome, Dyscalculia, Sensory Processing Disorders (SPD’s), and Dyslexia, etc. (anything that is not manageable like mental illness) should not be cured. They are natural variants in the brain, and natural when we are born with them, which makes the neurodiversity movement all the more real. When I mention that mental illness is manageable, it is for therapy, but autistics have a harder time with mental health than most others that receive support for it. Why? Because we have challenges that these other people don’t. Our bodies and brains need to be accepted for what they are. PANDAS Syndrome affects 1 in 200 children. It is a lifelong illness. PANDAS is an acronym for Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders (source). It is one of several types of autoimmune diseases.
PANDAS is not autism, Dyspraxia is not autism, anxiety is not autism, nor is IBS, just to name a few. Autism is a separate mental disability. It’s not even a disability. But in order for people to have labels, it is a disability in of itself. I do not like the word disability… which is why I add on the fact that it is a natural variant for autism. The word disability assumes that we cannot presume competence. Antivaxxers, autism warriors, psychiatrists and psychologists who believe in pseudoscience, Andrew Wakefield, Autism Speaks, parents who believe that MMS can “cure” autism, and so many others out there, please stop. However, I need the label disability, right now, in an approach because people will learn this way.
Just stop and actually listen to us autistics.
Stop spending money for research only to find a cure and do research on what makes us happy. Do actual, real research on child abuse for us. Do research on how we experience the world. But please don’t do research if the desire to fix us sits in the brain of a narrow-minded person. We are tired. The suicide percentage of suicidal thoughts is 66% in our community, with the rate being 35% (source), and that is the number one cause of early death. We don’t live very long because of the lack of acceptance.
To get into specifics, everyone needs to understand that gastrointestinal illnesses are not the result of Dyspraxia. Dyspraxia is a planning issue, that involves motor differences, and nothing more. It is important to consider the distinction between mental illness, physical disability, mental disability, and disease. All of these labels do no help the reader who does not desire labels, but it helps to educate others into thinking that we should be equally treated through equity. Equity. Equality. What are the differences of these two words in regard to disability? Equity is active acceptance. Equality is passive acceptance. The ways in which people who do not want to change themselves typically have the perspective of intolerance, or equality, depending on circumstance. Those who do want to change focus on equity; it is the desire to learn how others percieve respect on a psychological level. This does not mean, however, that the person who is using equity as a focus in their life is giving their self-identity up entirely.
Anti-vaxxers, such as Jenny McCarthy and J.B. Handley have made the need for progress even more evident. McCarthy released a video almost four and a half weeks ago, advertising about a book that J.B. Handley wrote. It ‘claims’ that Autism is an “Epidemic”. Autism is recently popping up more because of a mere lack of diagnosis, and not because it’s “contagious”. They claim that autism is a “disease” of sorts, and should be removed immediately so that the world’s population of autistics is eradicated. My perspective is that these people do not want to change because they choose to live a life full of intolerance. As Buddhism has taught me, people are inherently good. They can choose to be ignorant, but have the choice to be less narcissistic, more compassionate and more open-minded. Intolerance towards the autistic community has shown that, time and time again, we have more suicides than anything else because people are afraid of change.
Autism isn’t an “auto-immune disease”. Autism is a natural variant in the brain. Neurodiversity is very real. People who aren’t diagnosed as autistic have no claim to know more than we do. Focus on healthy change, please! I’ve seen so much negative behavior from J.B. Handley, attacking my community for what? He looks like a child having a tantrum every single time something he posts goes out there on the internet. Here is an example:
If you think that is upsetting to read, J.B. Handley also had a closed Facebook group the same year, and also has a blog. The blog link is above in the screenshot. But, here is what his secret group is titled as on Facebook:
Emma somehow got access to this group. She sacrificed herself to prove where the ignorance has led to, and at this point, it has turned to constant threats, stalking, and other situations that Emma has to deal with, and yet these people come to her. They accuse her of “being the problem” as she is sharing these screenshots.
The situation for us neurodivergent people has not died down. We still, as you can see, face systemic ableism every day. These people choose to be ignorant. All of these things can be unlearned, and yet these people feed on hate. Instead of the #EndAutismNow, I say we use the hashtag #EndAutisticOppression. And to the researchers out there, please consider how much people like Jenny and J.B. cause harm. I’m not giving up the fight to be myself in a world that anti-vaxxers try to harm.
#ActuallyAutistic #NeuroDiversity #EndAutisticOppression #EmmaDalmayne
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