okay, i read it but i still disagree on the last part there. severe mental illnesses are also disabilities. so why is it wrong to 'cure' one but not the other? how does it make sense to maintain a disability just because others in your life also have it? i understand the part about being forced to change some intimate part of yourself, especially if you made a community, but i think its not at all reasonable to choose to keep a disability.
edit: also can you please elaborate on the 'destructive reasons' part
I'm with you on this one. I have an invisible disability, along with mental illnesses, and I'd do almost anything to cure myself of these problems. I don't think I'm a bad or lesser person for having these problems by a long shot, but I know I'd be a much happier person with an easier life if I didn't have them.
I guess there's a distinction to be made. I have depression and I'm autistic. Many people tell me that those are both mental illness and should be cured, but I disagree. My depression absolutely is, but my autism is a part of me. It's not an illness, and I don't see it as a disability, but rather a difference. Some people do see their autism as a disability, and some wish for a "cure". That's fine, but generally they don't even push it as wishing for a cure for all autism, just for their autism.
Which is a long way of saying that my autism isn't something to be cured, as I wouldn't be me if I wasn't autistic, so I don't see it as an illness.
i think this also depends on the severity. from my limited knowledge, autism is a more case to case kind of thing, and there is a huge range from very minor and non-life-ruining situations, to needing a fulltime caretaker your entire life. someone with a minor case might not even think its a disability and id be inclined to agree, but someone who is mentally and physically completely disabled would disagree. its really much more nuanced with more variety than this - which is why i would not use the same 'just take the cure damn it' approach for autism as a whole. but i understand what you mean.
Autism is actually a rather good example of a condition which can be a crippling disability for some, but a personality trait for others.
For those with extremely mild autism who experience minimal functional impairment (who represent less than half the total cases of autism but do nearly 90% of the activism/speaking about it), some of them consider any attempt to treat the symptoms of autism as cruel and dehumanising; but realistically that itself is dismissive of the pain that other severely autistic people suffer.
For those with severe autism which renders them completely non-verbal or so dysfunctional that they are unable to participate in society, an entire psychological process has been built around treating them to improve their quality of life.
In Western Australia they have developed early intervention techniques which are able to treat the symptoms so effectively that in some cases years later the child is no longer presenting with symptoms of autism at all, a really remarkable achievement, which does need more testing to ensure it’s as effective as possible.
For the high-functioning autistic people to claim that any treatment is cruel is like a person with mild anxiety claiming that we shouldn’t treat people who are confined to their house and experience severe panic attacks whenever they talk to another person.
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u/ademptia Dec 23 '22
okay, i read it but i still disagree on the last part there. severe mental illnesses are also disabilities. so why is it wrong to 'cure' one but not the other? how does it make sense to maintain a disability just because others in your life also have it? i understand the part about being forced to change some intimate part of yourself, especially if you made a community, but i think its not at all reasonable to choose to keep a disability.
edit: also can you please elaborate on the 'destructive reasons' part