Recent research shows that
the prevalence of autism among people age 18 and over who are on Medicaid
doubled between 2011 and 2019.
I wonder if this includes
people with that new strain of autism that’s been going around lately. I call
it SDA, which stands for self-diagnosed autism.
I notice that there seem to
be more and more people running around claiming to be autistic. But they seem
like regular folks.
This seems like a triumph of
marketing. Because in recent years, we’ve developed a much better understanding
of autism, which is a good thing. When I was a kid, autistic people were
considered to be hopelessly oblivious and so we segregated them away in
institutions so we wouldn’t have to be bothered with trying to figure them out.
But now, autism is viewed as a spectrum with a lot of
different variety. Autistic people are referred to as neurodivergent. That
sounds much cooler. To be neurodivergent sounds like you’re a little bit weird.
And it’s cool to be a little bit weird as long as it’s the cool kind of weird and not the weirdo kind of
weird.
All this makes it easier
than ever to proudly proclaim that you are autistic. I’ve never seen anyone who
goes around saying that they’re crippled for the same reason I ‘m crippled. No
one ever claims to have what I have, unless they really do. It would creep me
out if I met somebody like that, just like autistic people are probably creeped
out by people with SDA.
Maybe people don’t try to appropriate my kind
of crippledness because there isn’t much that’s vague about that which makes me
crippled. There’s no spectrum involved. You either have it or you don’t.
But I think the reason
people don’t self-diagnose as being crippled for the same reason I am is
because there’s nothing cool about it.
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