Samantha\nMeyers<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dis\nand Lit<\/p>\n\n\n\n
05\/02\/19<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Word\nCount: 1,242<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Autism and Life<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In many instances, there are individuals\nwho insert their opinions into outside narratives. While many have good\nintentions behind their desire to research, many individuals have difficulty\nrealizing that certain things are not within their realm of understanding. Stuart\nMurray\u2019s Autism <\/em>and Melanie Yergeau\u2019s\n\u201cIntroduction: Involution\u201d from Authoring Autism\u201d, show the dangers of\ndepicting autism as a condition and how the abled speak for the disabled\nwithout completely understanding their experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Murray provides many details on why the\npublic should be careful about how they depict autism and individuals with\nautism. The ways in which the medical community presently classifies autism is\nproblematic. Murray states that, \u201cthe idea of improvement in the future\nautomatically characterises autism in the present as first and foremostly a \u2018problem\u2019\nand something that requires <\/em>change\u201d\n(9). This mentality is dangerous and implies that the present doesn\u2019t matter if\nthere will be a cure for autism someday. It can also be connected to how people\nsee the everyday life of an autistic individual. When people demonize the\nconcept of autism, Murray says that, \u201cit also makes the idea of \u2018everyday\nautism\u2019, the daily business of a life lived being autistic, one that is\ndifficult for any individual to sustain or justify\u201d (14). The autism experience\nis one that many people believe individuals suffer from. Many don\u2019t believe\nthat autism is enjoyable for the person who has it and, in fact, the public\ntends to believe that, \u201csuffering is integral\n<\/em>to the manifestation of the condition\u201d (21). The continual use of \u2018condition\u2019\nperpetuates the stigmatizing belief that autism is something that a person\nsuffers from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are many dangers of \u2018curing\u2019\nautism. Some people believe that autism is a separate entity stuck inside someone\nthat can be flushed out through many different means. Murray says, \u201cwhere those\nthat champion curing are definitely in the wrong is in their idea that somehow\nthe autistic and the human can be kept apart, and that to eradicate the former\nis to liberate the latter\u201d (109). Not only does this dehumanize autistic\nindividuals, but the people who think that they are freeing their loved one\nfrom autism are strongly misguided. Murray references another author and says, \u201cto\n\u2018cure\u2019 someone of autism [\u2026] would be to take away the person they are, and\nreplace them with someone else\u201d (102-103). There is a large discussion about\nthe ways in which people want to find a cure so that they can find the real\nindividual within their loved one. This mentality is dangerous since this shows\nthat people cannot accept autistic individuals without fixing them in some way.\nMurray tries to understand individuals who believe in this mentality and says, \u201cmaybe\nthose who believe in curing will come to say that they actually mean \u2018changing\u2019,\neliminating the worst features of autism to preserve the best, and that\nameliorative treatment programs may come from this\u201d (109). This, of course, is\nimpossible and only serves to dehumanize autistic individuals when people aren\u2019t\nable to accept them unless they are able to eradicate the horrible parts of the\ndisability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Able bodied individuals tend to place a\nhero trope on people with disabilities especially individuals with autism.\nThere is this belief that an autistic person cannot exist unless they have\ntriumphed over their disability and has essentially assimilated into society. Murray\nshows this when he says, \u201cthe weariness comes from having to experience endless\nnarratives in which autism, seen as a tragedy, is the subject of \u2018heroic\u2019\novercoming\u201d (103). Media and news sources alike show this hero trope implying\nthat the public cannot publicly accept a neurodivergent or autistic individual into\nsociety unless they overcome their disability through a heroic act. Time and\ntime again, authors use this trope in many of their stories to display a disabled\nindividual as a champion of their disability. This brings Melanie Yergeau\u2019s\npersonal experiences to the surface. Yergeau states that, \u201cMedia accounts of\nautistic people communicate the sensationalism of savant-beings who are at once\nextraordinary yet so epistemically distant and critically impaired\u201d (2-3). Not\nonly do people, especially autism parents, impose their own opinions onto\nautistic individuals, they make it known that this diagnosis is a horrible\ntragedy that they wish hadn\u2019t happened to them. Yergeau says that, \u201cmany parent\nnarratives echo this line of thought and speak of autism as something happening\nto them, as though their entire family had been struck by lightning\u201d (7). This\nreaction to a diagnosis is all too familiar and, although the public has\nimproved, there are still people who react like this. They believe that the\nperson they could have known is lost within their autistic child or friend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Within the heroic trope, both\nMurray and Melanie Yergeau mention the problematic ways that neurodivergence is\ndisplayed in the media. Murray gives reasons as to why Rain Man is a\nproblematic representation of neurodivergence while Yergeau mentions it in\npassing and mentions other media representations that are improvements. Murray\nsays that, in the movie, Raymond displays talented abilities which depicts\nautism as a \u2018spectacle\u2019. He says that, \u201cthis sense of performance, heightened\nby the fact that Hoffman was <\/em>performing\nof course, connected autism to an idea of behavioral display\u201d (75). When this\nmovie shows Raymond essentially \u2018performing\u2019 and \u2018rising above\u2019 his disability,\nthis shows that individuals with autism have to perform in order to be accepted\nby the general public. They have to suppress their true selves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The general public, as well as loved\nones, like to generate inaccurate narratives for individuals with autism.\nMelanie Yergeau, an autistic individual, experiences this firsthand. She shows\nthe ways in which people have projected their own definitions of autism onto\nher without much description about herself. She says that, \u201cinstead, my body is\nreduced. Erased. Medicated\u201d (13). This goes back to the issue of overmedicating\nneurodivergent individuals in an effort to find a cure. Not only do abled\nindividuals publicly push their own opinions of individuals with autism to the\nforefront, they do so while putting down the very people that they are pushing.\nYergeau states that in her experience, \u201c[they] are conditioned that [their]\nselves are not really selves, for they are eternally mitigated by disability,\nin all of its fluctuations\u201d (10). So, essentially, she is saying that\ncaretakers and the general public make autistic individuals feel that their disability\nwill always interfere with them as a person. She goes on to talk about\ninvoluntary logics as people who are under the impression that autistic\nindividuals cannot make decisions for for themselves so they do it for them. Yergeau\ntalks about how these \u2018logics\u2019 forcibly removed her from high school and institutionalized\nher. She says that these people, \u201care the logics of overmedication, eugenic\nfuture, institutionalization; they are the logics that narrate shit smearing as\nbrain gone awry\u201d (9-10). This involuntarity notion encourages people to make\ndecisions for autistic individuals based on the assumption that these\nindividuals cannot voluntarily do so for themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Stuart Murray and Melanie Yergeau show\nthe dangers of depicting autism as a condition both through research and\npersonal experience. While the public still has varying opinions of autism,\nthere are many who are cognizant of their impact on the community and the ways\nin which they can help. There is still a long way to go with showing people the\nautism community\u2019s agency, but these two writers helped to display the dangers\nof handling autism the wrong way even while doing so with good intentions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Murray,\n Stuart. Autism<\/em>. New York, 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yergeau, Melanie. Introduction: Involution from\n Authoring Autism<\/em>. n.d. PDF.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Samantha Meyers Dis and Lit 05\/02\/19 Word Count: 1,242 Autism and Life \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In many instances, there are individuals who insert their opinions into outside narratives. While many have good intentions behind their desire to research, many individuals have difficulty realizing that certain things are not within their realm of understanding. Stuart Murray\u2019s Autism and … Continue reading “Sammie Meyers’s Final Exam Essay: “Autism and Life””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/papJgd-p1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1551"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1552,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551\/revisions\/1552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Bibliography<\/h1>\n\n\n\n