Wonder how long it took for the Autistic insults to come

[pigletmania]

I was reading the DM coverage of the shootings, of course it is very sad and I hope tat the gunman is punished severly, it did not take long for the Autistic insults to come. I read in te same paragraph monster and Autistic, great stereotyping. The DM mentions that he had Autism a lot of times, as if every person with Autism is dangerous and a timebomb waiting to explode. The responses were just as hurtful

I understand too, and thought the same thing. And the DM comments are, as usual, beyond contempt.

Am surprised by the lack of understanding here though, actually.

The article said:

A troubled 20-year-old loner with a history of autistic behavior is the monster behind a horrific shooting

He told a friend he believed his mentally disabled brother did it. Adam is believed to be autistic.

A TROUBLED LONER: EMERGING PORTRAIT OF ADAM LANZA

Ryan Lanza's high school classmates always knew something was different about him......It was widely understood that he had mental disabilities - either Asperger syndrome or more severe autism.

All followed by a series of quotes from people who always knew he was a wrong 'un.

At best, the quotes show a total misunderstanding of autism - and at worst, serve to fuel the idea that people with autism should be somehow removed from society, and idea that the DM commenters are all over immediately; of course they are, the article has wound them up and watched them go.

Am surprised some MNers can't see that.

piglet its ok, autism and monster arent the same thing of course but given your circumstances I can see why you are worried. Unfortunately its stereotypes and peoples ignorance isnt it.

OP YANBU.

People will forever associate this incident with ASD now, some will link ASD to dangerous, violent behaviour because of it.

I hate the idea this will add another layer of ignorance for my children to face.

They won't see it because it doesn't directly impact on their lives Feenie.
So it is a matter for disinterested speculation, rather than fear for their own children.

Op I can understand your worries & having read the DM articles, they seem to be taking a scattergun approach to finding blame, which makes me feel sick. I hate their reporting, only ever read it when linked to from mumsnet actually as I don't want to live in that world.

They seem to be saying 'goth', 'autistic', 'mentally ill/ disabled/ disturbed', 'loner'... Just anything to 'make sense' of this mans actions by marking him out as different in some way. It's easier that way, to make people who do terrible things into 'different from us'. Isn't useful though.

One quote from an old school mate said she wasn't surprised to hear he'd done it - seriously? If she 'wasn't surprised' then why didn't she/ others intervene long ago if it was so obvious he was going to kill all these children.

Sloppy & disgusting reporting, no respect for the victims, families or the effect of the labels they assign.

TheNebulousBoojum

You know it doesn't effect me? You know that as a fact do you?

Was watching sky news at 8.30 this morning with ASD daughter (we were at the dentist) sky were at that point stating that it had been suggested that he was Autistic. DD, very loudly, "Oh, here we go again, blame us, I don't think I'll go to school on Monday, Mum".

Snazzy, personality disorders do exist as official psychiatric diagnoses and have done so for decades. It's not a media creation.

Dawn :( That's so sad. She sounds very bright though!

I'm supposed to be going to a birthday party this afternoon, and just know it will be talked about. My friends that are there will be fine, but there will be people I don't know too, and really not sure what will be said.

snazzy, i think we're getting into a philosophical debate here but i'd posit that anyone that commits suicide without good cause (ie, people that have a terminal illness) is mentally unwell.
i'd further posit that someone who suddenly commits an extremely violent act which appears completely out of character to others who knew him (from what i've read) would appear to be suffering from some sort of mental illness.

fwiw, i don't think it's at all helpful just to label someone as 'evil'. i don't see what that achieves other than to wash society's collective hands of any obligation to try to understand what happened.

what happened yesterday was as much of a tragedy for Adam lanza and hustling family as it was fir all the other families.involved.

Brandy

You quote my comments about autism mentioned in the sky coverage saying it wasn't on the app but 'maybe' was on the news.

It was on the news. I saw the same item dawndonna watched.

I am a bit nonplussed that you seemed to imply I was not telling the truth

*his family

Don't be so defensive, op. intelligent people will not judge your dd because of this or other labelling.

Feenie said : 'At best, the quotes show a total misunderstanding of autism - and at worst, serve to fuel the idea that people with autism should be somehow removed from society, and idea that the DM commenters are all over immediately; of course they are, the article has wound them up and watched them go.

Am surprised some MNers can't see that.'

Brady, if you were directly affected by having a relative on the spectrum, or being on it yourself, then I would be surprised if you were unable to see the concerns that those who are affected have over the possibility for witch-hunting.
Depends if you are an insider or an outsider.

OP, YANBU.
My first reaction was horror and sadness to think of those lives lost and the impact on all those families.
Now that Asperger's is being mentioned on Twitter and elsewhere, as a parent of a child with AS, my heart just sinks a tiny bit further. Some people do make associations on the basis of knee-jerk reactions, and this is not going to help the task of educating people about neurodiversity.

I think Snazzy has a point with the usage of the term ''personality disorder''. Its an umbrella term medically, and has a lot of diagnoses covered by it. ''Personality disorder'' itself is not a diagnosis, you have a ''type'' of PD. So the media using the term PD makes it look like they know what they are talking about, when really, they don't have the faintest idea. Its being used more and more, I've noticed.

The fact is Mmm it doesn't need to be intelligent people. If my children go to school on Monday, (High School) they all know that for the best part of the day, half the kids in the corridors or in the lunch halls will be ducking and shouting 'don't shoot'. How do you think that makes them feel?

Noodlesoup, I'm not worried by the intelligent people's response to my 6' DS wearing a long black coat and a lack of expression.
There's a lot of ignorant arseholes around, he's had name-calling, insults and comparisons before.

Huh? I meant no one intelligent is going to meet op's dd after learning she has autism and think 'shit better watch out she doesn't shoot me/hurt me'

And everyone else pointed out that it's not the intelligent people they are worried about.

REALLY?
do some posters not live in the real world?
Disability hatred is already high thanks to the media and the government.
sadly a tragic thing like this will just make it worse.

Don't be so defensive, op. intelligent people will not judge your dd because of this or other labelling

Trouble is, its not the intelligent people I worry about, it's the ignorant ones.

theala i get quite tired of the opinion that evil people dont exist and this constant need to understand why certain things happen. Why should this have to "achieve" anything? It does a huge disservice to people with mental illness to assume that this is always the answer to acts like this. Sometimes there are no answers apart from bad people do bad things sometimes. To express sympathy for the gunman that you dont know has a mental illness or not I find quite distasteful actually.

'Huh? I meant no one intelligent is going to meet op's dd after learning she has autism and think 'shit better watch out she doesn't shoot me/hurt me'

The exclusion of children with autism from birthday parties, social events, school activities, clubs, friendship groups, sleepovers and all the stuff that NT children go to is well-documented on MN.
The name calling, mimicking, intolerance and targeting that is a part of their daily lives is also a matter of record.
But you still don't get it?