MN and their approach to autism

[HypocrisyHere]

I have attached two screenshots. One showing the two threads I’m watching, the other the deletion message from the first watched thread which was deleted.

The subjects of the two threads are

(1) Any ‘positive’ autism stories?
(2) Married to someone with Asperger’s: support thread 5

My confusion is that the first was deleted because “the title was not in spirit of the site” Yet thread 2 - which has (IMO) a deeply offensive as it implies all people with Asperger’s are a problem in a relationship (leaving aside the ghastly ableism within the thread) is absolutely fine?

Thread 1 was from a concerned parent who may have used clunky wording but was looking for support - yet she has been deleted. Thread 2 is for concerned partners who can blame every poor behaviour of their partners on autism and that’s all fine?

As an autistic person this makes no sense to me at all and highlights not only ableism within MNHQ but also a deeply inconsistent approach to moderation?

(Have name changed as I’m a coward)

Unfortunately, there is a very longstanding troll/PBP (I'm sure there's more than one but I know of one for sure) who posts as a concerned parent/relative and does so in such a way as to create exactly this sort of response. She gets a kick out of this and enjoys winding up autistic and pro-autistic posters. She's been doing it for years.

[quote RussianSpy101]@Queenoftrivialpersuit
I wonder what would happen to threads that were titled
Married to a Muslim : Support thread
Married to a Jew : support thread

By your logic, those threads are absolutely fine because people can say what they like about their spouse, yes?
Can you imagine the outrage?[/quote]
Would it not be more accurate to compare it to married to someone with diabetes or depression or some other disability given that as far as I am aware being Muslim isn't a disability? I'm not sure why mumsnet likes to pretend that there aren't challenges surrounding being in a relationship with someone with a disability. I have anxiety and I know my dh would say that that presents some challenges within our relationship. He had severe depression about 5 years ago and for sure that presented challenges too. Heaven forbid people find a place to talk about those challenges.

@RelationshipOrNot

I don't find that series of threads on Relationships ableist at all. They help me understand how my behaviour comes across to neurotypical people and I've taken away some really good lessons about how to make people feel appreciated and how things that seem innocuous to me can come across as hurtful and rude to others. Some real eye-opening moments. I also think it's fair for people to be allowed to talk openly with others in the same situation.

I wanted to say the same thing.

My 17yo is ASD and ADHD. It does make life more difficult, it's hard to predict their behaviour, what is fine one day could make her fly off the handle the next.

It's hard work. And yes some of us need support and don't understand why our autistic partners/children/siblings have the traits that they have. It's not a crime to admit that.

And I would also like to add that I have a disability, it affects my mobility so I'm not great at all the mum/wife stuff I used to do and DH is picking up the load.

Why shouldn't he have a forum to discuss the added pressures and emotional and mental toll that my disability puts on him?

I have a son with autism but I could never compare that to having a partner with autism as the issues would be completely different.

My role as a parent is to support absolutely my child with autism (and his siblings of course) and to teach them as much as I can to set them up and prepare them for their future life whatever shape that takes. I absolutely have chosen a role as a support human for my children, as has my husband, by choosing to take on the role of a parent. A partner has a whole host of expectations associated with the position and it is very possible that the difficulties caused by a person’s autism can make this a challenge both for the autistic person and the non autistic person in the relationship.

Both people in the relationship should be able to seek out support for difficulties they experience, that is how humans get through difficulties. Personally I do not believe that the non autistic person should be shamed for finding some aspects of dealing with autism in their partner challenging though obviously the autistic person finds dealing with the autism much more challenging.

One of my close friends has Aspergers and her DH has more likely nowadays level 2 autism but was diagnosed as Aspergers back in the day. She regularly discusses the challenges she faces with their divergences in autism and how his behaviours affects he. And that is ok too. They are happily married but have marital frustrations same as the rest of us but their disabilities contribute to them too. She also regularly tells me she would never have married a NT either for a host of reasons she has and I don’t find her reasons remotely offensive - we can be confusing dicks at times with our constant need to not say exactly what we mean.

@PolterGoose

Unfortunately, there is a very longstanding troll/PBP (I'm sure there's more than one but I know of one for sure) who posts as a concerned parent/relative and does so in such a way as to create exactly this sort of response. She gets a kick out of this and enjoys winding up autistic and pro-autistic posters. She's been doing it for years.

Yes. This. It's horrific. And has been happening for many years.

[quote RussianSpy101]@Queenoftrivialpersuit
I wonder what would happen to threads that were titled
Married to a Muslim : Support thread
Married to a Jew : support thread

By your logic, those threads are absolutely fine because people can say what they like about their spouse, yes?
Can you imagine the outrage?[/quote]
That’s a ridiculous comparison. It would be more akin to;
Married to a person with OCD: support thread
Married to a person with physical disabilities: support thread
Married to a person with depression: support thread

As someone who has a condition in the above category, if my partner wanted to seek support, as long as he was respectful and not ableist, I would not have a problem. It can be hard to see the person you love going through a hard time.

I think I remember the first of the married to threads. It was appalling. Can’t believe it’s run to 5 threads

Lots of posters were offering advice and support but it wasn’t wanted because the objective was to complain about the dp. Which is fine too, but not with that thread title ffs.

I think that there’s a high proportion of parents of SN dc here because by its nature it leaves you quite isolated and it makes sense that we turn to social media for the support and comradeship we can’t access in real life. And because you find so much understanding here you can be deceived into thinking that the proportion of enlightened and decent people is far higher than you’d realised. But it’s an illusion because every post that isn’t written by someone with direct experience is filled with the ableist, narrow minded ignorance. It’s really depressing.

as long as he was respectful and not ableist

But that's the point, it's not. Those threads are full of people slagging off ex's, and stereotyping autistic people as manipulative bullies. Most of the people they're slagging off are undiagnosed too, which makes the ignorance even worse.

Taat

@CorrBlimeyGG

as long as he was respectful and not ableist

But that's the point, it's not. Those threads are full of people slagging off ex's, and stereotyping autistic people as manipulative bullies. Most of the people they're slagging off are undiagnosed too, which makes the ignorance even worse.

I did say I’ve not read the threads so perhaps it’s more about individual posts being deleted and persistent posters being banned.

@Mickarooni

That’s a ridiculous comparison. It would be more akin to;
Married to a person with OCD: support thread
Married to a person with physical disabilities: support thread
Married to a person with depression: support thread

The only example that I agree with is the depression one as this is an illness which does need to be treated. But your other two examples are shocking - having OCD or. Physical disability is a fundamental part of the person - they are not “wrong” - they are not illnesses and their characteristics would have been present when the couple initially met!. So the decision should have been made then, as you got to know the person, if you could “cope” with the neurological or physical difference.

Further, a partner can walk away from the relationship, a parent can’t. And btw the vast vast majority on the support threads have very little interest in making their relationships work - they just want out.

So comparison not valid and reveals your prejudiced view of less abled people which is extremely offensive.

Having OCD which I have lived with for decades is most definitely an illness!!! What do you mean it’s not an illness?? It’s absolutely horrendous!!!

[quote HypocrisyHere]@Mickarooni

That’s a ridiculous comparison. It would be more akin to;
Married to a person with OCD: support thread
Married to a person with physical disabilities: support thread
Married to a person with depression: support thread

The only example that I agree with is the depression one as this is an illness which does need to be treated. But your other two examples are shocking - having OCD or. Physical disability is a fundamental part of the person - they are not “wrong” - they are not illnesses and their characteristics would have been present when the couple initially met!. So the decision should have been made then, as you got to know the person, if you could “cope” with the neurological or physical difference.

Further, a partner can walk away from the relationship, a parent can’t. And btw the vast vast majority on the support threads have very little interest in making their relationships work - they just want out.

So comparison not valid and reveals your prejudiced view of less abled people which is extremely offensive.[/quote]
OCD is an illness and physical disability can come on at any point. I’m not sure that this post is helping your case at all

I sometimes post on autism threads but avoid the married to ones as they’re just so negative and as others have said seem almost abusive towards the partner with autism

Sometimes it can be helpful to talk to others in a similar situation but it should never be abusive towards someone who isn’t present to defend themselves, advice I give I hope helps a partner to understand their actions and responses to and with a partner with autism

At the end of the day as is often said, when you’ve met one person with autism you’ve met one person with autism, each marriage or partnership is unique to that couple alone

“So comparison not valid and reveals your prejudiced view of less abled people which is extremely offensive.”

Actually as disabled person, I find your comments extremely offensive. You don’t have the monopoly on that.

You can develop physical disabilities. How dare you suggest it’s a fundamental part of a person? Not everyone thinks that way!

I actually agree with your post overall, just not those irrelevant comparisons from that poster.

Autistic children and Autistic adults are viewed very differently here.
The best is when the parent of an Autistic child who believes their child has profound issues and the world needs to change to accommodate them is berating an Autistic adult for their tone in their written post 🙄

Ok re OCD I know it is utterly horrific and completely disabling but my understanding was that it was in the neurodiversity side rather than a mental illness like depression or BPD. I hate it when people describe autism as a mental illness and thought the same applied to OCD?

I am deeply sorry to offended anyone with OCD as I have seen in real life how utterly awful having OCD can be.

I also find it... not quite hypocritical, but in the same ballpark, that a lot of the criticism of those Relationships threads and similar outlets for partners comes from neurotypical parents of autistic children. The online discoure around autism is absolutely dominated by parents (to the point that when looking up information or advice for yourself as an autistic adult, it's just pages and pages of articles about "your child" written by non-autistic parents for other non-autistic parents). Why is that ok, for these neurotypical parents to seemingly be an honorary part of the autistic community to the point that they are an overwhelming voice within it, but it's not ok for partners of autistic people to talk about their experiences?

I think it’s offensive to compare autism to a religion or race I mean what the hell? I’m all for intersectionalality but it’s not the same thing at all get a grip

There was a thread up yesterday about a woman very obviously married to an autistic man, who had not reacted immediately to a choking incident (the seriousness of which we have no way of knowing). The words used about him in the thread were terrifying to me, as he reacted pretty much as my DH would. I'm autistic too and was pretty offended by seeing words like 'abnormal' 'psychopath' 'zero empathy' flung around by people with very little clue of what they were talking about. I'm not condoning the dad's behaviour in that thread but I am condemning the way Mumsnet piled on his disability once it was revealed he was being assessed.

I have read many threads about people saying they would screen for autism if they could, and abort, and while that hurts my soul as an autistic person and mother of an autistic child I cannot use my experience to dictate how others should act.

I don't actually know what point I'm trying to make here. Perhaps I'm just trying to say Mumsnet can be quite a difficult place to be if you are disabled or around disability a lot.

*discourse

@Mickarooni

I have a physical disability, from birth, so perhaps I was demonstrating my inability to see from another point of view that of course there are people who become physically disabled during their life and of course their disability is not part of them. But mine is, I’m (broadly) reconciled to it and it’s just part of me.

But I don’t want this thread to descend into the contents of other threads (and I’m guilty of that here) I just really want to highlight the inconsistency.

Again, I apologise to those I have offended through clumsy wording and ignorance.

@Blueeyedgirl21

I think it’s offensive to compare autism to a religion or race I mean what the hell? I’m all for intersectionalality but it’s not the same thing at all get a grip

Race and religion to me are insane things to lump together too. I mean, I was born to a Catholic father, Protestant mother and am an atheist.

Highlighting ableism is important, but Mumsnet generally isn't interested in hearing it right now.