I hope it’s okay to ask, you said it might be… but what was the call-out post about? Would you feel comfortable talking about it a little more like what isn’t true and what the beliefs are that were misunderstood?
it was about a series of asks that the blog received over the last week about the concept of mental age and the term age sliding.
i was accused of appropriating a term from the DID community and spreading misinformation about it.
the main issues were
- that it said that i believe that mental age is a good concept so long as i apply it to myself and that i was encouraging others to do so
- that i think all autistic people experience age regression/age sliding
- and that i was making an opening for ableism against and disregarding that autistic people have been institutionalized for being accused of being mentally unfit/not of the proper mental age to be allowed to care for themselves
i do not believe mental age is a good concept no matter how it’s dressed up, i would never endorse it at all and have stated so in the past week several times.
i am not encouraging it’s use against autistic people, by their own doing or anyone else’s.
i do not think all autistic or neurodivergent people experience age sliding, during meltdowns or otherwise, and have never said so. i said that it is a common experience for many of us and in a couple of asks noted reasons as to why (anxiety, stress, the high rate of abuse autistic people experience at a young age which is a huge contributor).
i understand that there is a history of wrongful institutionalization of autistic people that continues to this day and i would never encourage anyone to do anything that could cause it to happen to them.
i’m not encouraging people to apply the term to themselves willynilly but rather i do not object to people who experience it having access to it, regardless of if they have the DID label or not. (because i don’t think saying someone has a right to describe what happens to them only if they have the proper diagnosis is okay.)
the blog that made the post also reblogged a post saying that self diagnosis is bad but self advocacy is good so…it’s no wonder they disagreed with me there.
i hope that helps! c:
– mod stevie
1. a callout post isn’t someone just disagreeing with you and lining up your points to argue against them, that’s just a discussion
2. it was pointed out in numerous places where you did say and express these things. simply saying you didn’t say/express/mean that doesn’t make it true when people have screencaps that make it pretty clear what you meant and said
3. when people from the community youre claiming to represent are pointing out that something you’re doing is harmful, maybe you should listen to them instead of continuing to perpetuate that harm. it’s not autistic positivity if you’re alienating and pushing out all the autistic people who disagree with you (and the folk with DID whodisagree with you as well…but i guess mentally ill people only deserve support and understanding when they agree with you .nice activism!)
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