Why is autism such a bad thing?

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With Down's, people know what to do. Most people with Down's Syndrome are people you can relate to in a similar way as to an NT child. The kind of person who likes to feel superior to somebody different can also do this very easily with a Down's person--you can look at him or her for two seconds and know they are different.

On the other hand, a lot of us are harder to pin down that way. The spectrum for us is much broader than for Down's. Many of us look like anybody else unless we're having a bad day or you watch us closely, yet there's a sense that something is a bit different. I think it makes a certain kind of person uncomfortable that we're strange to them, but a person on the spectrum might also be smarter than they are. It makes the smug superiority thing, and the paternalistic caring thing, more complicated.

Well before I ever thought to apply this label to myself, I noticed there was always one person in every group I encountered who just had to point out that I am weird or different. These people sometimes were openly annoyed when I succeeded in life where they had failed--a former coworker even became verbally abusive because I was thinner and my then-boyfriend (now my husband) and I were talking marriage whereas she had just failed at her diet and was dumped by two guys in a short period. To her, it was infuriating that a freak like me would get those things while she could not. Those people tend to be loud and to speak for others whose views they do not necessarily represent, which (I think) gives some other NTs a bad rep. Probably not all of them think it's as terrible as some people make it out to be.

I'd also like to add that it is called a spectrum for a reason. For some people, it is intensely disabling. For others, it is hardly an issue in day to day life. I think circumstance has much to do with it as well--one person who is given help and support early in life may be able to live independently, marry, have a fruitful career, and succeed in life by any standard may start out with the same level of disability as a person who requires a great deal of lifelong assistance because of a lack of help, support, and resources. This is very sad to me--THAT is a lot of what is so bad about autism, in my mind.