Society accepts mental illness but not ASD?

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I'm seeing this push for acceptance and understanding of mental illness (especially in Canada) and that's fine but ASD still seems to be left out in the dark, ignored and stereotyped. There are those little articles I come across every now and then on ''how not to stereotype a bipolar person'' and ''depression is a seriously illness'' and ''end the the stigma against mental illness'' but absolutely nothing ASD related. Funny since those with ASD have a much higher rate of unemployment (proven statistically).

The empathy and the relatability just doesn't seem to be there for Autism. I suppose people can relate to being depressed, anxious or having mood fluctuations but when it comes to Autistic symptoms.. not so much.

That’s news to me.

In my experience people are just as quick to judge my other mental disorders as they do for my ASD. In the case of more severe mental disorders such as Bipolar Disorder or Schizophrenia, I would argue that those conditions are way more stigmatised than Autism. At least autistics aren’t typically stereotyped as criminally insane or dangerous.

I don’t think comparing stigma is fair. It’s good that there are publications that are informing the public about mental health. Plus, Autism is better understood than it ever has been before and that’s because there is a lot of information readily available to help people understand the condition. It can only get better from this point, really.

I have to agree with MindBlind. I've yet to meet "normal" people that accept mental illness. They either change the subject because they don't want to say out loud how they feel about it, or they just start rattling off "cures" for your "bad moods".

They're NT. Anything different is to be shunned. That's how they think. They prize their own modes of survival too much to allow anything to threaten the carefully sculpted images they've formed.

I think a lot of mental illnesses are known about, but poorly understood by the general public.

It seems everyone I met knows about bipolar and has a really bad opinion on it or they have it and will only admit it to another bipolar... But autism is much less known about.