What’s your take? I’m not sure if I know of an historic case of it like IDK maybe 200 or 150 years ago but nowadays I have several cases near of autistic people, so what do you think is old or new?

  • YappyMonotheist@lemmy.world
    8·
    9 days ago

    “Certainly there are people, nay, very many, who will smile at [my predicament], because they are not sensitive to noise; it is precisely these people, however, who are not sensitive to argument, thought, poetry or art, in short, to any kind of intellectual impression: a fact to be assigned to the coarse quality and strong texture of their brain tissues.” -Schopie complaining about overstimulation

  • Robin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    9 days ago

    We used to mark all sorts of neurodivergent people as “crazy” or “witches”. But I’d also be interested in a historical source if someone has one.

  • Contramuffin@lemmy.world
    4·
    7 days ago

    You know how there’s the old schoolhouse stereotype that there’s always a “weird kid” in every class? There’s a good chance that kid was an undiagnosed autist.

    The current estimates for autism rates is around 1 in 30. Which means every classroom is expected to have 1 autistic kid. Matches perfectly with the “weird kid in class” stereotype. People recognized autism since forever. That’s why the stereotype exists. It’s just that they didn’t have an actual word for it yet.

    • BigBolillo@mgtowlemmy.orgOP
      21·
      7 days ago

      Yeah even when I was in my school days there was always “that kid” anyway I feel like in recent days there is a lot more of that cases like it was something external what is causing it but anyway it’s just a feeling I guess.

      • Contramuffin@lemmy.world
        1·
        7 days ago

        I get what you mean. I’ve suspected it’s a combination of factors:

        1. People have a name for it now. You can’t announce or be prideful about something that you don’t have a name for

        2. People are more accepting of autism now. You’d be more incentivized to hide autism if people thought it was a bad thing

        3. Autistic people tend to attract other autistic people. If you know one autistic person, you probably know a whole bunch of other autistic people too

        But also, I just think that a lot of people underestimated how many people were autistic back then. A lot of high-functioning autistic people can pass for normal until you really get to know them. For instance, I’m like 99% sure that both of my parents are high-functioning autistic, and nobody ever suspected they might be. I brought up the possibility to them and their response was just, “yeah, I figured.”

  • presoak@lazysoci.al
    1·
    7 days ago

    I think it’s old. I heard reference to it in old Yoga books. They called it “habitually one-pointed”. They considered it desirable.

    Also in a book about shamens. They called it the teaching disease. Because it teaches you some otherwise difficult to grasp stuff about reality.

    • BigBolillo@mgtowlemmy.orgOP
      2·
      7 days ago

      Sorry about my shitty English, no es mi idioma principal pero podemos hablar perfectamente en español si gustas 😉😉

      • texture@lemmy.world
        2·
        7 days ago

        No hablo español. Perdona que me molestara el problema gramatical. No era mi intención ser ofensivo de ninguna manera.

        The thing is that “been developed” strongly implies that there was an active and intentional developing (inventing) of it. Sadly there are many people that do pose such questions, purposely framed in that manner. So I suppose i reacted based on a misunderstanding of that meaning. Cheers and be well :)

        • BigBolillo@mgtowlemmy.orgOP
          2·
          7 days ago

          Oh, now I understand — it was my fault, sorry. I’ve never been in any English-speaking country directly, so I don’t really know how words are used when you’re a native English speaker. In Spanish, we say “desarrollar” (“to develop”) not only when there’s an intentional action, but also, for example, when people get sick or have a condition — we say they “developed” the illness. In the case of autism, I understand that generally people are, let’s say, “normal” until a certain age, and it’s then that autism “develops,” so to speak.You don’t have to apologize at all.

          I’m not bothered or anything. It’s just that my English is really bad sometimes, for that reason.

          • texture@lemmy.world
            1·
            6 days ago

            hey cheers for the message.

            i dont think your english was really bad. perhaps more that there was a slightly unusual grammar employed and because english itself is so messy and confusing, that i misunderstood. also, my english language abilities arent fantastic or normal anyway, even though its my fist language.

            in english we also say that people “developed” an illness, its more about exact tense. So “has been developed” just sounded a bit awkward and made me think you meant the condition itself, and not the study of it.

            anyway long story short, english itself sucks and is quite prone to misunderstandings. thanks for conversing in good faith. :)

  • Strider@lemmy.world
    6·
    8 days ago

    (Autists perspective)

    It’s not new at all, the term has been around decades and itself has been around literally forever. It’s a different brain development. There are many historical persons which are thought or know to have been autists (e. G. Einstein, Lewis Carroll, Dan Akroyd to just name a few over a longer timespan.)

    It’s also not having autism (as an optional trait) but rather being Autist (as a defining foundation).

    Just like, say, mutations that also always happened to certain degrees.

    Feel free to ask. Also, of course, that is my personal opinion where it is not scientifically proven.

  • juliebean@lemmy.zip
    4·
    9 days ago

    we’re a kind of people that’s been around probably since forever. categorizing us the way modern psychology does is of course a more recent phenomenon. every culture since the dawn of time has had their own ways of handling and understanding variation in the species, but the variations have probably existed for as long as humans have, if not longer.

  • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
    18·
    8 days ago

    I know you’re not supposed to diagnose historical figures, but Kant is like the textbook definition of autistic. He made the rule that he would smoke one pipeful of tobacco a day, and lamented for years that he couldn’t find a bigger pipe. His moral philosophy also demonstrates the kind of rigid thinking that is characteristic of autism.

  • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksMEnglish
    231·
    9 days ago

    I choose to believe that autism appeared only after the invention of railway, and you can’t convince me otherwise.

  • Corporal_Punishment@feddit.ukEnglish
    58·
    9 days ago

    Until the early 1900s, “mild” mental illness such as autism just didn’t exist in a medical sense. People were “odd”, “eccentric” etc and even after autism was formally recognised and studied in the 1940s it was virtually unheard of. Again, people were odd, a bit weird or eccentric.

    There are no records of diagnosed cases of autism or similar before the 1900s because nobody recognised them for what they were.

    Serious mental health issues have been recognised for thousands of years. Records of diagnoses of “lunacy” and “insanity” go back to the 1400s in the UK. Back then the cure was imprisonment in a cage and with regular blood letting and being plunged in cold water.

    • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      9 days ago

      Back then the cure was imprisonment in a cage and with regular blood letting and being plunged in cold water.

      And by drilling holes in the skull. Plus probably various other horrible ‘treatments’ that just created extra problems without fixing the original (and very vaguely understood) issue.

    • voracitude@lemmy.world
      30·
      9 days ago

      My only correction would be that autism isn’t a mental illness. It’s a difference in brain structure - synaptic density seems to play a significant role (https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/a-key-brain-difference-linked-to-autism-is-found-for-the-first-time-in-living-people/).

      “Eccentric” would indeed have been the word, even as late as the 80s. And that’s just men; women often present symptoms differently, or different symptoms entirely and even today ASD can go unnoticed for much longer in young women.

      • Victor@lemmy.world
        14·
        8 days ago

        The definition and classification of mental disorders are key issues for researchers as well as service providers and those who may be diagnosed. For a mental state to be classified as a disorder, it generally needs to cause dysfunction.[15] Most international clinical documents use the term mental “disorder”, while “illness” is also common. It has been noted that using the term “mental” (i.e., of the mind) is not necessarily meant to imply separateness from the brain or body.

        According to the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), published in 1994, a mental disorder is a psychological syndrome or pattern that is associated with distress (e.g., via a painful symptom), disability (impairment in one or more important areas of functioning), increased risk of death, or causes a significant loss of autonomy.

        In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) redefined mental disorders in the DSM-5 as “a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning.”

        I dunno, sounds to me like autism fits fine with “mental illness”, possibly depending on the severity/placement on the spectrum. Note that mental illness isn’t something easily defined. I just pulled the quotes above from Wikipedia.

      • Victor@lemmy.world
        34·
        8 days ago

        autism isn’t a mental illness. It’s a difference in brain structure

        Define mental illness?

        • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
          4·
          8 days ago

          Probably any neurodivergence that results in causing harm to self or others, and inability to conform with societal norms.

          I pulled that out of me arse but it sounds logical enough.

        • voracitude@lemmy.world
          3·
          8 days ago

          This seems incredibly disingenuous when you can just go search the internet for the definition, and why autism isn’t a classified as mental illness, but sure, I’ll humour you.

          “Autism” is a spectrum of developmental disorders that stem from those brain structure differences I mentioned. An illness is when something is wrong. Not just different, wrong. There’s nothing “wrong” in an autistic person; autism is not a disease or sickness caused by some outside force like a virus or bacteria or drug; it’s not transmissible, and it cannot be developed post hoc (meaning you can’t acquire autism, you’re born with it). There’s no innate reduction in function. It can’t be treated or cured; the symptoms of the mental illnesses caused by dealing with neurotypicals can, but again those aren’t something we’re born with; those are acquired.

          At the root of it, we just process information differently than a neurotypical person due to our brains growing differently. It’s like saying ARM is “silicon illness” because it’s not x86_64.

          https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/publications/health-matters/what-is-autism

          • Victor@lemmy.world
            14·
            8 days ago

            This seems incredibly disingenuous when you can just go search the internet for the definition

            The F? That’s what I did, and posted in the other comment. :⁠-⁠P

            I think there’s a definition of “wrong” here as well. That’s a very subjective definition. My god son has autism, and he has problems in school, and it makes life difficult for his parents and siblings. That’s not “wrong”? It creates harm in some definition.

            I dunno, I’m not trying to blame autistic people or make them seem bad or worth less or something, I’m just saying that it sure feels like an illness sometimes. I also suspect I have some ultra mild placement on the spectrum, and it can be challenging in certain situations.

            • voracitude@lemmy.world
              1·
              8 days ago

              I was responding when you posted that, so I didn’t see it, and you didn’t respond to me, so if you hadn’t said that I might not have seen it at all. And you didn’t bother to look before responding to me because…?

              Moreover, I did you a favour by responding with relevant information instead of just telling you to educate yourself, and you want to act like I’m an asshole for pointing out why your question seemed disingenuous? Cool, cheers.

              • Victor@lemmy.world
                13·
                8 days ago

                and you didn’t respond to me, so if you hadn’t said that I might not have seen it at all.

                But I did respond to you. The comment with the definitions from Wikipedia is a response to your comment.

                And you didn’t bother to look before responding to me because…?

                Didn’t bother, or didn’t have time at the moment. 🤷‍♂️ Sometimes life happens. When I had time, I bothered, as you saw. 👍

                you want to act like I’m an asshole

                What? No, I don’t. Why would I? 🤨