There's some fun
recent NYT pieces on schizophrenics refusing treatment despite being wholly unable to function at a minimal level and the reporters seem to believe the argument that psychotically screaming all day while homeless is just a way of being. The real problem is that those takes seem to actually influence a lot of policy - on the tard-wrangling end, there's pushes by "autism advocates" to ban any kind of restraints/seclusion, and there's the interesting
battle over the facility in MA that uses shock collars to punish violent behavior in severely disabled adults who have been removed from facility after facility for violence.
This seems to be a general issue with the current Zeitgeist: "It is just the way I am!!!" No matter how destructive and antisocial, it is baked into the persons personality and must therefore not be changed or even challenged. Plus some woke shit how they are somehow oppressed by society and are only acting up because of it.
This is a recent development, at least this is my impression. PL: My sister is an (albeit high functioning) autist and when she was diagnosed back in the day, the goal was to access therapy and resources to help her fit in better. Not "erasing her autistic self" or whatever the fuck the tumblr/Xitter/TikTok brigade whines about.
But learn things like not interrupt or wander away during conversations. Fuck, that was annoying.
These days it is different though, at least in my experience (and I have heard similar from coworkers): There is this bizarre trend that a diagnosis it often seen as the end, the goal and not the beginning (or maybe midpoint) of getting better.
In a way, this even applies to the munchies we cover here. Sure, they want some toobz and toys, but a lot of it is having a shiny name of some (ideally obscure) name to put on social media. They don't want actual treatment (duh), because their identity is wrapped up in these ailments and being a special spoonie.
Someone could probably track the progression of this, in a way they wouldn't be allowed to for the trans social media people.
In my experience, this shit is just as taboo as tracking troons and is met with just as much reeeeing and trying to cancel people. Research papers now have to be smuggled past online activists with as much medical lingo as possible. Every step towards better treatment, better diagnostic tools or a better basic understanding of biological processes gets branded as "eugenics" or the ever popular "genocide".
I think a lot of it and the shift in perception
@Kufungisisa has to do with putting all separate disdorders into one spectrum (an absolute mistake and I am willing to die on that hill). People simply used Aspergers when talking about verbal and high functioning autists (or just said high functioning, something you can't officially do anymore, because activists) while the blanket "autism" was usually reserved for the severely affected tards. Now it is all just under the tism blanket and you just have to make a more or less educated guess what this means.