Friday, November 3, 2017

Does the happy autist have a history?

Adelaide Dupont submits Does the happy autist have a history? from Halfway up Rysy Peak

Trigger Warnings for genitalia mutilations, child marriages, historical mention of cure, historical mention of research, emotional labour, gangs, bullying behaviour, happiness as tool of social control, denialism, oppression, medical mismanagement, pseudoscience, florescent street lighting, and human intentional betrayal



We have no past 
We won't reach back
Keep with me
forward all through the night [Lauper 1980ish].

And there is a chance under these white street lamps and with the maps which got us through to the street.

My question is Does the happy autist have a history?

When I was with you all at #31for21 it was as a guest and with the courtesies observed that would be proper and expected of a guest.

A book on the left - Autistic History Month in the middle - neurodiversity infinity symbols on the right. Below history community and culture in different circles

Who do I mean by the happy autist? Of course I mean each individual autist and their happinesses whether or not I know them/you.

I also mean something reified - something abstract. Something you might well have seen in the media and tried to reach.

You might say as you read this, "I am a happy autist. I have a history."

Or: "My happiness and my history was lost, stolen or mislaid at some point or another".


Yes - things like human intentional and institutional betrayal - the latter of which Jennifer Freyd and a student studied from 2009-2014 - do have a tendency to do this thing. It's a feature, not a bug.

When I originally asked this question - it had been on me for some weeks - it was with the intent of that saying Happy women, like happy countries, have no history.

I write about happy women and write about happy countries.

Even countries you wouldn't expect to be happy like Timor-Leste [gained its independence in 2002] and South Sudan [split from Sudan and became independent in 2011] and Somalia [had a lot of governmentality trouble from 1993 to the present].

Somalia has had a big problem with Vitamin D. They have appeared as a trending topic since about 2010 when it comes to medical pseudoscience, ringmastered by one Andrew Wakefield, whose part in autism history has been disreputable. Especially in that regard. Scaring people in the north of the USA who are newly arrived migrants will not earn you a place in my good books. And trying to break family and community connections instead of strengthen them.

I know about Timor-Leste and West Papua because I have read books about them this last year. Of course there was that big INTERFET and United Nations Transition thing in 1998-99.

Long before there was an Apex crime gang [which is very largely a diffuse phenomenon which did start in a Dandenong street] - there was an Apex service organisation.

In Australia and New Zealand Apex the service organisation have done a lot of things for autistic people. Like the "Cure Tomorrow Care Today" conference in 1968 and promoting things for families and community members.

In 1998 Apex Trust Foundation were able to send Lindsay Weekes to the USA to attend Autreat, which stopped its retreats in 2013 and 2014.

One thing I realised about happiness is that it could be an agent of bonding or a tool of social control.

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