You Can’t Cure AWESOME!!!!
I have shared before my views on the similarities in the X-Men movies and the autism journey. Heck, the other week I went and bought the whole boxed set on Amazon. I watched them last weekend. Including #3, X-Men: The Last Stand.
That was the first time in years that I had seen that whole film. I generally have become enamored with the Origins series. The first time I watched First Class, I took two and a half pages of notes…my favorite quotes.
But The Last Stand was actually the reason I bought that boxed set. Recently, I have had several occasions to use this clip from it…
For me it has represented the absolute WORST of the #AutismParent type. Their drive to #TREAT and/or #CURE that pushes them to depths of depravity without regard for the emotional, mental or sometimes even physical health of their child. #ABA therapy, of course. But even bleach enemas. Yes, you heard that one right.
Anything to CURE their child’s autism.
To make him NORMAL.
Now this morning…another one…the cause of another #neurodivergence #Dyslexia…which of course they hope will lead to a treatment/cure.
Autism is not the only #Dif-ability that is under fire. The deaf community has been torn apart for the past two decades around the issue of cochlear implants. Some in favor or them and seeking to ‘cure’ their deafness. And others seeing it as genocide…wiping the deaf from your world.
And IF it were truly voluntary…left to the individual with fully informed consent that might be one thing. But it is not and has not been.
As the mother of a #HappilyAutistic, #ProudlyPDA, and #PrettyDamnedAwesome little human, I have grave concerns about parents FORCING any treatment/cure on a child before they can make fully informed consent themselves. Even in the teens and early twenties, we are so easily influenced by peer pressure to be ‘normal’ and if all your life your parents, the very people who are supposed to love you unconditionally, have sought to ‘FIX’ you…how free would any choice you make be?
But it does not just end with the issue of minor consent. If there were a ‘cure’, how easy would it be for politicians and medical ‘experts’ to coerce people? “I’m sorry. We cannot justify a lifetime of support costs at X when there is a cure for your CONDITION which makes more sense.” Purely economical, of course. Nothing to do with #neurodiversity or being different.
It goes even deeper though. GENOCIDE. Forcing the cure on people. Don’t believe me. Talk to schizophrenic community. How many have been sectioned (UK) or involuntarily committed (US)? How many have had treatments FORCED on them? Why? Because they were a threat to themselves or others. A myth not held up by facts, by the way. Less than a 1% chance of a schizophrenic becoming violent. And sometimes that threat was nothing more than choosing the homeless lifestyle…because that is not ‘normal’.
So they are arrested, strapped down, and dangerous psychedelic drugs shot into their bodies. WITHOUT their consent. Some who consider their ‘condition’ a #neurodivergence have their very identity stripped from them by this process. Oh, and did I mention the horrible side effects…drooling like a baby, muscle stiffness and pain, feeling like a zombie, sexual dysfunction.
But it’s for their own good? For their family’s sake? Have to keep society ‘safe’?
That was the very theme of X-Men: The Last Stand. What was horrific to me as I watched this movie again through the prism of #neurodiversity was it was not us against them. Even the mutants themselves seemed to think they had the right to judge someone else’s mutation.
The benevolent Dr Xavier uses his own powers to ‘mess’ with Phoenix’s mind…to filter out the ‘bad’ of her mutations…and create the Jean Grey MASK. But as we all know…masks come at an incredibly high price. One that is rarely sustainable.
I am #neurotypical (I think) and I could not maintain my ‘mask’. I took it off years ago…thanks in great part to my beloved PanKwake who taught me a better way. These days on those rare occasions I pulled the damned thing out of the drawer (it is an actual mask these days…my make-up case), it is exhausting and I cannot manage more than a few hours of it.
Dr X? The leader of the X-Men messing in the mind of a child…because she was too powerful. Too powerful a mutant?
Too autistic for even autistic ‘experts’? Your autism is not my autism? I am too sad to say that is exactly what many in the #PDA community feel like. Ostracized by their own kind even.
And it was not just the humans who took the choice away. In the end, the X-Men ‘won’ by forcing the cure on Magneto. Do you hear me, folks? We have to…he’s dangerous…he’s going to ruin things for us. So three other mutants JUDGED him…and administered the CURE without his consent…irregardless of outcome/side effects…of robbing him of his identity of a LIFETIME.
Oh, I am sure that there will be token #autistics on that panel who tell the #neurodivergent it is accept our ‘cure’ or lose your support. And sadly, they may not be the ones we expect either.
If this blog seems more science fiction than fact…I ask you to consider the amount of money, time, and effort put into therapies, treatments, and ‘cures’ versus how much for the accommodation and support necessary to ENABLE the #neurodivergent to live productive, fulfilling, and happy lives. Look at the things that government and the major charities are funding. Look at their track record.
Look at the deaf and schizophrenic communities and what has and is happening to them. It is not so unthinkable, folks. So I want to leave you with this final message…
Self-Directed Learning & Neurodiversity 