• Lad
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    74 hours ago

    It’s true. It irks me to see older people claim that autism/ADHD/anxiety etc. didn’t exist in the past. Not only is it an attempt to invalidate people’s experiences, but it’s pure bullshit.

    For example, what we today know as PTSD was characterised as “cowardice” during WW1. Do they really want us to go back to that?

    • @[email protected]
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      43 hours ago

      I am sure this still goes on today in some cases. Also, PTSD was called shell shocked during WWI and was recognized as a medical condition, it was just that there was no idea what was causing it so a lot of people did not think it really existed.

  • @[email protected]
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    346 hours ago

    Its because the techniques to make people autistic are advancing. It used to be only a type of vaccine. Now its all vaccines, masks, phones, books and bread

    • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ
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      186 hours ago

      It’s in the plastic!!!

      (Jokes aside, it may actually be in the plastic…)

  • @Skullgrid
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    1309 hours ago

    related meme microblog post :

  • @Sam_Bass
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    86 hours ago

    yeah i got dropped into a state run childrens home for a couple years cause my mom couldnt handle it by herself

  • @[email protected]
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    448 hours ago

    Bonus points if your boomer parent got a ND diagnosis in their 50s, yet still refuses to believe that neurodiversity was just as much a thing when they were young as when you were, it was just ignored harder, as they actively ignore your ND diagnosis that you finally got independent of them in your 20s or 30s.

    • @The_v
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      86 hours ago

      My boomer mother has never been diagnosed as far as I know. . She is obviously on the autism spectrum towards what used to be called aspergers. Add in a violent streak, some narcissistic tendencies, religious extremism, and deeply ingrained racism to the mix to make it extra spicy.

      I haven’t seen or spoken to her in more than a decade but I doubt anything has changed.

      • @[email protected]
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        6 hours ago

        I’m in a similar boat (E: things were always worse with the parent who would never seek diagnosis), cutting contact was the best decision I’ve ever made for myself.

    • @[email protected]
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      137 hours ago

      I don’t want the bonus points, I just want my mom to get the help she needs. But no… she’s stubborn, prideful, etc. And even though she’s a huge bigot and I want to punch her in the face, she’s still my mom.

      • @[email protected]
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        156 hours ago

        Personally I realised that if being related meant so little to them to treat me the way they did, there’s no reason it should mean much to me, so I did what was healthiest for me for a change and cut contact. I wish you the best of luck getting her help (seriously), but you shouldn’t be suffering just because someone is related to you.

  • Diplomjodler
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    599 hours ago

    There was no mental illness in the good old days. Just alcoholism. A lot of alcoholism. Those things of course have nothing to do with each other.

    • @[email protected]
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      269 hours ago

      And nicotine. If you didn’t smoke yourself, you still got it secondhand. Most of the post-WWII era in America had everyone at least mildly on a psychoactive substance 24/7.

      • paraphrand
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        35 hours ago

        Nicotine use papered over so many things.

        • @MutilationWave
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          23 hours ago

          90% of diagnosed schizophrenics smoke cigarettes. I don’t think they’ve found the mechanism but something in the tobacco helps manage their symptoms.

        • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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          75 hours ago

          No, that’s probably because of the Hayes Code, which limited the sorts of things you could show on TV. People don’t remember the real 1950s, just the film and TV of it.

          • @[email protected]
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            77 hours ago

            How hard is it to read the article you posted? They didn’t sell methamphetamine to housewives, it was amphetamine. That is a VERY big difference

            • @RedAggroBest
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              56 hours ago

              Yea, the ones selling methamphetamine to housewives were the Nazis in the '40s.

            • flicker
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              25 hours ago

              As a woman with crippling ADHD, I can’t imagine the horror of trying the new wonder drug, discovering it helped me keep the house and avoid being beaten, and then eventually having to go back to doing without…

  • @disguy_ovahea
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    9 hours ago

    Then there was the transitional phase of Gen X calling them all gay or retarded before Millennials introduced acceptance.

    • @Skullgrid
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      289 hours ago

      before Millennials introduced acceptance.

      • @disguy_ovahea
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        329 hours ago

        I’m not suggesting that we’ve made it to full acceptance, but that Millennials really began normalizing acceptance of disorders as well as mental health treatment.

        • @MutilationWave
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          23 hours ago

          I make it a point to talk about my mental health and treatment openly with my friends and co-workers. Everyone should do it. You never know if you could be the little push someone needs to seek help.

        • @Droggelbecher
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          109 hours ago

          I’m on (just barely) Gen Z and I still get called retarded for symptoms of neurodivergence

          • Kelly Aster 🏳️‍⚧️
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            108 hours ago

            I’m a Gen Xer, and I think it’s fucked up that people say things like that to you. I’m sorry, you deserve better.

  • @Nuke_the_whales
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    209 hours ago

    Wasn’t the spectrum expanded in the last 20 years? That in itself would raise the numbers. If I may play Devil’s advocate, a level 1 or even a level 2 autistic person back in the day may have been seen as a bit eccentric or weird, but would overall pass for a neurotypical person and manage to hold a job, have a normal life if with some difficulty. So boomers probably knew quite a few people on the spectrum but just thought of them as just odd but good people.

    I grew up in a place where the word autism isn’t even in the vocabulary and thinking back, there’s at least a few people I can now look back on and say they were autistic, even if we didn’t know the term then.

    • Ephera
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      129 hours ago

      Yeah, back then “autism” was a full-on disorder. It had to be so strong that it impacted your ability to participate in society. Now we realize that it’s more a character quirk with individual strengths and weaknesses, that it’s worthwhile to be aware of, even when you manage to navigate society.

    • blaue_Fledermaus
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      98 hours ago

      Not just that, but IIRC the very first person to be diagnosed as autistic is still alive.

    • @YarHarSuperstar
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      8 hours ago

      a level 1 or even a level 2 autistic person

      Lol

      Edit: Ouch, I’m apparently bad at being autistic, had no idea there were actual levels, thought it was a poor approximation of the spectrum by applying levels to something I thought of as more complex than that. My bad.

  • Kelly Aster 🏳️‍⚧️
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    128 hours ago

    Ah, the shitty narcissistic boomer assumption that anything “new” must be a lie. Yeah, people all over the fucking world are making up neurodivergence, queerness, and food allergies just to be difficult, right?

  • @renrenPDX
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    57 hours ago

    Today’s behaviors would get you beat back then. I know.

  • @SpruceBringsteen
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    89 hours ago

    I’m reminded of the scene in The Sopranos where Tony finds out he had another uncle he never knew about.

  • @DandomRude
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    -45 hours ago

    What’s with the boomer stuff? Does the internet really need any bogeymen to blame for everything bad? Seems to be the case. So it’s hardly surprising that people like Trump are so successful. It’s the same thing, just packaged differently