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?

  • Corporal_Punishment@feddit.ukEnglish
    63·
    2 months 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.

      • Victor@lemmy.world
        35·
        2 months ago

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

        Define mental illness?

          • Victor@lemmy.world
            14·
            2 months 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.

              • Victor@lemmy.world
                13·
                2 months 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? 🤨

        • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
          4·
          2 months 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.

      • Victor@lemmy.world
        14·
        2 months 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
            11·
            2 months ago

            Being included in the DSM doesn’t automatically classify something as a mental illness

            No, but those descriptions of a mental illness I thought fit autism fairly well. 🤷‍♂️ That’s what I meant.

            • kewjo@lemmy.world
              2·
              2 months ago

              would you consider left-handedness a disability? just because someone struggles with things that suit the majority doesn’t mean it’s an illness

              • Victor@lemmy.world
                11·
                2 months ago

                Left-handedness doesn’t need to be a struggle, does it? We don’t force kids to write with their right hand anymore since many decades.

                • cecilkorik@lemmy.caEnglish
                  1·
                  1 month ago

                  Speaking as a left-handed person it absolutely is a struggle, and given that the majority of the world is right-handed, for practical purposes it actually does need to be a struggle, otherwise ALL non-ambidextrous things would be a struggle for right-handed people instead, and that would be an even stupider way to run the world (as funny as it would be to see everybody else suddenly struggle with the things we struggle with on a daily basis, that’s not a fair or sensible way to expect any civilization to function)

                  The things that left-handed people struggle with are due to subtle design issues caused by things that require asymmetric designs, you won’t notice an obvious problem with the asymmetry as a right-handed person, but they’re real struggles. Things like the shape being uncomfortable is only part of it, with scissors for example, the strength is coming from the wrong side, it won’t cut properly, for things like writing, our hands smear the ink as we go or have to be held hovering above leading to strain and poor penmanship, spines and bindings immediately get in our way the moment we start trying to write, many things don’t fit the way they’re supposed to, don’t have the correct angles when used in the left hand, or often they will block our vision or put our hand in a place that blocks our vision, whereas a right-handed person’s hand does not block their vision using the same tool. The issues are complex and subtle, but they’re significant, and they are not necessarily solved by simply making things symmetrical or reversing them. As much as lefties might enjoy a language that is written right-to-left, it’s not a practical solution to the reality that we are a minority where things are designed for the majority.

                  Ironically the languages that DO write right-to-left, actually did not do it for the benefit of left-handed people, but did it to benefit right handed people, when they’re chiseling into stone tablets as the hammer (in their left hand) would block their view. So if you want to know how it feels to be left-handed, go chisel some essays on a stone tablet. It’ll make me feel better.

                  • Victor@lemmy.world
                    1·
                    1 month ago

                    Thank you for your perspective, I appreciate it!

                    I guess all of that is more to my point that I was making in this thread. 🙂

                    Have a good day!

    • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      2 months 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.