Autism - Repetitive Behaviors Like Rocking and Flapping. I Love Concert Videos!

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Autism - Repetitive Behaviors Like Rocking and Flapping

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Video featured in Wired Magazine Stress and how we as humans deal with it is the subject of this video. I believe neurotypical people can sometimes misinterpret an emotion such as stress when viewing the behaviors of autistic people like me and others. Every human experiences stress. Part of our shared experience is the emotion of stress (fight or flight). Whenever we feel we are being judged, we feel stress. Have you ever experienced the stress to perform or live up to an "image" in your life? If so, you have something in common with autistic people. Most people experience stress in their lives to perform under pressure, whether it is in your job or with your spouse or family. Both autistic people and "normal" people experience stress and pressure. However, stress can manifest itself in autistic people in ways that are misunderstood by so called "normal" people. When both autistic and "normal" people experience stress, it often manifests itself physcially in what is psychiatrically called "repetitive behaviors". So called "normal" people exhibit stress with repetitive behaviors just like autistic people. However, their repetitive behaviors are considereed socially "appropriate" and are not subject to judgement. Neurotypical repetitive behaviors are considered "normal" or in the mainstream. No one would consider that they need to be modified or "cured". However, for autistic people, because our stress coping mechanisms are different, such as rocking and flapping, have very different consequences than a neurotypical's stress coping "behavior". Our stress coping mechanisms such as rocking and flapping can get us institutionalized, put in self contained classrooms as children and abused like lab monkeys by our own family because they believe they are being helpful to us and benevolent. We are subject to the same type of behavior modification used with animals such as those you see at Sea World. Our stress reducing mechanisms such as ROCKING, and flapping are medicalized and called stereotypical movement disorders. We are told that they are compulsive, repetitive and "non-functional" behavior. All because they are deemed so by people that are neurotypical. However, one of us (autistic) has been very successful despite being labled Rain man, wierd, asocial etc. by society (google Bill Gates and rocking to see what I mean). Bill is an autistic in hiding. Despite being the richest man in the world, he still must feel the stigma of being labeled as someone abnormal. I feel sorry for him in this respect, but along with great wealth comes great responsibility and it is about time that he step up to it.

Category: People
Uploaded: February 17th, 2007 @ 8:34 pm
Author: christschool

Length: 03:58
Rating: