I just came across the most counterintuitive statistic. Being completely blind or paraplegic looks a hell of a lot more depressing than what we go through, right? Turns out, people with those conditions have much lower rates of depression and suicide than those on the spectrum. And those with borderline personality disorder are far more depressed than all the categories above. Hard to believe, but I doubt you can prove me wrong.
(Response cont'd...)
All that mobility stuff I acquired fairly recently in my life and have found to be waaaaaay easier to cope with than all the autism stuff, even though being autistic is just normal for me...I’m used to being autistic, it isn’t inherently painful for me and I don't actually think of it as bad, but I have often wished I wasn't autistic because of how other people treat me -- autism is only painful because of ableism, and prejudice...the social difficulties that come out of being autistic wouldn’t be so painful (maybe just frustrating sometimes) if people were accepting, aware, and not so biased and rejecting and dehumanizing, not so prejudiced and closed minded and cruel.
By contrast to how people judge my autism, people are mostly not very judgy or not-at-all judgy to me about the mobility impairment stuff -- they are mind-bogglingly judgy about all the neurodevelopmental neurocognitive stuff.
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Please note: this is not me arguing autism is worse than mobility impariment or any other impairment/disability -- not for anyone but myself, and not even really for myself because I don't consider it my autism that causes me significant suffering but how people misjudge me and my autism-related traits and differences and challenges that causes me significant suffering)
There are mobility aids, ramps, elevators, accessible transit, there is in most places (not where I live though) home care if you need it for mobility and movement impairments... there is technology.
For autism? Pretty much nothing. Even AAC, people can reject it and insist you speak - it's insane.
People resent me (and quite often refuse without citing any reason at all) and judge me as an entitled, self-important, not-sure-what-all-goes-into-this-but-it-makes-me-think-of-people-using-the-disparaging-term-"special snowflake" for simply asking to communicate in writing! People underestimate me constantly, treat me like a toddler, refuse me the basic legal rights I have as an adult human being with full mental capacity to make his own decisions. I am constantly misjudged because of autism things, because of sensory needs, difficulty with speech and uncommon perspective and unusual cognitive processing alone.
I've only had a handful of people judge me and treat me strangely because I was in a wheelchair (and that was down to the thankfully less and less common belief that physical disability always happens with cognitive disability...so really they were being judgy about cognitive disability, not the mobility impairment)....
and zero people have judged me and/or treated me strangely because of the crutches.
People are usually respectful and offer appropriate assistance with issues that come up because of my mobility impairments... In contrast: people get mad at me and shame me and shun me and "other" me and treat me like I'm a wilfully bad, awful, worthless, lazy, stupid person for autistic impairments. Or like I'm a vulnerable toddler who needs a stern but gentle non-autistic adult to control my life and make all my choices for me.
One of the most powerful and harmful types of trauma is interpersonal trauma, because human beings are social animals -- highly interdependent emotionally even if not practically (and many of us, also practically); Most humans, autistic or not, want and need connection with others -- and our autism (or more accurately: how we are misjudged because of our autistic differences) often causes others to socially isolate us and mistreat is -- perhaps much more profoundly than any sensory or mobility impairment would...this probably varies from place to place -- from one social context to another. But at least where I live, mobility impairment is far more accepted and accomodated than any kind of neurocognitive/neurodevelopmental difference is.
So...not hard for me to believe at all, about the suicide rate/depression comparisons.
And with Borderline Personality Disorder -- (anyone more knowledgeable than me please correct me on this if I am way wrong) I think that is usually related to severe victimization in childhood/youth and extreme difficulties with emotional regulation and relationships in adulthood that are related to survival behaviours that persist and become maladaptive, all with typical desire for social connection...plus, personality disorders are
intensely stigmatized, I would say moreso than Autism is...all very powerful explanations for worse depression than the other disabilities you mentioned.
Again this is just a partial somewhat scattered and rambling explanation of my own perspective....
I also can’t think of a time when I had never met someone in a wheelchair or who needed a walker or a cane for much more than a sore or unstable knee..or who was deaf/Deaf or blind. There are many people of all ability levels and walks of life with paraplegia. My mom took me everywhere when I was a little boy, and knew all kinds of people with all kinds of abilities as acquaintances and friends.
I’ve known lots of people with moderate to severe cerebral palsy (CP) with various issues with mobility and speech -- first person I met in kindergarten. One of the people I knew who had CP was an adult I met as a teenager; He was and probably still is a very successful lawyer. He and I never exactly saw eye to eye on the idea that “The only disability in life is a bad attitude” but I admired his intelligence and shared a lot of values with him, and he was a very kind man - a role model in many ways. I am pretty sure he had quadriplegic cerebral palsy - meaning it affected all of his limbs and made movement of all kinds (including speech) a challenge...he was not depressed as far as I ever knew, although I was quite young and did not know him for a particularly long time, and he may not have shared certain aspects of his life with me...but still: He arguably had and likely still has a much better and happier life than I have ever had and probably ever will have -- even if you exclude my newish mobility impairments from any comparison.)
