There are many cultures around the world that are suppressed by majoritarianism. They have to face challenges like forced assimilation, language discrimination and refusal to acknowledgement of their unique identity. In fact, many cultures have been identified by UNESCO, that will soon cease to exist - either that they’re vulnerable, or completely extinct. How do you, as a minority, feel, knowing that your entire identity will cease to exist in a few decades? Do you have a sense of camaraderie towards other minorities from other parts of the world, say, the Ainu people, or the Brahui pastoralist?
My region’s culture. All the people who grew up where and when I am, the culture we had. We’re now mixed into a larger region’s culture and unless we congregate, our culture is going away. It’s actually being criminalized, and framed as immoral by the new dominant culture.
So I’m shunned if I practice my culture, treated as dangerous by those around me.
Not talking about autistic culture itself. I’m talking about the regional culture. The place where I’m from. That’s being dismantled by contact with a more dominant culture, and it sucks. I feel sort like a traveler who can’t go home.
And, being autistic, I also have the problem of being very bad at adapting to culture at all. Adopting all the mannerisms and sayings and tendencies that gain a person fluid acceptance into a culture, is really hard for an autistic person. NTs just sort of absorb it unconsciously, but we have to exert large amounts of conscious work to make it happen, and my ability to do that work has decreased as I’ve gotten older.
As another autistic person, and at the risk of providing bad or unwanted advice, my ability to relate to other humans was entirely rebuilt from the ground up by MDMA.
Every brain is different, and everyone has a different subjective response to mind altering substances, but I feel like society could be entirely better if we studied and treated mental health without the protestant cultural baggage.