Suspicion: autistic people are particularly susceptible to religious trauma, because to us the hellfire and damnation is real af and we are USED to being rejected.
It leads to a weird, bleak nihilism to be told god loves you so much he’s going to torture for eternity.
It leads to a weird, bleak nihilism to be told god loves you so much he’s going to torture for eternity.
(This is part of why I'm sure that James Joyce was ND, probably autistic. Large parts of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are about living with a visceral fear of hell, and about how ultimately it's not sustainable for our kinds of brains.)
This ultimately leads to the sickest burn in modernist literature. Stephen Daedalus, at the end of the book, confesses to a friend that he's lost his faith.
"You mean you've become a Protestant?!"
"I said I've lost my faith, not my reason!" comes the retort, and I laughed hard.
"You mean you've become a Protestant?!"
"I said I've lost my faith, not my reason!" comes the retort, and I laughed hard.
It's no accident that we last see Stephan Daedalus through a catechism, but a catechism of Joyce's devising -- not the catholic one.
As Ulysses draws to a close we are treated to page after page of question and answer about the characters, just written out.
As Ulysses draws to a close we are treated to page after page of question and answer about the characters, just written out.
(Also, writing this reminded me how much I loved Finnegans Wake, Joyce's great masterpiece. Here's a thread about it. It's fucking weird.
https://twitter.com/mykola/status/1412782040530014208)
This comes up again and again in these conversations - many autistic people are raised by undiagnosed autistic parents who perpetuate their own trauma and toxic coping strategies onto kids who need more support.
This happens, we gotta acknowledge it.
This happens, we gotta acknowledge it.
https://twitter.com/runicrhyme/status/1412810211136507904
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
