Image description: A collage about autistic mortality vis-a-vis Alastor in "Anguish of the Marrow". The base image is an end frame from Looney Tunes that reads "That's all Folks!" In the top left is the text "And he had died at thirty-three,/unmourned and unremembered,/because the person he had pretended to be was not real,/and/the person he was could not be loved." In the bottom right corner is the title "Mortality in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder". Below that are the extracts "The youngest death was at age 18 and the oldest death was at age 65,/with the average age at death being 39.” The last line of text is bigger than the middle line of text, to call more attention to it. End description.
The text in the bottom right is from a paper that is indeed titled "Mortality in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder". (I personally prefer to be referred to as an autistic person, not an individual with autism spectrum disorder, but I wanted to preserve the tone of the paper and keep this true to collage form.)
I am aware Alastor's early death on Earth in "Anguish of the Marrow" is much more related to his ASPD than his autistic traits, but reading his age of death and that particular paragraph, plus my own experiences of suicidality along with Alastor's in the fic, made me think of how autistic people die on average in our thirties. People deemed "low support needs" by psychiatry, people like me and Alastor, people who can speak and have about average gross motor control, tend to kill ourselves; people deemed "high support needs" (generally, people who cannot speak and/or have worse gross motor control) tend to be murdered by people who should be their caregivers. Basically, I'm doing what I imagine to be a very common experience when reading fiction: putting it in the context of my experiences. I don't mean to erase the particularities of experiences different from my own.
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timeasmymeasure
Image description and credits
Date: 2025-01-08 11:48 pm (UTC)The text in the top left is from Anguish of the Marrow.
The text in the bottom right is from a paper that is indeed titled "Mortality in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder". (I personally prefer to be referred to as an autistic person, not an individual with autism spectrum disorder, but I wanted to preserve the tone of the paper and keep this true to collage form.)
I am aware Alastor's early death on Earth in "Anguish of the Marrow" is much more related to his ASPD than his autistic traits, but reading his age of death and that particular paragraph, plus my own experiences of suicidality along with Alastor's in the fic, made me think of how autistic people die on average in our thirties. People deemed "low support needs" by psychiatry, people like me and Alastor, people who can speak and have about average gross motor control, tend to kill ourselves; people deemed "high support needs" (generally, people who cannot speak and/or have worse gross motor control) tend to be murdered by people who should be their caregivers.
Basically, I'm doing what I imagine to be a very common experience when reading fiction: putting it in the context of my experiences. I don't mean to erase the particularities of experiences different from my own.