Redefining Disabilities: Perspectives and Misconceptions

In this episode of Based Camp, Simone and Malcolm Collins dive deep into the realities of living with disabilities—both visible and invisible. They challenge the mainstream narratives around disability, self-diagnosis, and identity, sharing personal stories about dyslexia, autism, ADHD, and more. The conversation covers the evolution of what society considers a "disability," the dangers of over-identification, the impact of self-diagnosis, and practical advice for thriving with differences. Whether you’re disabled, neurodivergent, or just curious, this episode offers a candid, sometimes controversial, and always insightful look at what it really means to be “disabled” in today’s world.

Episode Transcript:

Simone Collins (2): [00:00:00] I don't know. Every time I hear someone talk about their disability, I just think of that IT Crowd episode.

Moss: You are disabled. What? Why not? You're not disabled. You're getting in trouble. . It's illegal. I don't think so.

Hello? Hello. You are right now. Um, do you need help? I'm disabled. Move back. What are you doing? Don't panic from the dog. What? No.

So, uh, what happened? I'm disabled. How, how, what? Yeah. How are you disabled? Uh, they're disabled. Wait, I'm being. Do you have a [00:01:00] wheelchair? Yes. Yeah.

Stolen.

Simone Collins (2): And the scene of him being lifted down from a bus very slowly in his wheelchair, looking so humiliated and embarrassed and like feeble, attempting to look feeble. It's the best. That is, that is what being disabled is.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins (2): Hello Malcolm. It's so exciting to be speaking with you today because we are both disabled, but we're not disabled the way you would think that it's to say we don't identify with it. A lot of people have asked us to talk about this because. They too have various diagnoses and they wanna know how to, well, what you said

Malcolm Collins: is stop being retarded about being retarded.

Simone Collins (2): That's the problem. Yes. People are being way too retarded about being disabled, and I think that we should talk about the right way to dis disabilities. Well, because they're

Malcolm Collins: engaging with, in our society, teaches them to [00:02:00] engage with a disability in a way that is really, really. Destructive. Yeah. And where this came up in one of our episodes is I was reading about Gavin Newsom.

And Gavin Newsom had this sob story about how difficult it was to grow up with dyslexia. Oh. And when I was reading it, I was like, I just, you know, his learning disability and everything like that, it just sort of occurred to me, and it hasn't occurred to me in, in maybe half a decade that I have dyslexia.

And,

Simone Collins (2): and then that prompted people to say, okay, well I have dyslexia and I struggle with it. How did you overcome it? And someone else wanted to know, well, what's, because you called it a learning inconvenience, not a learning disability. And they're like, well, what's the difference between a learning inconvenience

Malcolm Collins: and a learning disability?

Like literally Simone and you, and you can back this up. When was the last time you think I have mentioned having dyslexia to you or anyone before that episode

Simone Collins (2): and I'm, I mean I think you'd mentioned having it like once or twice

like, it was only one of those things of like, it didn't matter to you and it, it, it didn't affect [00:03:00] your life.

And yet, you know, we have good friends who've gone to like a. Disability camps for dyslexia only. Literally, literally

Malcolm Collins: the only time. And, and Simone is diagnosed with autism, right? So again, like this is something, the only time I remember it mattering in my entire life was trying to remember the difference between a B and a D which I severely struggled with.

But other than that, it was completely irrelevant throughout the rest of my life. People think that

Simone Collins (2): your mispronunciations are a result of your dyslexia.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, I, I was diagnosed by psychol psychologists about this, and one of the reasons why when somebody's like, what's the difference between a learning and convenience and a learning disability, I suppose as somebody who has a plethora of bows it's, it's how much it actually ended up impacting my life.

The, the yeah. One that hit me the most growing up by far the most much more than likely Simone's autism, or I would think even, you know, like having one arm or something like that, is I have dysgraphia. Oh. Which means I cannot hand write. So I cannot, and Simone made jokes about this when we [00:04:00] were dating and stuff like that, said I'd come home and I give her a.

A writing or something and she'd go over and she'd be like, Malcolm, like, did you, what was it you thought that I had like tutored up?

Simone Collins (2): Yeah. So Malcolm comes home and he leaves on the table this like drawing and a little bit of writing and it's like this, this like stick figure of a man and drawing that like literally looks like a first grader did it.

If I can find, I think I took a photo of it. If I can find it, I, I've gotta put it up and I put it on the fridge and I was like, oh man. Like at, at the Stanford Business School, they must have some done, some kind of big brother, little brother like thing, you know where the, they brought in kids and you talked with them about business.

Speaker 2: You're like, oh, you put that on the fridge? And I'm like, yeah. Like, who were you working with? And you're like, I did that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And so I going back to when you first learned to write in school, I had to use something and only people who like, have disabilities would know about this, called an Alpha Smart never heard this.

So they don't want you to be able to use spell check or any computer [00:05:00] augmented things to help you write. But because you can't hand write, they need to give you something to write with. And so it's a simple computer that can only write strings of texts. And then you plug it into, so it's like a typewriter?

Simone Collins (2): It's basically a typewriter, but digital.

Malcolm Collins: It's like a digital typewriter. Yeah. Okay. And so that's what I would use for everything in classes and everything like that. Wow. And I was also incredibly slow at writing as well, which also really, and this is the other thing like. That's so crazy 'cause you've written five books.

There are things that didn't impact me as much as, the reason I call dyslexia Learning Inconvenience is there is just random genetic variation that impacted me dramatically more. Like, for example, I am terrible at languages. I took Spanish because I grew up in. Right. I, I lived in Spanish speaking countries at times as a kid, and because I live in Texas, you take Spanish every year from kindergarten.

I didn't pass Spanish one. That is your first year of Spanish until my junior to senior year in high school. That meant [00:06:00] I failed Spanish. Every single year of my formal education. No, you're like literally

Simone Collins (2): a language retard. Like literally you are retarded. I'm literally a language retarded.

Speaker 6: Now who can tell me what famous person wrote the Declaration of Independence? Let's see. Oh, I know. How about the new student, Timmy, Tim? No, it wasn't you. Timmy. Try again. Timmy. Did you not do your homework? Come. Uh, Mr. Garrison, haven't you figured it out? Timmy's retarded. Don't call people names Stanley, but he is now.

Timmy, you need to work on your study skills. Are you mocking me? Because if you are, I have no problem sending your butt to the principal's office. That dumb.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Now that is not something I am diagnosed with.

That impacted me dramatically more than dyslexia. Another thing. Well, but that's

Simone Collins (2): the thing, and like a big point here though, is that this, the definition of disability has much more to do with what makes you. Non-compliant or non-functional in [00:07:00] some way within a typical environment. And because your typical environment doesn't involve you needing to be bilingual, that in itself doesn't come up as a disability.

I

Malcolm Collins: actually disagree with this very strongly, really. So I was about to mention the second thing that has impacted me way more than dyslexia. Yeah. The second thing that's impacted me way more than dyslexia is that I am a very slow writer and sort of processor of information thinker more broadly.

Yeah, I just think very slowly. And what this means is that in class. I, I, I couldn't take notes. So what I'd always do is for every single class that I did in college, I recorded it on a recorder. Then I went back to my room and I played it and slow speed and typed it out. Wow. And then I went over that and memorized that.

The amount of, now this is not a, this is something everybody has to do, and it wasn't due to any recognized disability. No, no,

Simone Collins (2): no. I disagree because in college, one of the ways that I made money. And this was, the school paid me to do this was there were students who had exactly the same problem, and I took notes for [00:08:00] them.

Malcolm Collins: I know the school offered that to me, but I, I didn't find then it's clearly

Simone Collins (2): a recognized disability, and it is because we live in a fast-paced world that this was not

Malcolm Collins: I, well, it's a diagnosed disability. You know, the point here is it's not a diagnosed disability. Mm-hmm. And the, the, the point is also with your autism, it's not even just the disabilities 'cause your autism is clearly like a labeled disability, but it has pretty much only helped you in life outside of maybe not picking up on social cues and almost getting griped or something because of that.

But I think outside of not knowing how to flirt. But knowing how to flirt with the type of guy having a terrible game wanted. Anyway, I'll let you continue from here, but I wanted to go on that sort of side tangent because that's what brought all this up. Mm-hmm. And I think that in our society we have these, these words for like specific like a DD or something like that.

A DD is not a learning disability. A DD is not an important part of who you are as a person. It is going to impact your daily life less. [00:09:00] Than random genetic variations in terms of how you learn or your happiness set point or your, it's almost like people think because we have named specific random genetic variations that really aren't that particularly impactful in an individual's daily life that we now need to elevate them.

To like a part of your identity because we ripped out everything else about people's identity. We say, oh, you can't identify with your birth culture, you can't identify with your parents, you can't identify with your ethnicity. And so if you can't identify with anything, any of your history, it's the last

Simone Collins (2): along with being gay, whatever bi it's the last form of white pride

Malcolm Collins: and your disabilities are, that's all you are at this point.

And this is really psychologically harmful because then you, you lean into this stuff. Yeah.

Simone Collins (2): And I'm gonna argue that actually. Yeah, go ahead. Identifying with A DHD is incredibly damaging. 'Cause I don't think you've watched a lot of A DHD influencers and seeing the extent to which their identification with the disorder makes them really [00:10:00] non-functional.

It is insane.

Malcolm Collins: I I, I, I mean, I know how I'm handling a DD with my kids and I'll put the, the South Spark

Speaker: Hello, I'm Dr. Richard Shea here to tell you about my exciting new drug-free treatment for children with Attention Deficit Disorder. This treatment is fast and effective and doesn't use harmful drugs. Watch closely as I apply treatment to the first child

Speaker 3: I watch.

Speaker 4: Sit down and.

Stop crying. Do your schoolwork.

Speaker: If you would like more information on my bold new treatments, please send away for this free brochure entitled, you can either calm down or I can pop you in the mouth again. Thank you.

Simone Collins (2): yes, exactly that. But I'm first gonna gonna push back on. Your argument that disabilities aren't really just a, a, a, a declaration of societal norms and what you need in order to be functional [00:11:00] and mainstream society, because you have to consider what was considered a disability in even recent history.

Like same sex attraction, which was classified as a mental disorder in 1952 and only removed as such in 1973. Do you know what else was considered a disability, which I have. Left-handedness. That was a disability. Really? Yes, it was. Okay. Also, PMS, which was also known as hysteria or neuro senia.

Oh, right. Masturbation everyone's favorite thing to do online. That was a disability, what it was a symptom of, of nervous diseases and insanity in 19th and early 20th century. Yeah. So also guess what? Shyness, introversion. That, that was formally described as neuro as well. So I guess they just grouped it with PMS.

Okay. And social neurosis or inadequate personality disorder. Inadequate personality. Inadequate personality in personality disorder. [00:12:00] Shyness. Malcolm Shyness Because being shy in history made you non-compliant with the rest of society. And now it. You can be functional and shy at the same time, given the way our economy and school and everything else is set up.

But yeah, it was absolutely seen as a disorder. Also grief, although I'm kind of with them on this, they called it pathological grief. It was once considered that like any grief landed lasting longer than like a few weeks or months was a disorder. And I, I'm, I'm with them on that. Really? Yeah. But like, yeah, they were like, dude, you're, you're too sad.

Something's wrong with you. Like, get over it.

Malcolm Collins: Smile. I wish we, I wish we could have grief as a, as a disorder. So I That everyone bring it back. Bring it back. We could bring back grief. Yeah.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah. But, and now the, the way that, that disabilities are, are diagnosed is, is also really. Weird and different.

And, and what seems to have been the catalyst for this change was the Americans with Disabilities Act in the United States, at least in the [00:13:00] 1990s. And then the A DA Amendments Act in 2008, which is just an expansion of that which basically expanded the definition to include invisible disabilities like learning disabilities, mental health disorders, chronic conditions so like PTSD.

Or bipolar disorder or anxiety or depression. These things weren't really seen as disorders in the past that would get you special privileges, and now often they are. But I still think that can we

Malcolm Collins: diagnose menstruation as a disability? Like,

Simone Collins (2): I mean yeah, if, if you look even back like further and it's like, well, let's remove you from, you go, go to the menstruation hut.

The

Malcolm Collins: administration, they, they had those by the way, that was like a common thing in, in like,

Simone Collins (2): I mean, and, and some women even today I think wish it were classified as a disability. I mean, you see it like in school. There's the girls who are like, I'm on my period. And I think that means they get to like do nothing.

Yeah. Like girl that I have, but Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. No, I agree. That disabilities change over time, right? Mm-hmm. [00:14:00] Based on social norms.

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Would you disagree? I was wondering now what, what, what sort of correlates with the disabilities today? Because like, you wouldn't say like grief, but then people can be like, well, depression, right?

Like Yeah. You wouldn't say like, it's weird to me actually that a DD is considered a disability today. Yeah. Because it, it seems like such a trivial thing.

Simone Collins (2): But it, I mean, it isn't because. Typically where this shows up, you know, when people are in institutional environments is like both in jobs and in school.

You are supposed to sit down. Sit still and do a job and not switch around a billion times. Like you have to do the job and finish the job and then do the next job and finish the next job. And people with, with a DD or a DHD struggled to do that. Therefore, they're non-compliant with today's society. I mean, here's, here's one way you can look at it.

You had heard someone identif or describe autism as like, most people are just normal cars. They can just drive on normal [00:15:00] roads and autistic people are like NASCAR cars or like really like fine tuned race cars. And like on any normal like environment, they're gonna break down constantly. They do not work on normal roads.

You can not drive them off road, but like on very specific types of tracks, they are amazing. And I, I really feel like that's apt not just with autism. With any sort of mental disorder in general, it's really more a description of the road. Yeah. And I think that in, in some environments, for example, like, okay, so, you know, introversion was seen as a disability for a while, but I think that in some environments.

Introversion is like the most adaptive thing. Like if you're like on a spaceship traveling in a highly isolated environment for years on end, introversions,

Malcolm Collins: that's, that's true of autism in a modern context. So 100% autism that Simone has is very similar to what we were talking about there.

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And she needs very controlled environments to be productive.

But when she is productive, she's much [00:16:00] more productive than other people. Yes. And she can work much longer hours than other people and work straight. Much longer hours. By the way, one of the reasons when people are like, Malcolm, you talk a lot of terrible stuff about a DDI was diagnosed with a D.

That's why I. That's why I, I, I'm like, this is of all of the disabilities that I have, by far the most trivial you know, growing up. Yeah. So I don't, I don't take it seriously. I was, God, I'm trying to think of other things. I was diagnosed with bipolar. That one I don't believe I ever had.

Simone Collins (2): I think that was made up. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But I was diagnosed with it at one point. I, I think that that was because my mom was bipolar. So from a bipolar person's perspective, my mood was constantly varying. But my actual mood wasn't constantly varying. It was hers, it was interest when she reported her subjective experience of my mood Yeah.

To psychotherapists. They thought, oh, it's him because you've lived with me. Do I have fluctuating moods?

Simone Collins (2): No. No. You don't?

Malcolm Collins: No. Okay.

Simone Collins (2): No, I mean, I, I think that like someone who has not encountered you before [00:17:00] might guess that you are manic. Yeah, but like you're, you're only just all, always by their definition,

Malcolm Collins: they're called hypomania, by the way, to be always a little manic.

There is a, sorry, hypomania is slightly below true mania, but there's a form of, I forgot where you're just like, only hypomanic, but who wouldn't want that? That's perfect as fulfillment. Yeah. People wouldn't want that.

Simone Collins (2): This is why people buy cocaine. All right? Like, this is why people get addicted to meth.

No, but I think

Malcolm Collins: that this is why I was diagnosed with a DD, right? Like, I'm very excitable. I'm very like, try to work all the time. And well,

Simone Collins (2): no, but like a DD. You can't focus and like you do, you do con concerted focused work. I mean,

Malcolm Collins: I, I I focus on things that I like, which is what most a, DD people are like.

That's true. Yeah. Your a

Simone Collins (2): DD. Yeah, that's so true. And like, well, so Scott Alexander had talked about this 'cause, you know, he, you know, has, has, has. You know, diagnosed and treated a lot of people with a DD and he helps 'em, you know, they get their, their a DD medications that they want and he, he pointed out, and, and I [00:18:00] can't find the original blog post, but just like, hey, maybe sitting in front of a computer in an office doing work that you personally find meaningless, like, isn't something we were evolved to deal with in the first place.

Like, our definition of this as a disorder is again, a reflection of our society.

Malcolm Collins: A DD was useful to me only in so far as, and, and this is where I do think it is. Useful as a categorization at all. Mm-hmm. In getting rid of it. But that's,

Simone Collins (2): and that's, that is where we get to the not retarded part of dealing with disability is Okay.

A disability is basically okay. The way your, your car doesn't work on these roads and sometimes you need to know that your car doesn't work on these roads. 'cause if you're stuck on these roads, you're gonna need modifications. You have to buy different tires. Just, yeah. And so, yes, it is important to do that, but only so you can drive on those roads long enough to get to a kind of road where you can drive well, like that's the point of this.

This is how you do the non retarded disability approach. And, and this is, this is the way to do it. But first, let's go into the ways to not do it. And I'm gonna [00:19:00] start with self-diagnosis. So can you, 'cause everyone's doing this now, can you guess the accuracy of most like online self diagnoses?

Malcolm Collins: I'm gonna guess.

20 20%

Simone Collins (2): pretty good. It's, it's 19 to 38%. There are some things that it's, you can more accurately diagnose online than others, but it's 19 to 38%. Oh. You know

Malcolm Collins: what you should pull up by the way? Yeah. That and I'll, and I'll talk on this subject while you do, there's a graph of the percentage of young people that identified primarily was a disability.

Oh. And, and they went through different age ranges. Okay. Try to pull that one up and I, and all the self-diagnosis thing. One of the problems with self-diagnosis is when particular diagnoses get trendy. Like everyone just opts into them. Yeah. And the reality is, is that you can, if you lean into it, present whatever you want.

For example, there was a period and this is well studied in, in psychological literature where people became famous, who had Tourettes. Oh, by the way, that's another one that I have. No,

Simone Collins (2): we [00:20:00] we're gonna, oh,

Malcolm Collins: yes, you do have Tourettes. Oh,

Simone Collins (2): oh.

Malcolm Collins: Taco Lantern. I, I, so people, people don't even because I'm, I'm fairly good at controlling it, so only if you were like a, a family member of mine would, you know.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Because again, I don't lean into it. Like why would you lean into something like this? No. The

Simone Collins (2): sweetest way that you do, like you used to say stuff with like Tourettes, that would get you in trouble. Like which is the common version of it, right? Like people saying stuff like I recently saw, someone who knows if they really had it post online of like, them having Tourettes in an airport.

TSA line saying, I have a gun, pew, I have a gun, pew. And like just keeps saying that in the TSA line, like that's classic Tourettes. And you had some things that you used to like say when you were stressed, that would've made people concerned. Yeah, but

Speaker 2: guess

Simone Collins (2): what he says now when he has

Speaker 2: moments, he, he says, I love my wife.

He's. How do you do that? That is like the, the, the, that is the most romantic, wholesome disability I can ever seen. Well, I tried really

Malcolm Collins: hard to redirect the neural pattern because it's a neural pattern that's like [00:21:00] all of a sudden I, I, I describe it as sort of like there are, tire tracks in your head, you know, like tire tracks in your mud that like the more times you drive through it, the car gets pulled into it.

Yeah. And I think that's sort of what's happening with Tourettes is when you, you sort of, are in certain periods of anxiety or lose self-control it's pulled down to specific neural pathways. And if you exercise control over them for long enough, I can sort of force it down a new pathway. It doesn't work every time, but it works enough.

And the, by the way, the thing that causes it for me for people who don't know is it's extended periods of social interaction 100%. And then it happens afterwards. 100% because I, I overprocess what's happening in those moments. And, and I, I did, what's funny here is I even have the, the rare but cartoonish type of Tourettes where you say offensive things, right?

Mm-hmm. Like, but I don't know if it's, if it's regular Tourettes, because it doesn't appear like the, the, the phrases are slightly longer than they would be with normal Tourettes. Sometimes, yeah,

Simone Collins (2): sometimes the, like, there was, there was one sentence series my favorite, if you don't mind me [00:22:00] saying was taco lanterns, sometimes Taco Lanter.

That what I was

Malcolm Collins: trying to redirect to anything that wasn't offensive.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah, that, that came on later and I tried so hard on Etsy to find. A lantern that was a taco because I really wanted a taco lantern so

Malcolm Collins: bad.

But, but it was funny. Here is like, I am coming at this and like a lot of the watchers of our show, they're like, wait, he has dyslexia, dysgraphia, a DD.

He, he at one point was diagnosed with bipolar. He has tourette. So he didn't even think of that as like something to mention. Like, the reason, one of the reasons why we forgot abilities with such disdain is. I will see people build their entire persona around a disability that I considered trivial. Yeah, because I have so many You gotta catch 'em all.

Gotta catch 'em all. Did you find that

Simone Collins (2): chart, by the way? I found a bunch of charts. I don't think they're exactly the ones that you want. I'll send them to you real quick on WhatsApp so you can tell me if I found it. There's a lot that [00:23:00] show rates of both being L-G-B-T-Q and having these disabilities.

So that's maybe what we're thinking about. I found one that's a table that show that 45% of youth, identify as having a disability. But I, I wanted to touch on your Tourette's thing because that's, I think, a really good example of sort of self-diagnosis having a negative effect. But I also first wanna point out that, so first, okay, 19 to 38% of self diagnoses.

Like if, if someone's like, oh, I self-diagnosed with autism, they are, if you flip a coin, I mean, like the, the odds are they're wrong. Okay, the odds are they are incorrect with their diagnosis, but research nevertheless indicates that people who self-diagnose are more likely to report high levels of psychological distress and impairment similar to those with a formal diagnosis.

So even though they're more likely than not to not actually have the condition they think they have, they are still just as [00:24:00] likely as someone with the condition. To experience the adverse effects of that condition. So self-diagnosis can result in, in, in increased anxiety and a sense of, of stuckness or self-fulfilling beliefs even when the diagnosis is not later validated or supported through clin clinical care.

So like, this is just so damaging and. It, it's really important that people understand too, that like just perceiving something can be more damaging than actually having it. And, and there's a, a sleep study example that I like to cite with this 'cause it's so apt. There's research that shows that people who perceive themselves as poor sleepers despite objective evidence from sleep labs where they like can actually tell if you're asleep, like better than your aura ring or your Fitbit or whatever that their sleep is fairly normal.

If they believe they're poor sleepers, they can experience more adverse effects than those who report good sleep, but who actually sleep poorly. Like [00:25:00] in the sleep labs, they're like, damn, like this guy's not sleeping very well at all. But they, they feel fine because they don't see themselves as poor sleepers.

So like identifying as someone who has a condition can be really. Really damaging. I mean, this specific phenomenon is known as as sleep state misperception or paradoxical insomnia. But it's such a thing. It's such a thing. And I found that it totally exists, like during the, the newborn days where like I don't Yeah.

Sleep much at all. Right. If I act like it's normal and like, oh, well you know what, you know, human bodies have evolved to deal with this. Like, because they have, you know, like, we're fine. I don't really experience problems.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I'd also note here as a side here where people could be like, how could somebody have so many comorbid disabilities?

This is actually very, how can someone

Simone Collins (2): be. So retarded,

Malcolm Collins: right? Yeah. No, this is actually very common if you actually have mental disabilities to generally have a collection of them. Because if, if one thing's broken, it's usually there's a cascade and a lot of things are [00:26:00] broken.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And anyone who, but you've got

Speaker 2: brain

Malcolm Collins: wiggles.

It's

Speaker 2: just, that's, look

Malcolm Collins: at the way that I think through things. They can tell that it is very, your brain is wiggly. Lateral or, or sort of orthogonal. Orthogonal, yeah. Orthogonal to the way that a normal. Humans think through things. Mm-hmm. Which is one of the reasons why like the, the core reason I think I perform so well within the intellectual market is because I am both relatively intelligent, though not super intelligent like I've been in environments, you know, I, I got my MBA at Stanford.

I've been around like the actual smartest people on earth, and they're much smarter than I am. But I mean, I still was in like the top quarter of my class, but I, yeah, I don't know

Simone Collins (2): how many words. Smarter than you actually. But

Malcolm Collins: there were some that were smarter than me that I can just tell. There are a lot

Simone Collins (2): who have a lot of like raw intellectual power.

Like they can crunch numbers and do math in their heads and stuff, and, and you don't do that. I, but I mean, the point you're making though is that the mere fact that you have a wiggly brain that you think orthogonally and that, like, of course, in, in the, in the real world, world, in mainstream society, this makes you.

[00:27:00] Non-compliant with like normal test taking in normal school, it still gives you a huge advantage and people who identify with their mental disabilities. Or just choosing to, but how do you, how

Malcolm Collins: do you utilize this to get ahead? Mm-hmm. Is you just, and, and, and, because maybe I grew up with it and I was always in like the most disabled of the disabled group.

I always really, and I never identified that way. I never saw it as particularly important to who I was. Thank goodness. I was like, it, it may give me access to Ritalin, which is what Amphetamines for tests. Who doesn't want that? I know, right. You know. It may give me access to being able to do everything on a computer, but I just saw that as cool.

And it's so weird that, like, as a disability, it's completely disappeared. Like dysgraphia has not been relevant to me as an adult since my first job to address letters. Tin are, I bet

Simone Collins (2): Octavian has it. I'm pretty sure Octavian has.

Malcolm Collins: I, I mean, our kids might not even ever learn that they have it if they don't have to hand write.

I mean, like, I mean, we might have to for like AI tests. [00:28:00] So I guess we'll see how that goes. It's, it's, it's

Simone Collins (2): showing up in, in his work at school. I, I, I look at his work every day, so that's, and I, I also have like, those learn how to write books with him and like, even though there are grooves in the paper, he's like, but I mean, the

Malcolm Collins: point I'm making is, yeah.

Just take inventory of, be aware of, you know, if you are different in some way that can be diagnosed. There are many advantages to that 100%. For example, do you want me to go over

Simone Collins (2): some of them? I think there's, there's actually more than you, you probably know.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Go over.

Simone Collins (2): So yeah, one early diagnosis actually, I just wanna say like, is really important and formal diagnosis and that's what Malcolm got and it, it made a big difference that we're doing that with our kids.

Because studies like a lot of really consistent reaches, research has shown that children, for example, diagnosed with with autism spectrum disorder or other developmental disabilities at a younger age tend to experience less impairment and cognitive, social and adaptive functioning than those diagnosed later in life.

So the sooner the better. One study found the toddlers diagnosed with autism spectrum [00:29:00] disorder between 25 and 41 months were more severely impaired. Across multiple domains and nos diagnosed earlier. So like we're even talking really young, 25 months is pretty young, so like the earlier the better. And then early intervention and support during critical neurodevelopmental windows is linked to better outcomes.

So one, like it actually does make a difference with some things. And in terms of the benefits you get, we're gonna talk about the US because it would be too complicated for us to go country by country for the benefits you get. And also so many countries have like, you know, state me medicine that this doesn't matter the same way.

But in the USA where healthcare is insanely expensive, children with physical, intellectual, or developmental disabilities including serious mental health disorders can can qualify for Medicaid, which is basically. State healthcare, like nationalized healthcare. Mm-hmm. Even if their family income would otherwise exceed typical thresholds, because [00:30:00] typically Medicaid is only for people at or below the poverty level.

So for example two of our sons are diagnosed with autism and our, when we were told that, we were told like, well, this, this means that, you know, if you are formally diagnosed with your kids, they will be given supplementary insurance from the state that will pay for a BA therapy. That that would not be covered by your insurance, which is huge because we can't afford that.

Malcolm Collins: I just learned though, a lot of autistic people are total retards about a BA therapy. And they get all defensive about it and it's like, it's teaching you to mask like Yeah, unfortunately, Simone's autistic, right? Like you would say, you need to know how to mask. You don't get to make the world live. And this is the other thing.

I don't go out in the world and say, you need to live by my rules. Hundred percent. I'm gonna find a way to change myself so that I can work within your systems.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah, right.

Malcolm Collins: You know, yeah. You have

Simone Collins (2): to acknowledge that like, unless [00:31:00] you have the privilege of living a totally isolated life, you are going to need to know how to.

Go to the DMV and get something or possibly navigate a university or or an office. I mean, this is becoming increasingly irrelevant, which is why we're less and less worried about autism as a trait and we actually think it's advantageous 'cause we kind of. You know, techno futile world. People aren't gonna need to all work in a big office and like mask so much.

But, but all is necessary thing.

Malcolm Collins: Push back on here is they're gonna be talking about autism vulnerability. Well, some people with autism are like severely disabled and we're like, we're not talking about them, right? Like,

Speaker 2: no, but

Malcolm Collins: like, people who are actually mentally disabled, first of all, a, a few things here.

I don't think it's particularly worse. To be disabled because of some named disability outside of just being incredibly stupid, which does count you as a disability if you're of a, below a certain IQ level. Mm-hmm. But really that can just be random genetic variation. Right? Yeah. If, if you [00:32:00] lack the intelligence to compete within the system as it exists, you lack the intelligence to compete within the system that exists.

Yeah. And very, there's very little the system can do to get around that.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah. Really sucks. Yeah. There's, yeah, there's not a whole lot. That can be done in that case. I mean it's, it's more about communities and governments finding a place or a way to help those people still live productive and happy and fulfilling lives.

But back to this, this state supplemented healthcare, I learned recently 'cause I thought this only applied to a BA therapy. Yeah. No, we can just use that as supplementary insurance and have it pay for anything. Our, our employer based insurance doesn't cover, which is basically nothing because we have a family level deductible.

This is the amount that you pay out of pocket before your insurance kicks in of $16,000, which we can't afford. So there have been many times where like. We haven't taken our kids to the emergency room because we're like, well, we, we can't afford it. Like, we will never financially recover from [00:33:00] this. And now we can at least take our boys to the emergency room because insurance will cover it.

And it's because they're autistic, even though it hasn't, like, you know, them falling and bleeding profusely has nothing to do with them being like, I mean.

Malcolm Collins: Maybe it does not. I mean, maybe, maybe,

Simone Collins (2): maybe. But that's incredible. So like, I think there, I know actually of many parents who know that their children are autistic, but they haven't got them diagnosed because they're like, well, I don't want my son, no.

They're like, I

Malcolm Collins: can't afford it. It's like, bro, if it, it

Simone Collins (2): gets you

Malcolm Collins: free Medicare. That is one factor. Yeah.

Simone Collins (2): Getting diagnosed can take a really long time 'cause wait lists in the US are very long for diagnosis and it is expensive. It can cost like 500 to

Malcolm Collins: to more. I mean, do you, you remember what I had to do to get them diagnosed?

I booked at like a place in like a really rural area, like two and a half hours away. Yeah. It took us a

Simone Collins (2): long, long time to drive there

Malcolm Collins: and I constantly was looking for new practices. It was a new practice in the middle of nowhere.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah. And it cost a lot of money, so it is difficult. But the bigger reason I hear from [00:34:00] parents who've.

Like signal that they didn't do this was they didn't want their children to grow up with the stigma, like they didn't want,

Malcolm Collins: you know, it's so funny that you measure this, that when it's the exact antithesis of the way that I was raised, I know exactly my parents. Always let me know about all the diagnoses I had, so they, they clearly let me know about all of these. What they did not do is I was I was not allowed when I took state.

IQ test. Mm-hmm. Or state you know, the tests that would like rank you and stuff like that. Yeah. My parents had a strict policy of never letting me see my school. So you were never

Simone Collins (2): allowed

Malcolm Collins: to see how like

Simone Collins (2): successful you were? Only

Malcolm Collins: how,

Simone Collins (2): like

Malcolm Collins: only where I was failing. Yeah. Because they didn't want me to like.

To go to your head, one of those people who like grows up thinking that, I guess, I mean, it wasn't a secret to me. I was put in the gifted program and everything. Literally I was scoring near, there were signs. I wasn't like, they, they should have thought, okay, if he's scoring near the top, he [00:35:00] knows the reason we're hiding this is because he, your mom was onto

Simone Collins (2): something there though, because research has shown that telling kids that they're very smart can lead them to take fewer challenges on because they identify as being smart and any, any chance where maybe they, they don't.

Come out on top or get the answer right is, is a risk to their identity. And that is too scary and threatening for them. So instead, parents are encouraged to say things like, you tried so hard, you worked so hard. Funny

Malcolm Collins: thing that my parents did back then. Yeah. So they'd have me do like testing, right?

Like, like standardized testing. And obviously I do the testing that the other kids would do. Yeah. But I'd also do. College level testing, we need to do that with our kids. So I, I'd go into like college level testing things and I'd be the one little kid in this giant room of like high schoolers. We should totally do that.

And I, I always remember, I, I mean, I didn't do spectacularly on those back then. I remember I'd come in because those, I was a legacy. I'd come in like 80%. Amazing. But I mean, still I instead of, you know, when you're in middle school, that's pretty good. That's very impressive.

Simone Collins (2): [00:36:00] Yeah, 100%. But anyway, so like, don't, don't be retarded about your kids and not get them diagnosed 'cause of stigma because depending on how you contextualize it, there won't be any, it can be an advantage to them and.

You can get and 'cause it's hard to get good healthcare in the United States like that is an amazing benefit. And as long as that exists and, you know, check, it varies by state. But still, another thing you can get is if your child qualifies for that kinda subsidized healthcare. They also qualify for what's called ABLE accounts, which are, they're tax advantaged accounts.

So, if you just in a normal account in the United States invest money, like for your kids, you're gonna be taxed on the income that that money makes. Like the, the dividends able accounts don't tax the dividends, so your kid basically gets more money when you save it for them. Those accounts are supposed to, by the way,

Malcolm Collins: is a statistic that came from a piece called more Workers Consider Themselves Neurodivergent.

Okay? So 53% of Gen Z employees identify as neurodivergent. Of course they do. Only 11, you know, [00:37:00] the only 11% had received an official diagnosis.

Speaker 2: Of course.

Malcolm Collins: Eight 86% of a hundred hiring managers told them that they viewed neurodivergent disclosures as having either a positive or neutral impact on an application.

They're more, I mean, they're basically signaling that they're in the urban monoculture.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah. Yeah. I'm educated. And therefore, and, and like self-aware and therefore I'm a better hire. What's interesting is the person who invented this concept of neurodivergence was only referring basically to Asperger's, and she hates the fact that it has now just been used as this like broad umbrella term.

Like she's does not consent. She hates it. She does not

Malcolm Collins: consent.

Simone Collins (2): Yes. But then also when we've touched on these other benefits that there are, that you can get extra time and extra accommodations on exams as you had the typing thing and you had the extra time. So 100% like you can get in you, you even got to go to different exam rooms.

Like to not, oh, yeah. I,

Malcolm Collins: I got to do private exam rooms that, so, because I needed a computer,

Simone Collins (2): an extra time [00:38:00] because like for me, that was a big stressor. It's like, like Jimmy Overhears mouth breathing and the clock. I'm here in a

Malcolm Collins: private room on amphetamines with additional time with a keyboard

Simone Collins (2): because I also remember my hands cramping, the pencil going dull, like.

I mean, come on. It's like, why wouldn't you wanna give your kid that benefit? There are even things like special, special needs trusts for, for kids with qualifying disabilities, their educational plans. Like our, our, our son who's in kindergarten has all these additional teachers who come give him special attention, you know, so like, we're, we're in these like, large public school classrooms, but, but then he has like his, his minder who gives him extra attention and like, he gets to go off here and, and, oh.

Funny

Malcolm Collins: that you remember this, I just remembered as well. So another disability I had growing up, I had to go to, I had to go to separate classes for speech therapy. Oh, speech therapy. Yeah. I had a, I had a a list, so I had to go to speech therapy when, so I would [00:39:00] go to the I also, for a period was in the disabled.

Speaker 2: You were not,

Malcolm Collins: my mom was so mad 'cause I was, it was the actual retards and retards. And she, she got so mad at me for getting food in my class and I was like, I don't know, like this, this is where I'm, so then I go from there to the, the gifted progress.

Simone Collins (2): Well, and that's so like if she were, if she were a a parent of you today, she would call you two EAKA Twice exceptional.

Oh God. I hate that. I hate that. I know. Hate it. It's so cringe. It's so, yeah. That's okay. We're gonna put that in the retarded category of disability twice exceptional. But I wanna go back actually just to, just the, the, the, the damage you can do by contextualizing. Your disability as a bad thing, because context is important.

So we're like, yes. Get your kid diagnosed. Yes. Get yourself diagnosed. Yes. Get accommodations. Yes, absolutely. Play the system. Don't view it as an actual thing that cripples you. 'cause I can't emphasize enough, like people, and people don't talk about this [00:40:00] enough, the no SIBO effect, just how powerful it is.

So there's, there's a lot of evidence that suggests the no SIBO effect, which is basically like, so the placebo effect is where someone tells you something's gonna help and it, it helps you. Even if it doesn't, it's like whatever, like the pill they give you is totally inert. The no SIBO effect is the opposite.

If they're like, oh, this, this cream is gonna make your skin burn, and it does, even though it's just like water or lotion. Right. So the. Experimental research demonstrates that no SIBO effects. The impact of negative expectations are consistently stronger and more persistent than placebo effects. So healthy volunteers induced with negative expectations.

In one example, rated their pain much higher Over multiple sessions with this amplification lasting at least a week, almost double the impact seen with placebo suggestions. The no SIBO effect is ac. It's actually strong enough to cause real and serious medical conditions and side effects to require hospital care [00:41:00] or even contribute to fatalities.

So people have literally died from the no SIBO effect. Wait,

Malcolm Collins: wait, explain. Explain this.

Simone Collins (2): People, well, because they believe they have these problems, they start to experience real symptoms. We talk about this a lot in our spoony episode.

Spoony being people who self-diagnose with very difficult to diagnose and largely invisible illnesses.

And the argument that we try to make. And your

Malcolm Collins: body will react to that.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah. Yeah. Because a lot of people are like, oh, spoony, they don't actually feel anything. No. They feel something. They're suffering. They have very, very serious problems. Like they are, they're in pain. They cannot move, they cannot get up, like everything that they say they're experiencing.

Because of the nocebo effect they're actually experiencing. And here's the problem is, okay, so let's say you know, you, you self-diagnose your pro with some kind of disability. You probably don't have it. Like 19 to 38% of the self diagnoses are correct. The rest are not. But you are still going to [00:42:00] experience all the problems and, and the problem is that a lot of people just now.

Have had chosen to identify with their disabilities in, in, in a lot of different ways. And you, you pointed out the Tourette's incident. This is for those who are not familiar with it in, in 2020 to 2021. Clinicians and medical researchers noticed a surge in teenagers like, and especially adolescent girls.

Huh? What's going on there? Started presented like presenting these, these onset of tick like behaviors after extensive viewing of TikTok and YouTube influencers who either claim to have Tourette syndrome or display similar symptoms. And all these studies started documenting that many teens develop not only.

Comparable tips ticks. So like, you know how like most people with Tourettes have their own thing? Yeah. But these people all have the same thing. And very specific vocalizations and movements that directly mimicked those of social pop like popular social media influencers, like basically Tourettes influencers.

So very, very rare things and many that weren't even really [00:43:00] symptomatic of Tourettes. Like it. So it was someone faking Tourettes on social media causing other people. To fake the same kind of fake Tourettes, but then I, you know, surely also experiencing true adverse effects for the nocebo effect. So they, they, they describe this phenomenon as mass socio illness being spread, which it used to just be physical proximity, right?

Like those villages who dance themselves to death, right. But now it, it spreads on social media. So it's a much bigger issue. And, and similar patterns have been noticed with other conditions. A lot of people are identifying with A DHD, with autism, with Disassociative identity disorder. And that's really bad.

It's really bad. And there even like renegade versions of people who are very clearly actually disabled. But. And who are trying to like push back against, I guess you could say disability pedestal, who are still getting it wrong. So yeah, I had brought up to you Cripple Punk. And it's much older.

It's not a 2020s thing. [00:44:00] It started by, it was started actually by a specific Tumblr arena called Tyler Trea. Basically the, it started with just one post. Trey. Willa posted a selfie with a cane and a lit cigarette and labeled it cripple punk. And, and just added, I'm starting a movement and a movement was started.

And it's all about direct. Like Cripple Punk is about direct directly abandoning, like the hang in there kitten inspirational poster version of cripple people where like, you know, people post videos of, of adults with Down syndrome and are like, what inspiration, what a blessing. And it's like, I am not your mascot.

I am not your inspiration. And it's, it's this idea that disabled people exist. For themselves. You know, it's about being proud of who they are. But like the problem is that I think as much as cripple punk like kind of moves in a good direction of like, I'm taking ownership. I'm not embarrassed about what I am.

They don't take it a step further and say, and here's my advantage of [00:45:00] being a cripple. Well,

Malcolm Collins: I think, you know, it was a lot of this stuff. It's, it's, it's the way you should actually be. They're like, how did you actually be related to it then? Just don't relate to it. It doesn't matter. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, if you don't see it as a superpower, don't relate to it at all.

Whatever disability you have, right. It is irrelevant usually when contrasted with other genetic traits that you can't identify it with. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, for example, right. You know, suppose you can't use your legs or something like this, would you trade? Five points, 10 points of IQ for your legs back.

Like nobody would, nobody would. At the end of the day, it's just intelligence. Except for maybe somebody who's already very stupid. But at the end of the day, it's all just intelligence, right? Like no matter how much you have sort of. Standing in your way. At the end of the day, it's all intelligence combined with aness, combined with work ethic, combined with an ability to think outside the box.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah, like resourcefulness, I mean really [00:46:00] like having a disability is about being aware of where you deviate from societal norms or like the mainstream way people handle things and learning how to adapt to those environments, like through. You know, special testing or medication or whatever it may be.

And then also learning how to create and benefit from friendly environments like environments in which your unique configuration of car thrives. And that's it. Like don't, don't don't identify with it otherwise, don't get a. Fake internet diagnosis. Get a formal diagnosis if you really need one to get the medications, to get the special accommodations you need.

And only, only use your differences to achieve more, not less. Like this idea of of allowing a disability to give you an external locus of control where you blame everything on your disability is is the worst if you a approach it only with an internal locus of control. Like, okay, how am I gonna use this to my advantage?

Fine. But yeah. I, I think that that basically sums it up. I mean, you and I have adapted to our disabilities [00:47:00] by just creating weird schedules, mostly online lives, social isolation, like we work from home. Yeah. We don't go out much. And we live life according to our unique needs and our kids' unique needs.

So like we don't all sit down together around a table to eat dinner. Everyone eats in the way that like will maximize the amount of nutrition they need to get. Which means that our kids are running wild or like in another room or whatever, like mm-hmm. And they all get their own thing. It's like different food for everyone.

But that's what it takes. And that's not the societal norm. It's super not okay by most people's standards, but like it works for us. So yeah, just build the environment that works for you. And get the tools you need to navigate the hostile environments,

Malcolm Collins: get your space suit.

Yeah, well just, I mean, we used to understand this, there, there is a difference between the you know, disabled person and it's so interesting that this has been sort of taken out of media.

The disabled person who was like [00:48:00] exceptional in spite of their disability, which was definitely a thing in like eighties media and stuff like that.

Simone Collins (2): What, like Stephen

Malcolm Collins: Hawking or something. Well, yeah, we're thinking I think like X-Men or whatever, whatever.

Simone Collins (2): Oh yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. But then there was the disabled person who was just like.

Just figured it out. It was like everyone else. Yeah. Here I'm thinking like we were actually rushing because I didn't even remember that they had a guy in a wheelchair on this the incredible Ghostbusters cartoon. I'm like, oh my God, that's so mid nineties. Whatever happened to people in wheelchairs, in, in shows, and I also just don't see people in

Simone Collins (2): wheelchairs.

But anymore, but like, I remember yeah, growing up as a kid in the nineties, like every show as their diversity thing had someone in a wheelchair.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Who was that? And they always played basketball. Whatever reason, people in wheelchairs. Yes, they did. Loved playing basketball. I know very little about being in a wheelchair, but I know it makes you great at basketball.

Yeah. No, what is that? Oh my God. It's such a thing. I don't, one person saw it and then like all the TV execs are like, where's the [00:49:00] basketball scene? Yeah, he's in a wheelchair. Right. You gotta show him. And he's like, cool. A. No, but the point being is if, if you are, you know, blind back then or whatever, you just figured it the F out, right?

Yeah. Like, and you didn't make it into this big f-ing thing, but now people with these trivial disabilities are making it into this giant thing.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So anyway, you guys have, you know, you have the dirt on us now you got dirt. Maybe some practical advice for those of you dyslexics who watch the show.

Hope you found this useful.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I love you to ask Simone. I, no, and I hope that people stop freaking I, I suppose every time you go out there and you talk about your disability or your hard childhood, know that there's a decent chance that the person you're talking to has that plus like 10 others.

And, and he is secretly thinking, oh my God, this person is such a buffoon. If that was, if that's what they tripped on, you know, rock one of. 30 rocks that flew at my face. Yeah. I'm like, what a [00:50:00] f*****g fool.

Simone Collins (2): I'm disabled. I love you Malcolm.

Speaker 2: Love you too.

Simone Collins: Two recording sessions next week. Okay.

Okay. Let me, oh, you've already recorded. By the way looks amazing and people really enjoyed the episode today. They also love the sliders reference.

Malcolm Collins: The sliders referencing are like, oh, just reference. You remember sliders. Well, today's episode was one of, I think my favorites. I think it's, it's up there in terms of our theories was the one Civilization hypothesis,

Simone Collins (2): at least one other commentator said this was their favorite episode.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So one person said that,

Simone Collins: Yeah, one and a lot of other people said they loved it. I'm just sending you screenshots of comments that I took.

Malcolm Collins: Oh. You know how to lighten my heart. People saying nice things about us.

Simone Collins (2): There's one random accidental screenshot of Binance not letting businesses connect to, but you like the,

Malcolm Collins: the picture of our fab before?

It looks

Simone Collins (2): great. Oh my gosh. I'm so excited about it. [00:51:00] Like you wouldn't even know. I'm so excited about it. It looks good. Did you generate the images too?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I generated the images. I, I, I got them in the backend asset folder. I connected them, I did all the, all the coding. Look at you vibe coding is awesome.

And we're gonna add that to our Patreon paid stuff for anybody who wants to learn about how to do like vibe coding and other things like that. 'cause I find it's, it's weird how you know, inaccessible, a lot of this information is when it's so important to surviving in the modern world. But like, I, I don't know how to code and I just picked it up and I can do it now.

I can code.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah. That's so cool. That's

Malcolm Collins: insane.

Simone Collins (2): Well, and it's not just, see, I thought it would just sort of do it all for you without you knowing really what's going on in the background. But what you're actually doing is it's helping you learn the actual underpinnings of it, which is so cool. Yeah. Yeah.

That you're doing more stuff manually now than I expected it all. It's, it's really awesome. Yeah. Just so FYI, for those listening, we have paid only. Patreon, VIP Substack. Also, if you're paid on Substack, you get these [00:52:00] episodes, two on the weekends. We're trying to keep that up, which may be tough given our schedules going forward.

But we're gonna, so far, we've, we've kept an unbroken streak. We're gonna try to keep going, so if you want more, you can get more, just tough to pay for it. Okay. Here I go.

Okay.

So instead of showing you guys a picture of our kids today, I'm gonna show you a picture of one of my old honeymoons with Simone. 'cause they showed up in Google Photos, memories. But it also shows just how the weird living with somebody who has like autism like her can be, which you'll notice that she's doing in this, is she is.

, Observing the exact category of food she's about to eat. Then she is looking up that food in, , her apps. Then she is putting that food on a portable scale she brought with her so that she can calculate all of her [00:53:00] numbers.

Speaker 7: Sova. It's a pavlova. All right.

How to do this? I think I'm just gonna grab it.

Speaker 9: Oh, my thought. This is gonna be more difficult than I thought.

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