as small as a world and as large as alone, Tell us about the House episode!!

12:45am October 13, 2013

Anonymous asked: Tell us about the House episode!!

madeofpatterns:

allies-person:

madeofpatterns:

allies-person:

madeofpatterns:

queerhalfhobbit:

Ugh okay so

there was an episode of House where his patient was an autistic kid, I think?

or maybe one of the kid’s parents

anyway

there was this whole thing about how House displayed a number of autistic attributes, right?

and like his team was discussing it- fucking behind his back, they were talking about it

and at the end, there’s this fucking exchange

someone (I think Cameron) says, “House isn’t autistic.”

like it’s that simple

like she would know

like House would be different if he was and that would be immediately identifiable

and then fucking Wilson I think says, “No, but he wishes he was.”

because that would explain away a lot of his flaws, was the idea

because he could use it as an excuse

that fucking episode

that fucking episode was a big part of the reason I was convinced I couldn’t be autistic for so long

part of the reason I was terrified to self-diagnose

because that episode told me that A) if I was autistic it would be easy to tell, I would be different in some obvious way and B) that people who display a lot of autistic traits but don’t have a diagnosis are just looking to excuse their behavior

it fucked me up

it prevented me from learning how to take care of my own mental and emotional wellbeing

and I mean it wasn’t the only thing, there were other factors

but that fucking episode had such an impact on my perception of self-diagnosis that just thinking about it makes me want to cry

Also the kid was dying and House cured him and he said the parents weren’t that happy because the kid was autistic and he considered that normal and understandable.

That episode was horrible. Actually, I think House in general was horrible about disability. I could rant for hours about the one with a Deaf teenager who receives a cochlear implant against his will. (!!!) And there were a lot of episodes where the “twist” was that a character thought to be permanently disabled wasn’t actually so. And then they could go back to being normal, hooray, because apparently that is the only way for an unambiguously happy ending.

So, yeah, for a series whose main character was disabled, that show did a really shitty job with disability issues.

Yes and also how a major part of House’s backstory is that he aggressively refused to allow his doctors to prioritize saving his life over saving his leg.

Right. It’s not altogether unrealistic, since internalized ableism is a big deal, but that never made much sense to me. If given a choice between amputating a leg and being in constant pain and misery, to the point of developing a painkiller addiction, I think it’s pretty clear that amputation is the better option.

Plus, with House initially we were led to believe that he was an asshole before becoming disabled, but that changed in later seasons to “poor woobie is an asshole because he’s disabled.” Argh, no.

And also the way they show pain management is really fucked up — it’s possible, and common, to control chronic pain with opiates without being an asshole or an addict as a result.