Autism

As an adult with both autism and ADHD, I partially disagree. Sometimes I really did need beating around the head with a proper, coherent structure.

I've slowly learnt to do this myself, but it took a long time to learn.

What is critical is getting a say in the structure. It's also worth noting that what is critical can be very different to someone with autism. E.g. to an NT, wearing pants, to leave the house is critical. To an autistic person, the colour of them can feel even more important (or completely irrelevant, depending on the aspie). Both must be included in that structure planning.

One of my father's ex-GF wanted to force structure upon me after she heard I was autistic, also she stopped touching and hugging me.

My stepfather was just a scumbag, who thought computers made men gay or something, until he realized he could use the computer to browse the web for cars and racing content.

I’m not autistic. Can I please choose the structure that defines my life?

That would be great.

School really fucked me over for this reason, I almost certainly got some trauma from it but it's a depressing story

i wish i knew what kind of structure i need

My boss is a little upset that I won't accept his structure this summer--four 10-hour days. I chose to use some vacation time instead. That's my structure.

Autistic People need to choose their structure

I mean, broadly speaking, that's not how structure works. You can, at best, get the illusion of choice between Structure Coke and Structure Pepsi. But the point of a structured system is that it remains uniform enough for easy access and integration. If it's got a thousand little exceptions and carve-outs, it's not a structured system at all.

"I should get to choose how I live" works right up until your lifestyle bumps up against someone else's. And then you need to find common ground or compromise.

The problem autistic people face is the overwhelming structural bias that works against them. They're largely excluded from the planning of physical and social systems that they need to take part in as a predicate for survival. But "I should just be allowed to opt-out" isn't a real solution when it means demanding everyone you interface with opt-in to your bespoke set of rules.

This ends in segregation, not social choice.

Large pools of activists and advocates working together to fashion a society that is broadly accommodating to the population as a whole is the path forward. Individualism and atomization is just a social divide-and-conquer strategy that pits special interest groups against one another for common pools of resources.

In an ideal world I would like to choose the structure, but in reality some forced structure in which I can do my own thing works best for me. School didn't work, I couldn't do my own thing, but with work I could have my own routines within the strict structure of the company. Not having to think about the structure but just following it, although sometimes it restricts me and isn't fun, is so much easier than creating the structure myself while at the same time also function properly.