autistic narrative, autistic reality and autistic lives matters

Tags

#autisticlivesmatter, #boycottautismspeaks, the autistic experience

#autisticlivesmatter #boycottautismspeaks

My Wife wrote:

Knowing that I would have all the “benefits” (can’t think of any right now), without the downsides (which there are a lot, even for us high-functioning ones), makes me sometimes wish there was a cure.
I suppose I shouldn’t say “I don’t want a cure”, I should say I don’t want people to treat us as disease or diseased and thus lesser, worthless creatures, not even people. I don’t want people to ignore us because we could have been “better”, had we been “normal”. I don’t want to be reduced to just the downside of Autism.
I want people to focus on finding ways of making our lives and co-existence with NNs easier, and not on finding out AS already during pregnancy so that it can be aborted. I don’t want people to think only of the worst cases when they think about Autism. I don’t like knowing people see me as walking disease and not as a person who might have something to offer, just as every other human being.

I don’t want people to think my brain is damaged, because it isn’t. My brain is developed and fully functioning. It just doesn’t function the way NN brains function. I mean, there are no dead areas or damaged nerves or cells or anything, it’s just different. It’s not even that there is less brain; we have more of some parts and less of some other parts… It’s just that the human society is created for people with “normal” brain.

So… how much of the suffering Autistic people experience is due to the NN/NT stupidity and cruelty, and how much is because of Autism itself?
It isn’t my sensitivity that causes me suffering, it’s that the society doesn’t allow me to adjust my environment to my needs. (Or refuses to adjust the environment to the needs of those who cannot do it for themselves.)
It isn’t that I get meltdowns that cause me suffering, it’s the NN expectations that cause the meltdowns. If I was allowed to take the world at my own pace and manner, there wouldn’t be meltdowns.
If I was accepted as I am, appreciated for what is good in me, and not being harassed, punished and abused for what I can’t do or be, the suffering would be much less.

it is autism awareness month.

my world is lit up in all kinds of colors, blue (a violent, abusive color for autistics), red (have not figured out why that is an autistic color) and gold (though i am not sure if i may use that color to light up my world) – and with it my world is filled of stories of abuse, violence, hatred, ignorance, indifference and above all – neurotypical using their privilege to try and silence autistics.

“but then block/unlike the content that spew this” i hear my more rational self say. sure. but those people and those pages are my tribe, the people who are on my side – and those stories are their stories – the stories of my tribe. stories that are also my story.

i am in pain.

i am in pain

for my own story, for the stories of countless autistics throughout autistic history. stories of abused and murdered autistics, stories of neglected and tortured autistics, stories of  incarcerated and restrained autistics.

for the stories of my tribe

(google “murdered autistics”)

i hurt

because there is an entire world out there wanting to abuse and kill me for simply asking that the world accept me on my terms.

because there is an entire world out there wanting to abuse and kill me for simply existing.

 because it should be autism acceptance month – acceptance means the world is not aware of autistic me, but is including autistic me treating autistic me like a person, like a human being with all the rights and privileges of any other human being – but it is not autism acceptance month.

because the neurotypical world is still dictating autistic narrative, autistic reality and autistic lives.

 

Advertisement