Autism and You: Things I Want Nypicals to Know
In this wordpress wednesday - things I want normal people to know about autism.
Autism and Me, Part Four: Things Could be Better
We just need a few more tiny fixes for a better world.
Autism and Me, Part Three: Things Are Better Now
Things have improved for my fellow (and younger) Autistes. Sadly, I missed out on a lot of it. I’m not mad about it. Just… kind of jealous.
Autism and Me, Part Two: Coping Strategies Good, Bad, and Atrocious
How do you cope with a literal school full of abusers? Could you cope? I did, and my methods weren’t… exactly… great.
Being the one weirdo in school isn’t all romcoms and makeovers, but it did come with a great 80′s soundtrack. One I can’t really listen to without nasty flashbacks…
Autism and Me, Part One: Public School Attitude
Part one of me going off about my mental disorder and my experiences with it in the late 20th Century.
There’s three more weeks of this, folks. I got a lot to get off my chest.
I find it baffling when non-autistic people continue to oppose autistic self diagnosis even *after* learning that (1) autistic-led organizations explicitly give resources to aid self diagnosis and (2) that an on-record autism diagnosis means you are overwhelmingly prevented from adopting, you can’t immigrate to places like Canada, and you are likely to lose custody of your kids if your custody is ever challenged.
Like? It’s baffling that there are neurotypicals who hate autistic people so much that they’d rather we lose our kids than let us say we’re autistic without having a clinical diagnosis.
i would like to add that for autistic trans people, a professional autism diagnosis legally prevents you from transitioning in many places, and in many others it means you must have PARENTAL OR SPOUSAL CONSENT for transition-related care or procedures. i would LOVE people to take my autism seriously but a diagnosis would actually kill me because i would no longer be able to access hormones or trans healthcare.
(via volcanicsands)
Tropes I Despise: The Miraculous Minority
It’s the minority who ticks many checkboxes and saves the day!
What they are not, alas, is the Straight White Abled Mainstreamer who’s the actual or subtextual Hero of the piece.
(cont) And it is so TIRING. It’s not really that hard to grasp, is it? That we’re people and should be granted the basic respect everyone deserves? That perhaps instead of listening to Autism Warrior Mums, you should listen to AUTISTIC PEOPLE when trying to determine their wants and needs? That we shouldn’t be ‘cured’, and there shouldn’t be foetal screenings to ensure that people like us aren’t born in the first place? I just… it’s not that hard, right?
I can honestly say I have the good fortune of not encountering that much horseshit. My peeve is the Anti-vax mothers who swear that autism is a fate worse than literal death.
[I’m sure we’ve all seen the one about the kid who caught the first case of tetanus in Ohio because they didn’t ‘need’ a vaccine 9_9]
There’s people alive today who have no idea that tetanus is a thing. There’s people who don’t recognise that some “harmless kids’ diseases” are only harmless because vaccines exist. I lived through the era when people would pray for your kid if they caught measles.
Yeah. You can’t ever convince me that vaccines are more dangerous than Autism. One: I predate the MMR vaccine that started all the fuss. Still have Autism. Two: I remember the days when some of these diseases were deadly. Three: The leading cause of death in autistic kids is… (drumroll) Their fucking parents.
So yeah. Enough of the Burden Porn that centres around the entire autistic demographic.
Have you heard about “puppetgate”? There is an actual play that contains a non-verbal autistic character who is portrayed by an actual freaking puppet. The illogic behind this choice is bending over backwards to degrees unseen outside of a pretzel factory.
There is a sharp divide between autistic people who fucking HATE this bullshit, and the nypical, can’t-get-enough-burden-porn theatre reviewers who think this is the best thing since sliced eggs.
I’m willing to bet money that if these peeps could abort an autistic kid, they would, simply because of all the Burden Porn out there.
We need to end Burden Porn.
If I could sponsor a Hallmark Type movie showing parents how to interact with their autistic kids, I would. Intensive Interaction etc, etc. Show all these Burden Porn arseholes that there are other ways to view autism.
Even if I could write scripts, I wouldn’t have the wherewithal to get it out there. Alas.
What say all of us Autistics gather together and make our own anti-burden porn production?
Yeah, I heard about Puppetgate. I’m just glad my immediate family isn’t on the side of the allistic burden-porn lovers.
The discussion that lead to my Asks was one that was initially about antivaxxers, but when I pointed out that one of the other negative effects of the antivax movement has been the increase in woo ‘cures’ for autism, some people (allistics all, obvs) took offence to the idea that autism shouldn’t be cured, and over the course of the discussion where I held that ‘curing’ us would be as good as killing us, I was condescended to in many ways, including being asked to ‘think of it from the parent’s point of view’ about ‘how much of a burden an autistic child is‘ and getting told that I wasn’t representative because I was ‘high-functioning’ (read: easier for allistics to deal with). Needless to say, I got a little incensed.
Said discussion is actually still going on in that thread, but I’ve been trying to avoid it for the last few days in order to avoid infraction points, because apparently getting heated while arguing for your right to exist can bring the mods down on you.
An autistic child is not a burden if you don’t treat them like one.
Jeez.
If allistic parents would stop buying into Burden Porn and start working on interacting with their firkin kid, the wouldn’t be having any trouble in the first place. It’s not like it’s hard to try and relate to your children. Or, at the barest of bare minimums, attempt to appreciate what they appreciate.
[Foaming rant about Intensive Interaction redacted. Been there, done that, thrown an epic wobbler about it]
But no. They gotta be all “fairies Autism stole my baby.”
Too many ppl consider the parent’s point of view. Nobody’s asked the autistic folk about their point of view.
(grr)
not-so-friendly reminder to unfollow me if:
- u think autism is a disease or illness
- u think autism needs to be “cured”
- u support Autism Speaks or organizations like it
- u “feel bad” for ppl with autism and their families
- u think autistic children are a burden to their parents/guardians
- u don’t believe in getting children vaccinated because vaccines “cause autism”
allistic people reblogging this makes me happy
• You use autistic as an insult
(Source: adhdmikey-archive, via cyberneticspacerock)