I've been learning about autism by reading and watching videos. In these posts I jot down quotes that I find validating, interesting, infuriating, confusing, etc. And then I sometimes blab on and on about things.
If I jot down a quote and am completely silent about it, this means I simply agree with what it says and have nothing more to add to the brilliance.
1. From Yo Samdy Sam's Video High or Low Functioning Autism: Why Functioning Labels Hurt Us
Now you may have noticed how in this whole discussion, nobody's ever talked about the medium-functioning autistics. which by the way is honestly where I think most of us actually kind of lie. It's either high or low. You're fine or you're tragic.
I love that.
And yeah. I think I would lie in the medium.
I can talk, dress myself, use the toilet, brush my teeth, vacuum, etc.
But I'm not at all successful career-wise. I mean in terms of a ladder of success. I'm on the lowest step and have been there for decades.
I can't drive.
I struggle with mental health...a little touch of depression, a moderate amount of anxiety, and some OCD issues that are getting kind of worse and worse.
I struggle with friendship issues and family relationships.
I wonder...when it comes to neurotypicals, are most of them high-functioning or medium functioning?
I kind of doubt that anyone in the world is truly high-functioning. We all have struggles.
2. From What Autistic Pride Means to Me by KaylaSmith22
What autistic pride means to me is acceptance. I want acceptance in the world as well as society to treat autistic people– including me— with respect. I want non-disabled people to see autism in a positive, affirming way instead of as a flaw or as being broken or diseased.
Who is not broken in some way or diseased?
I really want to find this person.
Who are the not-disabled?
I do definitely share the wish that people will see autism in a positive-affirming way. But the people who don't see it that way? The ones who are annoying and hurtful towards autistic people? I'm sure they have disabilities, diseases, disorders of their own.
I really think we need to stop seeing it as disabled vs abled and instead about everyone needing to have compassion, acceptance, knowledge, and understanding about what other people are struggling with.
I also think that often what's really meant by disabled vs abled is diagnosed vs undiagnosed.
I feel if we're going to be throwing around the word ableism, we should also start throwing around the word diagnosism.
With autism, there fortunately is an attempt at respecting and accepting self-diagnosis. But with other things...
Before we look at someone and think of them as a mean-intolerant-abled person, let's ask ourselves...do we know for sure that they don't have a diagnosis of their own? OR do they have an issue that has not yet been diagnosed?
More ramblings (or rantings).....
I've seen the autistic community say that autism is a disability not because being autistic itself is a disability but because our society is not made for autistic people. This is the social model of disability.
Okay. That's fine. But society is also not made for people with asthma, diabetes, nearsightedness, farsightedness, food allergies, sun sensitivity, a tendency towards tooth decay, high cholesterol, a slow metabolism, bridge phobias, etc.
3. From: Why I Choose Autistic Pride by Prismatic
It is interesting that pride is often thought of as something negative. Growing up I knew pride as the thing that comes before the fall or the deadliest of sins. And much of the arguments I hear against pride celebrations, regardless of the community, is that it is a chance for people to flaunt the aspects of themselves society has chosen to see as not good enough.
4. From Collective Delusion to Creative Collaboration by Jorn Bettin
Revolutions can be understood as phase shifts that occur when the level of cognitive dissonance that a population experiences between daily life and the fictions that are perpetuated by rulers and elites can no longer be maintained. In a revolution a large part of the population openly dismisses established institutions as dysfunctional and establishes new institutions based on ideas that often have been “fermenting” within the population for decades.
I think often we're unaware of ideas fermenting in the background, and it can feel like a huge shock when those ideas are no longer in the background. It can feel like the ideas came out of nowhere, that it's a fad, that it requires too much change, etc.
Society changes. What was once seen as sick, tragic, or creepy becomes okay and even cool. If our viewpoint matches better with past opinions than present, we can feel very out of synch. But before we feel too much pity for those who feel out of synch, let us think about all those who spent decades being seen as sick, tragic, and creepy by the majority.
Okay. Changing subjects here. I think? Something just came to me. I'm going to say something that will/would likely make the autistic pride brigade hate me. But...oh well. (This might be one of those times where it's nice that my blog is not popular or successful. Less chance to be found and get hate comments)
It's seen as ignorant and offensive to say, Well, everyone is a little autistic or We're all on the spectrum somewhere! I think I said these things in the past a few times, mistakingly thinking it was THE spectrum, including everyone and not just the spectrum for autistic people.
But lately I've been educated, learning it was wrong to think this or to say this, that it minimized and invalidated the autistic experience.
The thing is, I've been awfully confused. I look at my family and am really lost on where to draw the line between who is autistic, who is not autistic but neurodivergent in another way, and who is neurotypical.
Out of the adults in our DFW family, I think I'm the most obviously autistic. But the others have some autistic traits as well. And yes as Yo Samdy Sam says in this video, autistic traits are human traits. The traits that we have aren't extraterrestrial or amphibian. And they're also not traits that are specific to autistic people. But.....
I just really struggle to figure out where the line is drawn.
To me, it makes more sense to have an autism spectrum that DOES include everyone. One one side, we'd have super super autistic and on the other end would be super super neurotypical. And as the autistic pride people say, it's not linear. Or whatever. I forgot how they say it. But for those of us who are not overly extremely, extremely autistic or overly extremely, extremely neurotypical, we might fall into multiple places on the spectrum. So for me...I'm probably quite red when it comes to special interests. But with communication I'm probably more in the blue. With sensory issues, I'm probably yellowish-orange. With social issues, I'm probably orange.
Or if neurotypical is the red color...switch all that around.
Anyway....
I feel if our society is coming to a place where we can accept a nonbinary viewpoint of gender, I feel we can also maybe be okay doing this with autistic and neurotypical as well.
This wouldn't have to mean losing the autistic label, autistic pride, the autistic community, autistic advocacy. People further along on the spectrum are likely going to have more interest in claiming the label and being involved in the community.
I also believe that sexuality is a spectrum. There are people who are very heterosexual and would never be attracted to someone of the same gender. There are people who are very homosexual and would never be attracted to the opposite gender. I think a lot of people are in-between. If heterosexual is in the red of the spectrum, I'm probably yellow-green. But I don't consider myself part of the LGBTQ+ community. I think of myself as more of an ally. My sexual/romantic preference doesn't play a big part in my identity.
In the same way, there might be someone who is yellow-green on my imagined autism spectrum, and it's just not a big deal to them. They don't need extra support. They're really not interested in joining the autistic community. But if they did want to join, I'd think that's perfectly wonderful as well.
 |
| LGTBQ+Pride AND the autism spectrum coming out of my foot when I was staying with my parents during the Texas Freeze Disaster |
