what allistics think good “treatment” for autism is: stopping all behaviors that allistics deem problematic or abnormal, acting like a neurotypical robot, complete suppression of symptoms

what good treatment for autism actually is: receiving social supports, help with comorbid disorders (depression anxiety etc), accommodations and accessibility, accepting ourselves, being accepted by others for the way that we are, not being forced to stifle symptoms or act neurotypical

hey the “it’s ok this person is doing [weird but harmless behavior] bc they’re autistic” attitude isn’t actually helpful. The behavior itself needs to be destigmatized regardless of who’s doing it.

I’m autistic, and:

There’s an easy solution: destigmatize weird but harmless behavior, period. People who speak, act, walk, or otherwise behave in a way you find unusual are still people (whose diagnoses are none of your business btw), and we deserve to exist in the world without you judging or punishing us. Choose your battles wisely, because I see a lot of you attacking people who are already walking wounded.

TLDR stop being a judgemental asshole and the world will be a slightly nicer place. mind your own business and let people be weird.

ko-fi

I just think it’s funny how neurotypicals have the audacity to say that autistic people are dramatic and sensitive, when we have to pretend every day to be neurotypical just so we won’t be harrassed for being different and will be treated with a modicum of respect. they lash out at anything new or different and bully anyone into conformity, and yet we’re the intolerant ones. make it make sense

Allistics (non-autistic people) please read!

I’ve seen plenty of posts about it being important for allistics to not infantilise autistic people, and I agree.

But you know what I haven’t seen addressed and really want to make clear?

Allistics are not allowed to judge which behaviours are infantilising when it comes to autistic people receiving support.

What neurotypicals might perceive as “infantilising” to them, might just be what allows an autistic person to function. I have had this happened to me a few times, but the most notable occasion was about a month ago.

I was not functioning well with living alone and had fallen behind on many important phone calls, was not eating regularly, and was overall in a very bad mental state.

For the first time, I actually opened up to my mother about how much I struggle with these things, and it was a very big moment for me. She was not the most accepting when I was first diagnosed with ASD, but she has come far since then (still some way to go though).

She was facetiming me one day and was helping me write a list of things I had to do and was laying things out in minute detail.

‘Have you eaten today?’ ‘No.’ ‘Okay, you need to go to the fridge, then get some food, make a sandwich and sit down to eat it.’ I wrote all of this down on my whiteboard. ‘Then you need to set an alarm on your phone for 1pm everyday-’ she waited for me to open the app ‘-then you need to label it “eat lunch”.’

And this was the most support I had ever received in my life for my autism and I was so happy, literally thrilled. Happy flapping galore. Suddenly things made more sense, I felt more hopeful that with this kind of support I would be able to function a bit better.

But my younger sister (who really is wonderful, I don’t want this one experience to make her out to be horrible, she really is amazing) was in the room with my mum and she said:

‘Ma, don’t baby him, it’s offensive.’

And I cannot tell you how heavy my heart felt in that moment.

Something which, for me, was exactly what I needed to feel functional and to feel like an adult for once, was seen as babying by someone else, someone very important to me.

And I shakily explained over the phone that actually this was exactly what I needed, thank you for having my back but I don’t find this offensive I find it helpful. She apologised and she sounded mortified by her mistake, I felt bad for her honestly.

But since then I haven’t been able to bring myself to ask my mum for this kind of help again because it was seen as infantilising.

I try not to let people’s opinions get to me but, as I’m sure most people can agree, that’s fucking difficult. Especially when you’ve constantly been judged, mocked, and discredited by neurotypicals your whole life.

So yeah, don’t infantilise autistic people. Don’t call them an uwu precious littol bean. Don’t shrug off their ideas and emotions as unimportant. Definitely don’t feel sympathy for us for being autistic.

But if you see an autistic person being helped by someone they are close to such as a friend, family member, or carer, don’t call it out as being “infantilising”. Because in a lot of cases it’s not. It’s helping. You have no authority in labelling our support.

Neurotypicals please reblog but don’t add anything

Other neurodivergent people can add to this!

person: you can't be autistic. i would know. you're just a little awkward ahaha

me: oh, that's fantastic news! i guess i just imagined all my symptoms.

them: uh...

me: i mean seriously, i didn't know you were an expert. where'd you get your degree?

them: i--

me: tell me, where'd you study my disorder?

them: well, i--

me: oh, you didn't? then i guess you don't really know what you're talking about. so stfu (:

I think everyone should make the effort to encounter and understand the autistic perspective on the world

both because we need to be understood, and because the assumption that the experiences and feelings of life are identical copies that every person can slot into themselves interchangeably is wrong

What I’m getting at is, we know that perception and the senses are a bunch of completely obscure bullshit oozing from the depths of the brain and we still mostly have no idea how an injury gets turned into the perception of pain. It’s slippery and opaque.

And yet, our world is so firmly built on the presumption that the amount of discomfort an experience causes is concrete and consistent between people.

On some level we KNOW experiences affect people differently. But...we scarcely question whether it really makes sense, or is humane, to expect people by default to all go through the same experiences with the same amount of support and reassurance and come out with the same (lack of) lasting psychological damage.

Our world assumes that whatever a majority of people can survive or endure without lasting harm can be labeled an objectively Not Harmful thing, and people in the minority are encouraged to silence their distress and hurt, even labeled as abnormal or wrong because of the distress and hurt, simply because it does not conform to the majority.

It is assumed to be a difference in behavior or cognition. No one thinks about the possibility of a difference in the experience itself, a difference in what is felt which originates from a difference in the brain that produces those feelings.

If you have to bring mental illness down to bring up physical disability, you are not an anti-ableism activist. 

If you have to bring physical disability down to bring up mental illness, you are not an anti-ableism activist.

If you have to bring one mental illness down to bring up another mental illness, you are not an anti-ableism activist.

If you have to bring one form of disability down to bring up another form of disability, you are not an anti-ableism activist.

If your way of bringing awareness to mental illness is to say, “Disabled people don’t know what it’s like to have real problems. They have is so easy!” you are not an anti-ableism activist. 

If your way of bringing awareness to disability is to say, “Mentally ill people don’t know what it’s like to have real problems. They have is so easy!” you are not an anti-ableism activist.

If you have to say, “People with x mental illness are so lucky. Everyone understands their illness and treats them with respect. They don’t know how hard ableism really is. They have it so easy!” in order to explain how y mental illness has it super hard, you are not an anti-ableism activist.

If you have to say, “People with x disability are so lucky. Everyone understands their disability and treats them with respect. They don’t know how hard ableism really is. They have it so easy!” in order to explain how y disability has it super hard, you are not an anti-ableism activist.

If you are only willing to fight for disabled people and/or mentally ill people who are white, cisgender, straight, perisex, thin, middle/upper class, etc., you are not an anti-ableism activist.

If you don’t listen to mentally ill and disabled people when they call out your ableism, you are not an anti-ableism activist.

Do not fight ableism with more ableism. That won’t solve anything. We all have to work together, no matter what conditions we might have, to combat the problem. Stop tearing each other down and start supporting and helping each other.

If you can’t do that, you are not an anti-ableism activist. 

autism problem #1264

Having to inform literal adults that it’s not cool or funny to use autistic to mean stupid.

non-autistic authors write autistic characters all the time. they just don’t realize it. they’d rather not admit it most of the time, either.

the thing is, non-autistic people have met autistic people more than enough times. however, due to their stereotypes about autism, they often can’t identify it as autism. they see something is up, but they can’t put their finger on just what is up.

so they see people like us and they know the ‘archetype’ which is autistic people. they write us all the time: airheaded professors, awkward nerds, pent up geniuses, etc.

when autistic people point out how strikingly obvious it is that this character is autistic, they usually deny it, or at best, they say the character is ‘if anything, extremely high functioning’, which is more of a kick in the gut than a confirmation. we hardly get those, either.

so, here’s the thing: there are some characters that are very obviously autistic to actual autistic people. pearl from steven universe and papyrus from undertale are two of the most agreed upon examples that i’ve seen. nearly ever autistic fan of steven universe i met says, “yeah, she’s autistic”, and the same goes for papyrus. 

when we, as a community, bring this up, however, we are shot down. “oh, he’s not autistic.” i once was told that - ironic as it was - my headcanoning papyrus as autistic offended autistic people or hurt autistic people. but i’m autistic and they weren’t. 

two autistic people were both agreeing - damn, this character is blatantly autistic - but non-autistic people felt the need to but in and say how horrible it was to “project” onto characters with such a horrible thing.

listen, if you aren’t autistic and you’re reading this -

if an autistic person says a character is autistic, can you just shut up about it?

because if you’ve watched any amount of tv, read any amount of books, whatever - if you’ve consumed stories, there are tons of autistic characters in them.

just because neither you nor the media’s creators knows shit about autism doesn’t mean that the character can’t be autistic.

either way, it’s none of your business.

we have little to none confirmed representation that isn’t terrible and inconsiderately offensively written. 

find something better to do with your time.

NT Author: *Writes lovingly nuanced character who is quirky, shy, physically sensitive, socially awkward, clumsy, brilliant at a few special topics and has the capacity to grow and learn friendship and love in a nontraditional way*

NT Author: They can’t possibly be autistic!

NT Author: I’m gonna write an autistic character!

NT Author: “Doesn’t talk, rocks back and forth, loves trains”

Gonna say this as an author:

It is 100% okay to use the phrase “well, they are now.”

If a ton of people approach you with a character you didn’t realize you coded autistic, and they’re like “fuck yeah, autistic character!”

You can 100% say “I didn’t even realize that’s what I was doing, but you know what? Sure. With the number of people who see it, I’m not gonna say no. They’re autistic now.”

Nobody worth having around is going to be offended by that.

I just told someone I’m on a mental break at the moment, and their reply was  “from what?” and honestly, take your pick at this point. 

“Ma'am I don’t know if you’ve noticed literally anything happening lately but there’s a lot of it and I’m done. You’re on shift now, you go worry about all of it now.”

Me to my disassociation. 

Honestly the one thing that I truly treasure, despite it all, that this freaking year has done to all of us is that so many of my neurotypical friends are like “oh. Okay, yep, I get it now,” and have become more open to me saying things like “i just don’t have emotional space for that right now.”

It sucks how it happened and if i could do away with this year i would do it in a moment but since it has happened, I’m gonna be grateful that some of the people I know are learning to be more gentle with each other. Like… if we’re gonna be here, I might as well appreciate the parts that are not entirely terrible, I guess?

✨ Self-Care Note To Autistic People ✨

☀️ Don’t be afraid to say “no” to things that will give you sensory overload ☀️

☀️ Don’t compare yourself to neurotypicals ☀️

☀️ It’s not your fault if you couldn’t do something due to executive dysfunction ☀️

☀️ “I don’t have the spoons” is a valid reason not to do something ☀️

☀️ It is not always your duty to educate neurotypicals ☀️

☀️ It’s okay to take a break ☀️

☀️ Saying “I don’t understand” is mature and honest, not childish ☀️

☀️Don’t take ableist comments into consideration - you know they’re not true ☀️

☀️ Mental health is as important as physical health ☀️

☀️ Wanting to be around only other Autistic people for a while isn’t reverse ableist ☀️

☀️ Actually, “reverse ableism” isn’t a thing ☀️

☀️ “Low-functioning” and “high-functioning” labels were made by and for neurotypicals and hold zero accuracy ☀️

☀️ Misspelling =/= stupidity ☀️

☀️ There is nothing shameful about being Autistic or talking about Autistic issues ☀️

Autistic people, feel free to add on ✨

✨ Both neurotypical/Allistic and Autistic people are encouraged to reblog ✨

Sometimes I get real annoyed at the way adults treat delayed speech, like YES it takes some of us longer to download a fucking language, that doesn’t make us subhuman you dumb brenda

Oh I have a trick for this I just try to predict every possible way a conversation might go and have prepared answers for every path it may take in order of probability, and I also have generic non-comitting responses to gain time when needed. Also I use humour to stir conversations towards a path I can more easily predict. Sometimes I mix them all by having stock jokes and pre studied joke formulas so I can quip faster than I consciously think though that one can get me in trouble sometimes. But socialisation is just a series of algorithms that can be easily predicted and prepared for as long as you put in the work and pay constant attention to patterns. People don’t even notice it’s all planned most of the time.

this comment sort of perfectly encapsulates the way verbal disabilities are still disabilities even when they’re invisible. like, yes, maybe you have over-trained yourself to the point that you can pass as neurotypical. (this is why autism is so difficult to diagnose in adults, who are more likely to have coping mechanisms that disguise their symptoms.) But passing doesn’t make you neurotypical or non-disabled. What the comment above is describing is a hard-earned, imperfect coping mechanism that makes it easier to hide a communication disability, but not easier to experience.

Let’s say that maybe, after hundreds of hours of self-training like the person above has put themselves through…let’s say that just maybe, you can speak and sound like you don’t have a verbal disability:

Stop telling people “Oh you aren’t really [x]. you seem normal.” 

Keep reading

“I have to put an unreasonable amount of effort into my social performance to get other people to treat me like a person“ IS in fact an aggression against people with developmental disorders

Your special interest is not dumb, boring or childish. It is real and it is yours. Don’t be ashamed of what you love.

I’m sure other people have said this but I just absolutely hate that “autism” has become the new edgy 4chan memelord insult. I hate that people now use it to essentially mean “cringey”, I hate how “peak autism” and other similar phrases are considered hilarious, I hate how they call autistic people “autists” I hate “sperging”/“sperg”/“sperging out” has become a new internet verb to negatively describe people talking in length about a subject in the same way an autistic person would passionately talk about their special interest. Coming across phrases like “short bus”, “sped”, etc as an insecure special ed middle schooler wrecked me so much and the ableist climate online has only gotten worse it seems so I can’t even imagine how much internalized ableism this is gonna inflict on autistic kids (or kids with any learning disability) who go on the internet and see allistics talking like this. I just hate everything about this all.