If there’s one thing I hate, it’s when I’m compared to another autistic person to be told I’m “not as bad” as them

Like seriously, how is that a compliment?? Not only are you ignoring the difficulties I face, you’re insulting the other person at the same time!

Don’t compare autistic people!

If you are not autistic, please please please listen to autistic people’s opinions on autism and how to work with autistic people. 

If you post about autism and are allistic, please allow autistic people to give you their side. It is about us. We are misunderstood, killed and absued constantly, and I understand it can be an inconvenience to read up on our opinions but it is vital if you want to work with people on the spectrum. 

I wish people who say shit like “uwu bully freaks shove weird kids in lockers” would take like 2 seconds to think about who the weird kids always are. Most of it, if not all of it, is based on bigotry. I literally don’t understand how, for example, autistic people can see posts about bullying kids for some weird behavior OTHER autistic people relate to and defend that. I don’t get how people think they can say “kids don’t deserve to experience homophobia, racism, ableism, etc.” and “let’s shove kids into lockers for liking theater, having “fake genders”, and having trouble with hygiene” at the same time. It feels like because of this site, people actually think social justice is basically finding people even weirder than they are to blame their problems on. I would prefer it not even be a thing but. God I hope these people never take this shit outside of social media.

My dash is full of ableist BS today, so I’m gonna rant and share my (very unfiltered and possibly slightly rude) thoughts about said ableist BS.

Autistic people do not owe neurotypicals eye contact. NTs, do us a favour and actually listen for once when autistic people say that for some of us, eye contact PHYSICALLY HURTS and no child should be ‘trained’ like a dog to make eye contact that may be physically painful to them just because “it’s the norm” or “it’s what’s expected”.

Reminder to NTs that our nervous systems are wired differently to yours, and what may be OK for you may be extremely uncomfortable or even painful for us. And no, this isn’t me exaggerating or begging for special treatment. On to that line of bull later. 

Autistic people are not “entitled” just because we ask you to listen to us. When NTs put us through their social conformist ABA bullshit, apparently it’s perfectly fucking fine according to them. But when autistic people ask NTs to not subject us to abuse and to listen to us when it comes to autistic issues, this is what NTs say about us:

NTs, if you think an autistic person or a disabled person should be required to change to be more “tolerable” to you, change to be more “socially acceptable”, or that autistic people are any of the above just for asking for basic accommodations, then that’s your problem for being closed-minded and judgmental, not ours.

[Caption: Screenshot of two twitter posts by ‘jazdia (bat emoji) deep sea cryptid @swampflora from 17 November 2020. The first post reads: “Don’t identify with your illness/disability” is deeply ableist nonsense. It keeps us from things that vastly improve our lives, like mobility aids & disabled community. It’s based on the idea that being disabled is a bad thing & that limits don’t exist unless we believe they do. The second post reads: So many people, including doctors, think encouraging us to ignore our limits, needs, and the ways disability/chronic illness shapes our lives, will magically make us nondisabled. It doesn’t. It makes us miserable, isolated and often worse off.]

Ari Ne’eman, quoted in Ari Paul’s “The Chapo Dilemma,” Souciant (x)

i dont wish i was neurotypical

i wish i was respected

For My Autistic Boys

Info dumping =/= “mansplaining”!

Info dumping is (sometimes compulsively) sharing information about a special interest subject, and if you’re like me then you have a lot of those.

Don’t feel bad for info dumping, you aren’t being misogynistic, you’re just being passionate about what you enjoy!

This is really really important. I see so much negativity when it comes to info-dumping and I figured searching it up on this wonderful website would at least have something good but all I saw was negative posts about men info-dumping. And it made me sad. So yes a hundred times to this.

mansplaining is incredibly rude, condescending and/or patronising, often about simple concepts that the listener (usually a woman) likely already knows. as you say, infodumping is about special interest topics and isnt intended to patronise the listener it’s just compulsively sharing info.

i hope the people who listen to your infodumping dont perceive it as mansplaining

Autism doesn’t equal intellectual disability, but intellectually disabled autistic people exist and they are just as important, human and as deserving of respect, autonomy and support as everyone else.

Autism doesn’t equal having a mental illness, but mentally ill autistic people exist and they are just as important, human and as deserving of respect, autonomy and support as everyone else.

Many autistic people are or will become capable of working, but autistic people who are unable to manage a job exist and they are just as important, human and as deserving of respect, autonomy and support as everyone else.

Many autistic people are or will become capable of living on their own, but  autistic people who will never be able to live on their own exist and they are just as important, human and as deserving of respect, autonomy and support as everyone else.

Autism doesn’t equal being unable to feel affective empathy, but autistic people who are unable to feel affective empathy exist and they are just as important, human and as deserving of respect, autonomy and support as everyone else.

Many autistic people are verbal, but non-verbal autistic people exist and they are just as important, human and as deserving of respect, autonomy and support as everyone else.

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

When we put extra effort into accommodating neurotypicals, they don’t even notice we are doing so. To them, it’s normal, expected. They don’t see that we do all this work in part because we care about their feelings, because we don’t want to hurt them. We accomodate them, even if it hurts us every day. Still, we are told that we are uncaring, weird, awkward. We don’t get invited to parties, or included in conversations, and above all, our needs are rarely accommodated. Instead, we are regarded as fussy and oversensitive. Our needs are unusual, so in the eyes of neurotypicals, they don’t deserve to be accommodated. Then they go on to act entitled and hurt when they feel that we are failing to meet their needs (like by not saying hello in the “right” way, or not making the “proper” amount of eye contact). Yet they benefit from living in a society that is built around their needs. We autistics are not so lucky.

hey fyi there are things i really like about my autism. most of the best things in my life and my favorite things about myself are very much related to my autism & my experiences as an autistic person. 

it’s just…more than 1 out of every 54 people is autistic. that number is going to go up as we get better at diagnosing it. there are tens of millions of us. we exist everywhere. autistic people are members of every community, and we’re not going away. being on the spectrum comes with a lot of struggles (many of which are preventable, the result of lack of social accommodation), but it shouldn’t just be seen as something in need of treatment. we’re not something in need of fixing. there are a lot of really good things this world wouldn’t have if it weren’t for the contributions of autistic people–contributions made because of, not in spite of, being on the spectrum. so please stop boogeymaning and othering us. acknowledge our disabilities & need for accommodation while also being aware of the positive things we bring into the world. 

talk about this more, please

read this post please. i’m not autistic and i’ve never really met anyone that’s autistic (in real life, that is) but please read this post.

statistically, you’ve almost certainly met someone on the spectrum. but the combination of social stigma and issues with diagnosis make many of us invisible to casual acquaintances. one big reason i’m a fan of autistic headcanons is that many creators create characters with autistic traits without having a name for it, and without realizing the real-life people who inspired these characters were probably on the spectrum.

as someone who didn’t have a word for it until adulthood, there are a number of people I encountered during my upbringing who looking back were probably also on the spectrum. there are simply so many of us. And we deserve to be seen.