Some things are not funny or games. One would think that would be obvious but if you are of Facebook that breast cancer is made into a funny game you may have seen for as long as you have been there. It’s not a game I will play and when I politely suggest all sorts of more useful things people could do after explaining why some unfriend. I do not miss them.

Now there is one for autism.

Autism awareness should start with the awareness of what being autistic means for those of us who are. Like the breast cancer “game” it should not exist. Call that black and white thinking if you must but some things are black and white.

Autism is demonized by others to support their agenda about it. If you are autistic odds are you will be bullied, underemployed, exploited, made fun of and so much more. I wish the odds of actual acceptance ran as high.

Autism is said to be an epidemic and those heck bent on that view then go on if they see vaccination as the culprit to unleash real ones. The message to autistics is clear. Death is better than autism and science is not worth regarding as superior too fear.

The murder of autistics is so out of control in the US that while the international autistic community mourns our dead for they are our dead the question of when will we not know the names of all of the dead is there. Likely some die having lived lives so invisible we do do not mourn them with the other dead.

Sentences as murder is so rare. I am not quite sure how two women stab an autistic multiple times and somehow justice is compassionate when that is some ridiculous degree of manslaughter and time served is the sentence. Compassionate to those who are not autistic I guess is what matters. Calling that justice is in itself an injustice.

In Canada, where I live I often feel like I am simply being killed more slowly by intensive neglect. In theory I finally have support that is based on my autism. I thought this a miracle of sorts initially and sure it would end a lot of things as being too intelligent to qualify for adult services is silly as for a lot of my life a few hours support around the things I could not do would have ensured I had the right amount of degrees for my dreams and was a taxpayer and all sorts of good things.

It’s been over 5 years since having to move from my home of 14 years turned my life upside down. I had gone a long stretch of time without needing service from the mental health system or at least fearing that it was so often more of an invitation to abuse than service with solutions so unlikely why bother?

Now that it is sadistic I wince when an entire day is devoted to mental health or I see a commercial which has the facts right on things like depression in Canada but it tells you to get help. If you live in my health authority not thinking that help is what will happen could save your life. At least it would prevent ptsd or complex trauma depending on how often you have been harmed seeking help or abused as a form of help.

It shouldn’t be that way much like autism should not be a game to anyone. This is the kind of world we live in though. If it isn’t a meme or a game it is just too long or boring or sad.

By April I will have a better 30 item list for actual awareness and no one will play that as a game as there is nothing funny about a lifetime of being autistic being a reason to harm you in some way or the consequences of living the autistic life.

Given number one in the game that should not exist is “I just found a squirrel in my car.” How is this awareness or education. I mean sure I don’t like surprises but it doesn’t really indicate how chaotic something unexpected is for the autistic. Although unexpected animals are a stronger suit for me and if I had ever found one in my car ( I don’t own one and never have so that too would be a surprise.) I would have worked out how it got in there.

The fundamental problem about autism education is very little of it is done by autistics. I don’t understand what it is like to be not autistic so why is that exactly? I have some ideas having watched people recoil from truth, literally run from science at an autism conference although it was more of a stampede, and oh people are always explaining my reality to me.

The thing about me is I don’t lie and I don’t use hyperbole for effect. I will do both in fiction of course as the whole thing is made up and hyperbole is okay. Having people doubt what I say about something distressing compounds the distress and makes every other time others have overwritten my reality come back.

Autism is a disability. How people respond to autistics or speak or write about autism is so often so inappropriate that the stress from that alone makes me less able.

That’s the other frustrating bit. People are often blinded by my autism to the abilities I do have or flat out refuse to believe I have any or the opposite doubt I have autism because I can and have done certain things.

That doesn’t happen with many disabilities. People notice my physical disability first now and for the fast interactions of some of life the way that alters their behaviour is while not surprising very unfair. I wasn’t born needing a walker and using one didn’t thus impact everything else.

The closest thing to like a game is how often the origin story of the older autistic is like a super-hero. Many of them are after all not from Earth. Still if you actually were born on this planet to human parents the degree of effort getting to the point where you understand what is going on enough at any given time is considerable and new situations may come with assumptions you can adapt as to someone else it seems not that different.

There are times I hate the bonus difficulty levels of being autistic. Times I confuse that with preferring not to be but that non-autistic me has never existed and never will. I know there are skills I have directly as a result of autism. I use them in ways which by now I should know are not that surprising but seeing the beneficial outcome always surprises me and maybe that is good.

The surprise after all is because I don’t expect all people to be the same and so when something I know about due to autism helps someone and I am surprised it means I have that part down. I think maybe more people need to do some work there.

Having autism has times of joy. When distressed over a year ago a boy who’s sense of being alone in a puzzling world I had made him feel less alone so that one day it would of course he would have the solution to my distress. I felt some pride as he made himself look taller and addressed issues of if I should even follow him to a “sparkly, glowing, spider web”. I didn’t raise them but I use a walker had lost weight and the path was slippery well two came up and the weight was the collective desire I prioritize eating. He knew eating and music as the band was about to leave were not the cure I needed.
We sat and he asked if other people could see how amazing it was as no one had even slowed down before. I am forever in educational mode so the prisms of water the web and rain had caused I explained would mean that the lights strung all along would produce an effect nearly everyone could see if they had slowed down and looked at it from the right angle. Other things as individual and thus we were very lucky as the sparkly, glowing beauty as something we could both enjoy was something I had needed.

We rested for some time from the communal chaos. He also enjoys enjoys games but life is often lonely when your needs are not standard and how you see things be it literal or less so is also not typical they have not made a game that quite captures this wonder.

That would be a game worth playing. If one could capture the lonely confusion of early autistic life that will repeat even if more knowledge means some things are not confusing but lonely and different even when with people who accept your differences that you will inevitably do or say something that for a time makes that highlighted well the quest in a proper game about life as different might be for rewards like that.

It’s still January and the dread autism awareness month is April so consider this advanced education about why autism games may indeed be possible but they would be hard and not that fun,, at times sad, often lonely with minutes of intense wonder to revel in with someone also walking a lonely path. In game terms we call all the boring things in between a reward “grind”. In autistic terms I wish boring was all that came between the sweetest and most wonderful times.

Don’t play this stupid game please. Or play it and if you have autistic friends don’t be shocked when they decide the prize of friendship with you is just too high.

Our life is hard yet autism is not a tragedy. The willingness for people to aim for easy that this game so represents or popular which reading best-sellers by the non-autistic represents as few of us are easy or popular so aiming just a bit higher is a start.

Some things are not funny or games. One would think that would be obvious but if you are of Facebook that breast cancer is made into a funny game you may have seen for as long as you have been there. It’s not a game I will play and when I politely suggest all sorts of more useful things people could do after explaining why some unfriend. I do not miss them.

Now there is one for autism.

Autism awareness should start with the awareness of what being autistic means for those of us who are. Like the breast cancer “game” it should not exist. Call that black and white thinking if you must but some things are black and white.

Autism is demonized by others to support their agenda about it. If you are autistic odds are you will be bullied, underemployed, exploited, made fun of and so much more. I wish the odds of actual acceptance ran as high.

Autism is said to be an epidemic and those heck bent on that view then go on if they see vaccination as the culprit to unleash real ones. The message to autistics is clear. Death is better than autism and science is not worth regarding as superior too fear.

The murder of autistics is so out of control in the US that while the international autistic community mourns our dead for they are our dead the question of when will we not know the names of all of the dead is there. Likely some die having lived lives so invisible we do do not mourn them with the other dead.

Sentences as murder is so rare. I am not quite sure how two women stab an autistic multiple times and somehow justice is compassionate when that is some ridiculous degree of manslaughter and time served is the sentence. Compassionate to those who are not autistic I guess is what matters. Calling that justice is in itself an injustice.

In Canada, where I live I often feel like I am simply being killed more slowly by intensive neglect. In theory I finally have support that is based on my autism. I thought this a miracle of sorts initially and sure it would end a lot of things as being too intelligent to qualify for adult services is silly as for a lot of my life a few hours support around the things I could not do would have ensured I had the right amount of degrees for my dreams and was a taxpayer and all sorts of good things.

It’s been over 5 years since having to move from my home of 14 years turned my life upside down. I had gone a long stretch of time without needing service from the mental health system or at least fearing that it was so often more of an invitation to abuse than service with solutions so unlikely why bother?

Now that it is sadistic I wince when an entire day is devoted to mental health or I see a commercial which has the facts right on things like depression in Canada but it tells you to get help. If you live in my health authority not thinking that help is what will happen could save your life. At least it would prevent ptsd or complex trauma depending on how often you have been harmed seeking help or abused as a form of help.

It shouldn’t be that way much like autism should not be a game to anyone. This is the kind of world we live in though. If it isn’t a meme or a game it is just too long or boring or sad.

By April I will have a better 30 item list for actual awareness and no one will play that as a game as there is nothing funny about a lifetime of being autistic being a reason to harm you in some way or the consequences of living the autistic life.

Given number one in the game that should not exist is “I just found a squirrel in my car.” How is this awareness or education. I mean sure I don’t like surprises but it doesn’t really indicate how chaotic something unexpected is for the autistic. Although unexpected animals are a stronger suit for me and if I had ever found one in my car ( I don’t own one and never have so that too would be a surprise.) I would have worked out how it got in there.

The fundamental problem about autism education is very little of it is done by autistics. I don’t understand what it is like to be not autistic so why is that exactly? I have some ideas having watched people recoil from truth, literally run from science at an autism conference although it was more of a stampede, and oh people are always explaining my reality to me.

The thing about me is I don’t lie and I don’t use hyperbole for effect. I will do both in fiction of course as the whole thing is made up and hyperbole is okay. Having people doubt what I say about something distressing compounds the distress and makes every other time others have overwritten my reality come back.

Autism is a disability. How people respond to autistics or speak or write about autism is so often so inappropriate that the stress from that alone makes me less able.

That’s the other frustrating bit. People are often blinded by my autism to the abilities I do have or flat out refuse to believe I have any or the opposite doubt I have autism because I can and have done certain things.

That doesn’t happen with many disabilities. People notice my physical disability first now and for the fast interactions of some of life the way that alters their behaviour is while not surprising very unfair. I wasn’t born needing a walker and using one didn’t thus impact everything else.

The closest thing to like a game is how often the origin story of the older autistic is like a super-hero. Many of them are after all not from Earth. Still if you actually were born on this planet to human parents the degree of effort getting to the point where you understand what is going on enough at any given time is considerable and new situations may come with assumptions you can adapt as to someone else it seems not that different.

There are times I hate the bonus difficulty levels of being autistic. Times I confuse that with preferring not to be but that non-autistic me has never existed and never will. I know there are skills I have directly as a result of autism. I use them in ways which by now I should know are not that surprising but seeing the beneficial outcome always surprises me and maybe that is good.

The surprise after all is because I don’t expect all people to be the same and so when something I know about due to autism helps someone and I am surprised it means I have that part down. I think maybe more people need to do some work there.

Having autism has times of joy. When distressed over a year ago a boy who’s sense of being alone in a puzzling world I had made him feel less alone so that one day it would of course he would have the solution to my distress. I felt some pride as he made himself look taller and addressed issues of if I should even follow him to a “sparkly, glowing, spider web”. I didn’t raise them but I use a walker had lost weight and the path was slippery well two came up and the weight was the collective desire I prioritize eating. He knew eating and music as the band was about to leave were not the cure I needed.
We sat and he asked if other people could see how amazing it was as no one had even slowed down before. I am forever in educational mode so the prisms of water the web and rain had caused I explained would mean that the lights strung all along would produce an effect nearly everyone could see if they had slowed down and looked at it from the right angle. Other things as individual and thus we were very lucky as the sparkly, glowing beauty as something we could both enjoy was something I had needed.

We rested for some time from the communal chaos. He also enjoys enjoys games but life is often lonely when your needs are not standard and how you see things be it literal or less so is also not typical they have not made a game that quite captures this wonder.

That would be a game worth playing. If one could capture the lonely confusion of early autistic life that will repeat even if more knowledge means some things are not confusing but lonely and different even when with people who accept your differences that you will inevitably do or say something that for a time makes that highlighted well the quest in a proper game about life as different might be for rewards like that.

It’s still January and the dread autism awareness month is April so consider this advanced education about why autism games may indeed be possible but they would be hard and not that fun,, at times sad, often lonely with minutes of intense wonder to revel in with someone also walking a lonely path. In game terms we call all the boring things in between a reward “grind”. In autistic terms I wish boring was all that came between the sweetest and most wonderful times.

Don’t play this stupid game please. Or play it and if you have autistic friends don’t be shocked when they decide the prize of friendship with you is just too high.

Our life is hard yet autism is not a tragedy. The willingness for people to aim for easy that this game so represents or popular which reading best-sellers by the non-autistic represents as few of us are easy or popular so aiming just a bit higher is a start.