Category Archives: Awareness

Something Different – A Review

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My life is so limited lately that to continue to only blog as a way to howl into the universe that I am still alive despite all failures of things meant to make that more certain, despite the total complacency of people who accept money to ensure I am not at all sorts of risk I that I am in fact at risk of.  Well, I knew this planet was not for me from my earliest days so moving on.

One of the ways I pass my life where I feel like I exist outside of time is to watch too much Netflix. It actually does the least harm if I get stuck in it as I am not typing or attempting something dangerous or which will result in days without sleep and sore joints.

Their offering “Atypical” was one I watched when it came out. Wondering how another teen with autism would be portrayed.

I am mostly reserving judgement in how the show does use functioning categories because there is some challenge too them as well.

I found the show to go heavily on the everything is somehow okay side though.  The protagonist is 18. Has a part time-job which he apparently holds without much issue although he has a side kick and an understanding boss.  It is in an electronics store so having sometimes contemplated that as bliss if I could stand better it’s a maybe. I would have liked if employment as an issue came up somewhere though.

On concluding he would like a girlfriend, Sam proceeds in a methodical manner. I have no issue with that as I found that very me.   I kind of did have one about the outcome.  Realistically while his younger sister gives some sense of needing to be there for him, having needed to be there for him he is not seen being bullied ever.

He concludes he wants a girlfriend and gets one. He makes some understandable missteps along the way but this is high school.. He not only gets a girlfriend but he allows her to train him to talk about penguins less.  This was perhaps one of the most clearly problematic bits about the show.

The other big issues in autism get skirted because the father says of functioning labels they don’t really use them.  When Sam has a bad melt-down on a bus there is the well that’s life with a “high-functioning” kiddo”.   No clear shots across the bow at them get made but the promise of some one hopes.

Although Sam’s therapist has gone into it motivated by a sibling who remained non-verbal and his mother is very into all of everything that one might consider the negative kind of “autism mommy”.  Again it is the father who suggests towards the end of the season one that an identity beyond that would be a good thing.

The show is a comedy so the kind of heavy-duty why it is not just a good thing but a necessary thing is not going to happen.  You have the one character occasionally challenging the whole way autism is framed by those who are not autistic.

The actor portraying Sam is not autistic. A sore spot of late within the autistic community and a familiar one for the disability community overall.   It’s not that he didn’t do a good job. It was a role he wanted and one he feels is his favourite thus far but this does suggest that they were not looking to cast an autistic actor.  Is this ever going to change?

So it is high-school with all the potential horrors and yet in ten episodes Sam has one day where he winds up under a lab station for part of it. For those of you who know me I do keep saying under is the superior place to be for all forms of distress.

His girlfriend who perhaps could have been used to explore some of the things Sam has done that upset her like his pro and con list. Lists are lovely for the kinds of things that seem big.  Neurotypicals likely proceed through all sorts of things without them but I have made lists and plans for getting just a regular friend. I used the best that science had to offer the second time I did it as I knew more about what science had to say on the matter.

That a list is a way to make the impossible seeming slightly more probable.  It also takes something which at 18 is harder most of the time than at 49 – the whole social arena and contains it. You have a plan. You can proceed with your plan. I used to have plans for every area of my life that I evaluated at least annually — some quarterly.  This was especially true for the difficult parts of life.  A plan. A list.  These are real tools and they are mostly things which are fodder for comedy when someone Sam’s age who is also on the spectrum is enthusiastic. Perhaps the comedy wouldn’t be diminished if a sentence or two of why they are so wonderful happened. Maybe none of the experts the show consulted knew why.

So having gotten a girl who openly behaviourly conditions him to speak about his passion less which sure you could say this is a lesson in compromise but what it says to the autistic viewer is that life is always a trade-off where less of what makes you who you are is what the world wants.  If you become less you then you may be rewarded with acceptance. It is a long shot. That too is not portrayed in the show.

Another long shot is when said,  girlfriend wants to go to the winter formal and this would be too overwhelming for Sam.  She goes up against the PTA and when all sorts of incentives rain down on those who want a dance of the kind where you can hear the music booming  versus one where the music could be delivered through headphones. See aforementioned job of Sam’s.  Still who thinks this would happen. That the mother’s on the PTA who oppose it strongly didn’t peak in high school and were the mean girls then and have not changed much.  Maybe age wears down their talons but they have fixed notions of what a dance should be.   I am guessing these formal this  and that being much bigger deals in the US and I never attended a single dance in high school. We didn’t live in town and gas by then was tight and well the 5 minutes I spent at a Junior High one so my computer matched “date” could get in for free ( who knew they weren’t all free)  was about enough.  Much like my 10 minutes at a toga party my second day in residence before most had arrived filled my toga party requirement of university.

Then there is Sam’s other desire. To have sex. Again approached methodically he improbably pulls this off at the winter formal. I mean it would have been probable if there had not been some drama ahead of time.  He handles the loss if his girlfriend, however temporarily by being convinced a quest is needed and the logical one leaves him soaking wet but having won fair maiden. No one mocks him for being soaking wet in formal clothes.  Right.  Was the author home-schooled?

It works and he and his beloved do the deed right there in an igloo his father made for him (not out of snow so surprisingly Sam does not deduct marks for this).   I was disappointed  by this bit.  It acts as many books and oh so many expert writings on the topic as if in 18 years nothing has been picked up about what would be appropriate or not.   Having sex for the first time in a display in a public place would seem like it would not only be something Sam would know is not appropriate but given it isn’t a real igloo and much of the other comforting things from his Antarctica themed room are not there. Just the fakee igloo which while Roald Amundsen, fresh from his North  West Passage exploration did indeed use.  This, skiing, sled dogs, and being willing to eat those dogs (this comes up if you ever seriously consider applying for a job in the North in the why dog sleds are still better than snowmobiles section of things to consider) no penguin ever set foot in them.

Consider too if you remove the sound of music blaring, and everyone has their own headsets, hopefully set at hearing friendly volume this might be rather hard to do at a silent dance.   If it is something that either teen would consider appropriate. I would think it would present larger challenges for Sam but given his girlfriend’s previous efforts on shaping him in the way things are done also a huge let down for the whole love those you can change model citizen.

Snow may have silencing properties which I appreciate when it actually snows here but this just looked that way. It also looked like something I couldn’t touch but they leave Sam with just the standard set of sensory issues so things he can’t touch don’t complicate his tryst.

Overall ten episodes isn’t enough to judge if it will get better or not. The issues the show skirts around would really have to be tackled in some substantive way for it to be a semi-win.  It isn’t horrible and it did leave me wanting Sam’s room very badly  but it isn’t a realistic portrayal of high school period let alone autism and high school.

It leaves too many key things as just side bits the Dad hints at and given he is alone there people may think he has the issue for not “doing” functioning levels.  Or thinking of autism that way. Then again so would the DSM V which pretty well point-blank states the numbers for each category in terms of functioning can fluctuate and they are defined with the premise that support is provided. It could take 20 years for that filter into the minds of even the “experts” let alone the general public so we can only hope that either this show or some other handles things a bit more head on that are issues largely because an inaccurate way of looking at autism hard set and is tricky to shift.

While never a diagnosis I have a report that say my previous diagnosis was “High Functioning Autism”. I did like the report though as the next paragraph my “Very low functioning” on  those lovely scales of adaptive living is noted.

So here’s hoping if Netflix wants to tackle autism they do it both head on and with some insight from those who are actually autistic.

Autism is Not a Game

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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.

On Black And White Thinking and Other Annoyances

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When I state my opinions about some things if the audience knows I am autistic I sometimes am rebutted not by their own opinion but that my thoughts are the product of black and white thinking.

This baffles me on a few levels really. While I understand someone out there (well numerous someones) has characterized autistic thinking that way do they think we are incapable of seeing the views in between? Or for the sorts of things people go around having opinions about that some waving around between positions is even a good thing?

Here are some things I am black and white about –

You can’t kill people because they have a “horrific” label like autism

The group I call Voldemort Speaks needs to disband.

The world needs more acts of love and less talking about love

Honesty is the only policy.

Every human not only deserves dignity and respect but society needs to make sure they get it.

Most people are smarter than the experts think.

Speech is not the sum total of all communication.

Being able to speak does not say anything about other competencies.

Well that’s the short list. I could go on of course but I would enter the realm of my own life to a degree that would leave people a bit too baffled.

My main problem when I get dismissed by this method because labeling it black and white is a fast way to end the conversation is that just because someone thinks it is so, and even if it looks that way on any issue I care a lot about it is apparently so hard to make another case that we need to queue the oh poor her she can’t see other opinions.

I wish that were the case. I have had other opinions acted out on me. I have seen them acted out on others. Since they did harm I would think people need to be a little more shades of grey overall. Perhaps it is some terrible neurological affliction that the unlabeled masses have that they sway all over the place over fairly short spans of time. I don’t really know but I do know that being dismissed on things I think a lot about with any reference to my autism is frustrating beyond words.

Just like if there is a communication problem that involves me I am not always the problem. This one comes up a lot. Granted sometimes I cannot communicate by the usual methods. Sometimes I need break from those ways but when I do communicate very clearly about some issues I doubt it is my problem if someone spends 8 days trying to change my mind. Good luck with that would seem a bit flip I guess. But is it so radical a notion that having lived as me for 45 long years now I might just have a better sense of what is possible for me any given day than someone who has the joys of managing me as a case? I think yes but majority opinion says no. That I will never sway any of them to my position does make me wonder who exactly is more firmly entrenched in if not black and white thinking at least normative institutional thinking. I am the one with more labels than seems reasonable so of course I have no clue about what is good for me or what is possible. All health care and service provision seems to operate from this stance even though when I was a service provider I am pretty sure respecting the client took up a good chunk of the handbook and the attitudes questionnaire and screening essay questions.

There really is a right and a wrong for more things than humans tell themselves. Sometimes it can be fun to be a little bit “bad” of course and those sort of behavioural deviations from the straight and narrow as they call it are not a big concern. What concerns me are bigger moral issues.

I have written about lying before. People I think refuse to give me credit for being honest as in theory I would be a terrible liar. Yet I could have learned to tell the kind of social lies people tell if I believed that was a good route to go. I spent years actively resisting social scripts deemed useful and even enlisting converts to the whole living honestly.

At this stage in my life the only way it has backfired if you can call it that is people often seek my opinion who otherwise may not have. Rather tangentially related to my life people suddenly want to know things out of their confidence that I will tell the truth and other people will be nice when being nice won’t be helpful.

I do not consider it a bad thing that my integrity is not eroded by the accumulation of social lies and the slide into more ambitious ones. I don’t think it is a product of my autism as I have been lied to be autistic.

When forming opinions past the information gathering stage, which too many people seem to skip, I do consider the extremes of the issue and work out my stance sometimes over years. If someone then sums up my opinion as not worth entertaining because it is black and white then yes I will question this whole how useful is to socially engage thing.

I belong to a group that has been catastrophized to a degree I didn’t even think possible. People’s notions of autism when I was young were not that accurate but the kind of hate that is directed at the label now should really be considered criminally unacceptable. Many countries have laws against hate speech and yet it continues to go on. It inspires violence against autistics and when the worst case scenarios happen, that is when autistic people are killed society tends to champion the killer.

We could use a lot less grey here I think. Sometimes my autistic peers have a laugh at the whole society seems to have forgotten we are actually human but there is an underlying sadness in our games. Games that the experts also say we are incapable of but hey my opinion on anyone thinking they are an expert on matters pertaining to people other than themselves is not exactly high.

I try to live in a way that does good. Sometimes people are offended by it but I take the long view to that as occasionally in being offended it sparks off a thought process. I know I am not right about everything as that would be very obnoxious and like a good debate but on matters that boil down to the application of ethical values it is hard to see how firmness is a bad thing.

In matters less vital of course I slip and slide. If I applied my mind to making a position on everything I would run out of time for pretty well everything. The dog in my life knows my positions with regard to him that are thought out are I do not own him and he is not by being a dog entitled to less thought about his needs than I am by being human. He does milk these positions a bit much as he seems to think that means he can get away with just about anything but ours is a close relationship so of course there is give and take. I have told him that he should try and support himself but he plays the dog card there. It’s a work in progress.

Opinions on autism change and will always change. What cannot happen is for the masses to forget yes we are still people. We are still entitled to any right or protection normally given to people in our areas and so on. If someone wants to call those opinions black and white go for it. I will still hold them. Even when actions by the society around me make me pretty sure they forgot some of this I will keep underlining those positions.

If you want grey here’s grey. Currently most aspects of my life are pretty catastrophic. There is o denying that. That does not mean that I am though. There is a distinction. It is a source of hurt that some aspects of my life are artificially difficult. That is the means exist to ease some major stressors almost instantly but the powers that be or society at large doesn’t do it.

For 23 months and 1 day my life seems to have plotted how to break down in as many areas as possible. My body is it’s main co-conspirator but it was ever thus. Most people who know even half of how bad or plain weird or almost absurd it gets can’t quite wrap their minds about it but in all of this there are times of joy. Less than I might like but they exist.

I laughed doing my work in the wee hours of the morning. I laughed at a few other things. I also cried because life is not easy but it is a life. A human life. While a colleague did say I could be an AI the other day that wasn’t dehumanizing so much as a product of my distance from my place of work so while a few people have spoken to me no one has met me. We shared a good run of AI related jokes and I went to sleep.

Whatever happens one stress I do not need is the steady clamour of propaganda telling me how awful autism is. Telling me all sorts of lies. I will give them my life is hard but as they are about 18 percent of my current stress if they would just shut-up it would get slightly less so. As they feed too many opinions who knows how much of the rest might go away?

I have seen my blog mentioned in a few random places to support ideas I do not support. That is by granting yes I have a disability and yes my life is hard at times, even very hard somehow everything else I have said about my life doesn’t matter.

I studied psychology. I had to study the DSM for longer than anyone should have to I suspect so my notions of what can be said about any person’s autism and still have them fit diagnostic standards may be a bit rigid but it is a rigid format. I will never be someone who says my autism is only a good thing because if that were the case technically I would not have it. Currently since the issue that started my 23 month cruise with instability is most certainly a byproduct of autism, and some of my more major bodily malfunctions are not aided by it I can’t swing to that extreme.

I guess the only good function of Voldemort Speaks may be that it makes me a moderate. By saying I am autistic but I am human. My life matters to me. I should not have been prevented. I struggle but show me a person who doesn’t. I struggle harder than I need to so please society try harder to remove barriers and problems that don’t need to exist I am moderate in comparison. I know they view all those statements as radical but that is their problem.

It gets gritty in the trenches of being me. They are most certainly trenches right now but it is fun as well. Chanukah just brought me more days in a row of being dragged from my home than seemed fair but also laughter and latkes.

I suspect any day now that an accident I had and didn’t know about for too long and then couldn’t cope with what it takes to get it seen to will require surgery. So will several other things simmering away as I said earlier by body is my life’s main co-conspirator but while definitely lacking the capacity to deal with it today I either will or dealing with it will be thrust upon me.

In the meantime there is my dog, the internet, my work and tomorrow. I suspect all four of them will serve up a spectrum of delight and agony and everything in between collectively. I enjoy the dog, the internet and perversely my work so I guess tomorrow is the main suspect in the lineup for the gritty bits but not a lot of point of subtracting any happiness from today just because eventually a lot of unpleasant things will need to be dealt with.

Since I am being radical what with the liking my work and insisting that my life has value despite the indisputably hard parts would it be too radical to suggest that for the issues that matter most everyone try to be a bit more binary? There is a place at the table for dialogue but not propaganda I think. Attitudes are a potential thief of joy and the world needs more joy.

People often think my own attitude needs adjusting for some reason but it’s about right for the life I currently have. For some reason many people also regard me as a pessimist but on the things that need to change front I think I am pretty optimistic. While there has been no sign that society as a whole will suddenly see me as just part of society as a whole say the bits could improve for that to be normative behaviour.

In my city locals do this thing that people often ask about. When it started I was perplexed too. I had to defend it to several people when I was still thinking okay it is illogical but it seems to increase happiness phase with it. People on exiting the bus say thank you. Everyone does it unless they are distracted. It’s not rational behaviour in a way as of course the bus driver is paid for this exact thing but it makes the bus a better place. Which in a weird circular logic makes the bus driver (or the population at large) worth thanking.

So what if people could change normative behaviours about autism? Stop reflexively supporting Voldemort Speaks because of all that good they supposedly do. Stop believing my life is not valuable. Start doing something as radical as treating all people in ways that recognize their humanity?

I don’t really see how any other position makes sense of course but then again I have a “problem” with black and white thinking,

Well he's black and white some days.

Well he’s black and white some days.

This is Autism

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The flashblog theme for November 18th is This is Autism.  Part of a number of rebuttals to the vision of autism that the group I call Voldemort Speaks holds. They produced a fairly horrific video on the topic that most people will have seen as there would be no way I would direct people’s attention to it in any case.

 

The problem with the video isn’t even that challenges like those portrayed don’t occur with autism. They absolutely do. The problem is the unrelenting series of images that focus solely on the negative. When a person finished viewing the video they may feel like they are in shock which isn’t really what a group should be going for if they know that many of the parent’s of the newly diagnosed will have heard of them.

 

I can’t tell you what autism is. I know what my version of it is. I’ve met over a hundred people of all ages and across the so called functioning divide. Far more if you open that up to the internet and back when I thought studying the brain would help me work out the condition most people view as normal I did do a lot of courses that equip me to understand autism in the academic sense. Having worked out the academic sense is seldom useful when it comes to normal I would be a hypocrite if I listed those things as what autism is.

 

Autism is lots of things. I don’t have a financial stake in selling anyone on my particular viewpoints about autism.  One hopes that people would question any depiction of any group that was so universally negative as being contradictory to everything people should have picked up about what it means to live.

 

For my own autism I know that the bulk of the behaviours seen in that video do occur. I’m 45 years old and it’s not like the frustration and lack of power, or issues with having access to words when I most need them have faded enough in this particular version of autism for me not to recognize the behaviours.

That’s hardly the sum total of autism though. No life is lived at the extremes seen there. I have struggled with what to write for this flash blog because my own life has had a lot of grim moments in the past 22 months. It has had a lot inf the 43 years that came before those months too. To dwell entirely on those would be to rob me of my own forward momentum on this planet though.

 

My own autism includes both beating myself black and blue with my fists out of utter frustration and strolling across a stage to get my university degree.

 

Speech and all that goes with it is oddly a thing I have mastered far more than most people and which I will never view as a reliable skill set. I can read more languages than I have bothered to count and am reasonably good at 5 languages 7 if you give me the bonus points that go with one of those languages being very similar to two others. Lest someone say well that’s just a language obsession and nothing useful given I fail to speak when I need to often enough that 4 times so far this year people have wondered aloud no less, about my intelligence. Who knows how many people only thought the kind of horrible things they say if they think you are so far from present they don’t need to factor you in at all.

 

This confusion of the ability to speak and the one to think is one which I have devoted enough words to I think.  I don’t really fully understand why people hold that position as it is not an issue I was confused about at any point. Because I wasn’t confused more than a few of the variety of humans that get written off by everyone around them have done and even said remarkable things when I am around.

 

It’s a point of much frustration for me on more than one level because even if everything they say about me in those awkward moments when they make a leap they will soon wish they hadn’t were true it still wouldn’t be okay to treat me or anyone like that. Ever. 

 

So yeah I will concede that being autistic is frustrating but as that frustration is  a product of what autism is and the environment a lot of what is most frustrating about it would go away if the vast resources of time, money and information were devoted to that instead of making more money to further dehumanize autistics.

 

There are only a few things I know for sure about everyone’s autism and those things are part of the very definition of it so why some confusion exists about them I don’t really understand.

 

Autism is pervasive and neurological. There is no separating out autism from an autistic person because not only were they born that way but it impacts the brain. Every experience they have will go running through a brain that is not typical. These not typical experiences run through a not typical brain will shape the person just like experience helps shape experience. 

 

It’s honestly hard to know what impact having to defend my very right to exist more often than any human should have to while do to the person I am becoming. That’s an autistic reality that should make everyone indignant but oddly enough it doesn’t. I am not willing to chalk up my deviation from what appears to be the majority view in North America to some deficit on my part because I have seen other countries take refreshingly different approaches to how they depict autism. Ones a lot closer to my autistic reality on the whole.

 

I don’t fully subscribe to social models of disability as they have some holes you can drive a truck through but that society can make being any type of human harder is pretty obvious. We live in an age where sign language counts as a language credit in university but also an age where people routinely rob autistic people of other output methods as a matter of course. Sometimes they don’t think the person is capable of using them, sometimes they think well they have some speech or even all speech why do they need them? To that I say why not. For me some built in redundancy is good now since typing will always be easier than speaking. Speech is not the holy grail. Providing other methods of communication seems like people should view it as an of course not one to debate the merits of.

 

Autism technically consists of specific differences in key areas. Since no version of the DSM has managed to cough up a definition that didn’t at some point veer out into total pulling it out of their posteriors. A deficit model of a disability is almost as bad as a catastrophe model. So seeing a few things repeatedly referred to as deficit as well as the conflation of play and imagination again I give up for a version of the DSM that is barely 6 months old.

 

That’s autism. I exist in a state of often being quite annoyed by what countless experts laboured for years to hammer out as far as autism goes. But the DSM is a manual that doesn’t enjoy much use outside of North America so it’s not surprising given the grim narrative about autism groups like Voldemort speaks sing that no one gave much thought to wording issues, or the incredibly bad science behind linking atypical play behaviour with a limited imagination.

 

That one bugs me so much I thought of doing my dissertation on it years ago. The reality is it would be a hard sell. I had those stereotypical of autism type play “deficits”. For me my toys were props so I would think at them. They did not need to move for me to be entertained for those hours I spent not playing with them. To me that seems like a surplus of imagination for my development age. I loved to stack and to “ritualistically” move things around. So what?

 

I’ve discussed the imagination issue with my only friend equipped to be sufficiently informed about matters psychological and we do agree that there is an issue with imagination. Neither of us are illogical enough link play and imagination though. I don’t know if the scientists who do went to really bad schools but to do so does take quite a leap.

 

I suppose Voldemort Speaks might take some cheer that they are not the only ones getting autistic people irate or making huge leaps. The truth is even for those of us with autism saying what it is can be a too daunting task. Knowing the harm that a huge generalization in any direction or the other can do I wouldn’t actually want anyone to form their opinion of autism based on me or what I have to say.

 

Ideally an approach to the question could work from the extremes. Somewhere between the horrible, negative only scenario used by Voldemort Speaks and the glowing and all positive version there exists the bulk of autism.

 

Anyone who knows me knows I am not a person who believes thinking positive is always the best way to go.  I see enough comments on blogs, and lists that suggest a lot of the parent population lives in fear of false hope. For some reason false doom and gloom is okay but I do actually understand that mindset. Beyond my autism my health just plain sucks. I totally get how it can be helpful to be mentally prepared for the worst case scenario from the medical bits of my life. That being said you can’t live your life from that position.

 

The whole point of getting a definition of what it is something is and how it is likely to impact you would be to inform action. To enable you to live with those things. You don’t live hunkered down in a statistical minefield of the worst moments of being autistic lived large, anymore than you live with a arthritis that seems determined to steal your mobility. There I personified one of my other a disorders. Being an over-achiever in the field of acquiring disorders I have 5 that start with a currently and 4 pretty well permanently.

 

I know that there is a time for some disorders that are less fundamental to who I am, to view it as a destructive force. At the same time even for arthritis it has it’s benefits. Right now the only ones I can think of is that being obviously physically disabled helps a lot with getting a seat on the bus and that my old age should be awesome as it will be the one time in my life where people won’t think I am grumpy. I figure that being well used to canes and walkers and wheelchairs and various other things that are not so fun in your 20s or 40s I will be the calmest person in the old folks home. 

 

Of course probably I won’t. Old-people’s homes seem much better at catering to the “ravages of time” than autism. Pretty well any institution environment is not likely to leave me calm so it’s a pity I didn’t manage to have kids. On the other hand I have more practice resisting getting shipped off than most so maybe it will not come to that.

 

I don’t do short. I can’t even do witty when it comes to saying what autism is because I do know that is something everyone has to decide themselves While the things that make doctors go aha aha and afix the label to a person mainly mean there is a lot of overlap in those pesky symptoms of autism but each autistic person has their own life and story.

 

Life is not a straight forward or easy journey for anyone I don’t think. Our hope in even trying to participate in a This is Autism is mainly to counter things that make that journey harder. However effective a catastrophe narrative of disability might seem for find-raising, it is no way to live a life. Or view a life.

 

This very moment in my autistic life is mainly occupied with trying to type while my dog tries to lick my ear to a scary depth. You won’t see that in a This is Autism video by Voldemort speaks. We all get one life. When that life has a label, even when that label forms fundamentals about you it still can’t be reduced to the label let alone redacted to just the negatives. The same brain that creates some of the variations of havoc in the catastrophe narrative also creates much more.

 

I am by disposition a realist. People sometimes tell me I am thinking negatively but I seldom am. I also pretty well cannot say something unless I know it on some pretty deep level to be as true as possible which creates issues with a group template like this but which means if I did not think Voldemort Speaks was horrifically wrong about autism I would have to say as much. I have conceded where they are right. I know there is little point in my hoping they will do the same for the autistic community and say they are sorry. Sorry for defining the message when they didn’t have a clue and sorry for the great harm that has come from that. If they were capable of learning from me (which since I have been bugging them since they were founded I think I know they are not) they would stop trying to define autism by their own weirdly warped view. They would take a deep breath and even in the worst moments of life think about the things that are good. They would cease this perverse need to monopolize the view of what autism is and relax and celebrate the things that are good in their life. When that intersects with an autistic individual maybe they will find having put down their special glasses of doom and gloom they can see a person and not an epidemic to stop or a crisis. If they could stop for long enough to view that autistic person that caused them to start caring so passionately they might recognize the intersection of their organizational traits with those of autism. They’ve manged to have a communication disorder so severe they drown out all other narratives and a compulsion to carry on doing so despite the obvious lack of social skills.. In the field of black and white thinking they could use that video as an example. I could go on and on but since they sicken me on a real physiological level I won’t. I don’t want their to be such nice overlap nor do I want to seem flip about some of the real challenges that go with autism. To carry on risks losing the contents of my stomach and offending some people neither of which were my goal.

 

So Voldemort Speaks stop talking. You are talking your way straight into reduced profits by the looks of the people who up until this very week supported you. (Not me of course. I have had a healthy loathing for you all along)  Autism is a lot of things including the things from your video but that’s hardly all it is is it? I’ve always given the humans who founded it enough moral credit to think they must suspect they’ve goofed in their view point but think that deviation from the message would be harmful to the “good” they can do so to the much maligned Ms. Wright, I would say if that’s the view that keeps you preaching harmful and toxic points you can stop. Spend more time with that grandson posed awkwardly in some promotional shots. I believe on some level you meant well but that level has been eclipsed. Stop and learn and if you never utter another word we won’t question your intelligence or seek to rid the world of your human self.  We know what’s that like and although some experts say as a population we are devoid of empathy if often feels like the opposite is true. I can have empathy, actual empathy to the point my physiology recognizes it and doesn’t like it much, when I think what it must be like to be you. I know you have not given much thought to what it is like to be me but you have only captured a tiny subsection of all of that.

 

I don’t like attacking anything even though posts that do get more hits. I really don’t like attacking people or pretending I have a clue what life might be like for them. So since I never have attacked your personhood and admit the above is the product entirely of my mind could you not do so for autism?  I am getting kind of tired of a large fraction of what autism is being typing this kind of post. I would rather go back to other pursuits even if it meant no one ever came here again.

 

This is my autism.

 

 

 

 

 

Since Everyone is Posting About Voldemort Speaks

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What follows is a comment I made on a blog. In my usual way I got to the end and then thought hmm that’s long enough to be a blog post so for once I am going to actually post what I said. I apologize to regular readers as it is repetitive of things I have said here in the past. My opinion of this group has not altered much since their founding.

I didn’t want to ignore what went on today as far as either their attempt to further monopolize the debate or on a much happier note my autistic peers rallying to oppose them. Perhaps if Voldemort Speaks didn’t so totally dismiss autistics they might have wondered about the wisdom of meeting the night after the Autistic Self Advocacy Networks gala. They were concerned enough to bring it the DC chief of police the night before but he thankfully was not one who shared a vision of what is in the US a constitutional right of freedom and assembly being violated.

20 years ago I hoped that the internet would improve the whole experience of autism for the next generation of autistics. It has. My own ambitions for it back then were small. I hoped it would be less lonely, that people would know the joy of being with like minded people and so on. That a protest could be put together pretty fast and celebrated the world over was not even on my wish list. A huge thank you to those who spent precious energy and coping skills to put it together, to anticipate obstacles, and to be there.

Thanks also to every parent ally who cheered not only the protestors on but many autistic voices out there.

So on to my comment I guess. I could have written something fresh but my comment was more than long enough. I suppose I seldom make brief ones.:

My own experiences with my own autism have been no picnic. I don’t really believe in high and low functioning because depending when in my life people were deciding that I have been all over the place and I know I am not alone in that. Things looked bleak for quite awhile then better then bleak and repeat.

I don’t question for a moment the anguish my own mother felt throughout my lifespan. That would have been the case though if I were typical as well. The only real difference is since I wasn’t there were no shortage of people painting out my life in broad brush strokes. No one would have tried that for my siblings.

I had a lot of trouble actually accepting my autism since it was until my arthritis got worse pretty well the only thing I couldn’t just triumph over by sheer force of will. I thought of it in pretty much those terms for way too long. Even when I went with the Star Trek model of being like Data it was unhealthy as  didn’t have some of Data’s options including being in a mostly utopian environment where everyone but Data isn’t all that bothered by the fact he is an android. I thought my programming too would be outgrown. It’s embarrassing to say but I carried on thinking that despite a degree in psych from the university rated as Canada’s best and a solid understanding of autism as it didn’t pertain to me. I don’t know why I did. I had enough knowledge to question only the notion that it could be cured. I knew that for anything labelled as pervasive seated in the brain there simply is no such, meaningful thing.

So even at my own most self-loathing I did know that the notion of loving the child but not the autism was pure bull tweet and no good  would come of any approach where people cling to that. I recall so well hearing things said I should never have heard because people dismissed me. Of course that trend persists even now as my stress related loss of speech shows me over and over how much people confuse possessing the ability with intelligence.

Things have been harder than I would like for almost two years straight now. Hard enough to have me in tears of frustration. Hard enough for the issue of whether I should be in a home again to come up but does someone get to pretty well state I am somehow equal to a natural disaster because I cost a lot? No.

For 24 years I was reminded in my work about how often the default narrative seems to be to describe any child in terms of what they cannot do. When the child has a disability there is an alarming tendency for someone, usually a well payed someone, to make what amount to total guesses about what this kid will ever do.

Voldemort Speaks (not going to depart from my long held tradition of not giving them free publicity) has a monetary interest in painting the bleakest possible view. They’ve used every tactic they can think of too exclude actual autistic voices from that the picture they are painting. In recent years they have taken to buying autistics they seem to view as tame enough to say what they want them to say but even that is not working for them.

If there is a need for centralized fundraising then why not do it in a manner that is respectful and doesn’t question any humans right to exist? Why not do it in ways that are actually educational? Right now they are the number one source of bleakness. I have seen my parent friends in tears often enough from sheer exhaustion to know more doom is not needed.

I had a herculean task yesterday. That task was simply tolerating noise and lights long enough to buy four items so I didn’t starve to death before Friday. Sadly that’s not at all hyperbolic. More services are absolutely needed. Treatment is not something I oppose as long as no one is confused about what needs treating. Respite I am 100 percent behind. It would be a sad state of affairs though if we had to subscribe to the Voldemort Speaks vision to get anything. Oh wait since these sort of direct services are still neither a priority nor a huge budget line item even if we totally buy it in every way we don’t have much to gain and our collective humanity to lose.

About my “About”

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In the wake of my quiet little blog seeing a surge of traffic on a post that had already lived the lifespan of most in my blog up until then – two days tops – a lot of things came up that I thought I would be addressing.

There were the obvious ones arising from various comments in places where it was re-blogged and here. Was Voldemort speaks really still so bad? Can a parent cry about there child and still be accepting of their autism? Is support in any form preferable to no support and so on.

Then there were the issues of feeling a sense of responsibility I didn’t feel when only a few people who would read anything I wrote read my blog. Sure the occasional person stumbled in off the wilds of the internet and some pretty bizarre search terms but for the most part it was quiet. The people who came didn’t comment much which in a way made it quieter as I have a lot of problems generating ideas of what to write about next.

Suddenly there was too much to say though. I was grateful to those who made a point of saying how I had influenced their opinion or even where something I had said had helped their child in some specific way. I was humbled that the blogger at :   parentingandstuff.wordpress.com would go from such such a pro Voldemort Speaks position to almost instantly say they had been wrong. It takes courage to say when you are wrong on the internet when everything is forever. Courage to resist the temptation to quietly erase the signs of thoughts you had articulated but have already rethought.

So an avalanche of re-blogs and ping-backs happened. So many that today I saw on some blogs that some of my earlier followers were being made aware of my blog.

I wanted to warn people that not only am I not the consistent of bloggers but that very process of writing that one person referred to as like a freight train doesn’t always result in a piece that can be posted. For the most part something captures my attention. I write until I am done and I am not always done in an orderly manner at all. As often that train like process builds momentum but then goes off on several sidings and a dozen half bogs are born until I save them and surrender for the time being.

Since I have enormous respect for people who say they are wrong right in their blogs. I will get my own out of the way. I was wrong about how my comment would be received that triggered the influx of traffic here. I was afraid it wouldn’t even make it out of moderation and had already sought back up from someone in the “parent camp” to try and make the point I was pretty sure I had failed to.

I backed up my comment as I posted it not really expecting it to escape moderation. I was completely wrong about that and in the process of being completely wrong about that something else came up that someone felt I was completely wrong about.

Someone expressed that they were highly offended that my “about” says I am an adult with autism. That alone apparently making me not worth reading I guess. I had committed a grievous sin of separationist language.  Like any community the autistic one has norms.

For those new to the politics of autism seperationist language is undesirble for the most part because it reinforces the notion that there is a person seperate from their autism and all the things I truly do loathe like the notion one can love a person but hate their autism and so on. I think I have made it pretty clear in everything I write that this is not a position I hold. Still there is a norm and I strayed from it.

Long ago many of us had to stand up for the right to call ourselves autistic versus person with autism. I am old enough to have been there when autistic culture was truly in it’s infancy. When each of us was fighting that sort of battle in whatever other arenas we ventured into – the options being much different then they tended to be limited to IRC channels, mailing lists, and newsgroups and of course real life.

Everything I have ever written about my autism is true to the ideology about why you don’t separate out autism from your being. I’ve always been quite clear that there is no non-autistic me. That the very nature of a pervasive, neurologically based, development disorder makes this impossible. It also means should that magic cure ever appear it would not be possible without curing me of being me. I don’t believe such a thing to be possible and as the price is my personhood I wouldn’t accept it. That too I have made clear I thought. The closest I ever came to being banned from an open autism group was when I objected to the notion I would be perfect in heaven, perfect being not autistic. I was genuinely distressed at the very notion and being younger while generally Jewish views on reserection are a bit sparse couldn’t reconcile that with being as G-d intended me to be. I did manage to get myself banned from a group for females on the spectrum for being too low functioning but that’s another story.

The choice in my about is largely stylistic. It’s quite similar to my IRC bio and contains a string of withs that it is simply awkward to make into a grammatically sensible, smooth flowing piece without them all being withs. Since people who interact with me know how firm I am on the topic and that I refer to myself as autistic and to my fellow autistics far more often than any other phrasing it wasn’t a choice based on ideology at all.

Had it been based on anything other then the smooth flow to be honest I may still have chosen to put it that way. If the aim is to communicate in a way that builds bridges of understanding knowing that the majority of people have been normed to regard non-person first language as wrong and certainly having had to defend myself thousands of times for the non politically correct choice I may still have chosen to go with the wording I have. It wasn’t a conscience choice but knowing that the people who need reaching with my version of what it is to be autistic are not by and large my autistic peers or their friends but those firmly in the clutches of an autistic narrative spun by Voldemort Speaks and other tragedy model organizations I may have chosen it to extend a gentle hand. To not have to be in your face immediately before someone even considers reading anything.

How we phrase things does indeed influence thought but back when autistics were first getting the chance to come together as a global group and the sort of forming, storming and norming that all groups go through would happen this day seemed far away.

So used to having to defend the choice of autistic over person first language, so used to having to reel off the whole long ideology the day when someone might be highly offended at first glance and never really reference the thoughts behind it seemed like it would never come and now that it has like any ideologically mandated limit on how I express myself I am not sure it is a good thing.

The extremism of their being a single right way to portray a reality is no better coming from within than from without. Just as being kicked from a list of people on the spectrum based on people’s mistaken notions of what it means to have been diagnosed with autism not Asperger’s and thus too low functioning isn’t really more palatable  than being thrown off a largely parent driven list. (Again for those newish to autism an exclusion criteria for a diagnosis of Asperger’s is of course a pre-existing diagnosis of autism. Asperger’s was not in the book when I was a kid and well it’s in it’s last month of being in the book now. While it was in the book there was a subset who chose to define it as the best kind of autism to have or the mildest when there is nothing in the definition to suggest that concretely.)

To think I must always phrase things a certain way and any deviation from that expression will not be tolerated well at first I had a sort of “whippersnapper” reaction.

That is being old enough to actually have had to sign and have a loyalty oath administered to see the internet in it’s military only form, having been there near the dawn of autistic culture and part of the group who was articulating these ideas to one another on a global scale for the first time ever I wanted to just dismiss the objection as being from some young lad who didn’t even have to fight that fight to the degree the older part of the adult community did.

I was prepared to take offence. To challenge his right to object. Even to sink so low as to enumerate the many ways the contents of his own blog offended me but when I calmed down I realized that what I was seeing was in some ways a coming to fruition of a hope I had articulated when all that was first starting. That computer and the internet would help people with autism so that the next generation would come to things from an increasing position of strength.

I sometimes read what I thought about computers and the enhanced ability to communicate both within the community and without and think I was overly optimistic. But looked at as something other than a criticism levelled at me by someone who neither knows me, nor read enough of my writing to know how clear I am on the underlying point, this was a person who was so strong in his conviction that autistic was preferable he didn’t have to defend that with the paragraph upon paragraphs that used to be necessary. So while I don’t agree that I don’t have the right to some variation in how I describe myself, or that variation is never desirable even the certainty from which he launched his attack is a big part of what we hoped for for those who came after us.

I’m not a fan of compliance though. Or blind compliance and I think a call to obedience about a semantic point that is as limiting as saying one must always use person-first language, while admiring the self-confidence which with the position was forth I reject it. Once a community hits the point that blind adherence to norms is expected some re-examination of the norms is in order. Being stubborn and not someone who complies for compliance sake I am obviously not going to be embraced by those of my peers this is important for. I say that knowing precisely why it is important but think the message is critical and strong enough to stand up to the very occasional variation.

If I refer to myself as autistic the vast majority of time. If I spend hours and hours of my life articulating the reason why person first language makes no sense for a pervasive development disorder I am not willing to go so far as to say I never have any choice at all. That’s an extremism that I reject.

When it isn’t an ideological choice at all but simply a stylistic one chosen for the flow of the words then I will not have the same right to make a wording choice that every other writer has stripped from me. I am not prepared to think having chosen expressions other than autistic for how I describe myself makes me a bad self-advocate.

In a month that we hope to make about awareness while a restatement of the ideology behind the objection is awareness I find the notion that as a result of that there can be only one right way to say something worth rejecting.

Not because I don’t 100 percent believe in the framework that goes into the choice of autistic over person with autism. There are those who believe that any slide into person first language is just that – a slide. That it undermines the foundation that was so painstakingly laid. I’m not one of those. While I know how much language shapes thought, t o have so little faith in those who read as to think that an occasional deviation from the prescribed norm in referring to myself will cause it all to collapse is to have about as much faith as when I made a copy of my comment on the blog in the first place.

Maybe despite never being the compliant type Passover has me even less so. We didn’t fight this fight for so many years to then have it turned into something that is in an oppressive force. I don’t feel I can communicate any sort of message without the same self-referential freedom others have. I joked on Monday when a friend was feeling a strong sense of all the things that were going “wrong” with what was quite a wonderful Seder that we were not going to celebrate our exodus from slavery by being enslaved by the ritual. Nor can we celebrate neuro-diversity from a position where there is only one right way to express that message.

I know the people who feel so much rests on semantics feel that very strongly but I feel as strongly that the entire message is what matters. In a message that has been consistent about there not being a non autistic person separate from myself I will use variations when they are useful or are the least clunky way to express something.

It takes courage to put your words and ideas into the world. While not being brave on many fronts at this particular point in my life and while not being especially trusting about a lot of things I feel like I can trust that the wording of my about will not dilute my overall message. I’m choosing to think as I say that the strength and confidence with which how wrong I was was expressed is actually what we hoped for but with a hint of caution about what an over-zealous notion of the right way to say something could do.

We are all, each of us, different. We bring to any endeavour be it autism awareness or writing or raising a family unique perspectives. Meaningful awareness requires dialogue. Dialogue isn’t possible when norms are rigidly enforced.

In the blogsphere the value of the dialogue is often that opposite viewpoint meet. Sometimes your viewpoint may wind up being seen as winning a swift battle but that’s hardly ever the case. More often for it to be valuable at all you have to take in the other side and then it can have many possible impacts.

Ariane Zurcher who was the one who got me to ever open up my own blog again by her own courageous demonstration over and over of mistakes made, opinions changed often managed to welcome people on her blog who are still very much at that earlier, non-accepting stage of autism. Who still want the cure. Who are blind to all but the autism and the desire for it to be gone. The process of movement from that view point to acceptance is nearly always slow.

I mentioned in a comment how part of what makes me write is based on a comment from an English teacher I had about the meaning and beauty of turning pain into words and sharing them. For me, the fullest meaning will come if I can have the kind of impact that moves some people from a position of pure blind terror, and sadness about autism to acceptance. I don’t think that can be done by toeing a firm semantic line at all times.

There are extremes expressed about autism. I find the extremes don’t ring very true for me. While my autism is not a tragedy it’s not exactly all a fantastic day at the amusement park either. I accept my autism but actual acceptance doesn’t come in not recognizing the challenges and sticking to an equally as scripted message about how much better it is to be autistic and insistence on the using the same words for that message.

My own autistic life is very hard more often than not. My autism is the best and worst thing about me. That’s my truth. Other people no doubt have a different truth. When I said at the outset one of the things that came up was noticing in the desire to be accepting some parents expressed guilt for when they cried. Don’t.

Actual acceptance to me looks like being able to say, “You know what this is very hard at times, it’s exhausting and I get worn out.” That could be said of life too but within this context being afraid to express perfectly natural things lest they be thought of anti-acceptance worries me.

If I say I cry for myself often will I be driven from the adult autistic community? Probably from the more militant parts. I write this at close to an adult all time low in my ability to function at all though. So while I know deep inside myself there will be a day when I can appreciate the gifts my autism gives me, more than worry about the needed for life capacities failing and adequate support not being there today isn’t that day.

If I say sometimes my autism scares me does that actually work against acceptance or does that free someone else up to say or to admit that it has that effect on them sometimes too? What I want at the end of the day is to be able to say sensory issues so severe combined with executive dysfunction being at an all time high mean I have lost close to half my body weight without someone thinking that makes my existence so miserable and null of meaning that not existing would be preferable. As long as I exist the potential for something meaningful to be derived from my experience exists.

On the whole I like the person I am. I have many strengths and I have needed them. While I accept my autism and am not ashamed of it, the kind of acceptance and understanding I would hope society can get to would have them look at my struggles, and not think of me as in need of a cure, or future expressions of what it is to be  me as in need of prevention but to think wow as a society we could really do better here. We could provide the supports so a person like myself can pursue a healthy and meaningful life. We could choose to spend just a fraction of the funds derived from the dreaded awareness accessories not on making more videos with sad music playing to raise more funds in a never ending cycle but to say that as a society we value people with autism enough to give them the means to live the best life they can.

Right now we are doing badly enough that the conversation keeps coming back to institutional models of care. We are doing this badly because every single time we had appropriate supports in place they were removed without anything equally as appropriate replacing them. Real awareness would be as concerned for the 44 year old autistic experiencing sensory issues so severe they are often starving as for the 4 year old. Autistic people spend the majority of their lives as adults. However you spend your April try to put the notion of autism as a lifespan issue on the agenda.

I have a dog, a computer, dreams of more schooling and my access to all of those things could be in jeopardy not because the supports that would see me making forward progress again don’t exist but because the system which is a reflection of the society that creates it will default to what is easy for it. I’ve spent the majority of my adult life on the sidelines despite having abilities that could have had me as a more active partner in my society. For much of that time I would have required a very minimum of consistent support. Had that support been available when you go from being a child to an adult it’s fairly probable I would be in a position to pay for that support myself now. So, yes, it sucks to have come around in the circle for the umpteenth time to a position where the kind of care that would strip all meaning from my life is all that is on offer. I don’t think that’s good enough. I also don’t think I caused it by referring to myself as an adult with autism in my about. Societal indifference to people like me that has us forever poor and dependent is obviously not going to change over night. It wasn’t created by the occasional deviation from preferred terms and it won’t be overcome by a strident insistence on a sameness in the message we have about autism. Every person is unique. If I choose to have a larger linguistic toolbox at hand to try to make my own case about my autism that’s my choice to make.

It’s not a battle I am exactly fighting from a position of strength at the moment. At any moment the sum total of things I cannot manage for myself could take all choice away. So yes I am tired, not of my autism but of values that essentially discard me. Of an unwillingness of people to even imagine meaningful inclusion instead of token inclusion. Living with autism can be hard but is hoping that raising awareness means one day it isn’t made harder than it needs to be asking too much?

Cry when you need to, laugh when you can. Don’t let anyone limit how you frame your own reality. Change is slow. So slow the things that will help me will likely not be achieved in my lifetime. I’m in this fight largely for those who come after even if some of those who come after rise up and bite me for my choice of words.

I have to celebrate when I learn that something I said made an actual difference to someone with autism because there is little to celebrate in my own reality right now. As long as the ways I phrase things are not a barrier to making that difference I will not change it.

While I worry when I get real about my own life it probably scares the beep out of the parent readers that isn’t the intent. The intent is to show unless we can make progress that has society view autism as the lifespan issue it is this reality I am living could be some child’s future reality.

Don’t think I am devaluing myself when I say I am in this fight largely for those who come after. I say it that because what sustains me is the knowledge that my experience even at rock bottom is indeed helpful to someone. It gives me courage and vast quantities of it are needed. While some well meaning individuals will bestow courage as an attribute on those they see as “afflicted” the reality is I am always running out.

At the end of the day everyone lives the life they were dealt. If it seems like the cards are stacked high against winning since there are no re-deals in life well you find a way to go on. My way to go on is not to blame my autism even when the areas that are falling apart are all pretty autism related. It’s to point out if one were to look only at how I was functioning independent of my ever having spoken, or having made the mistake of letting them get some estimate of my intelligence – based only on where my functioning sits right now a just approach to autism, a truly awareness based approach support would be basic.

Instead I get institutional care suggested or going off to have my family look after me and blank stares if I say my family has their own life and I have had one here in this city for 27 years so I would prefer to carry on with my life, with my goals and with my dreams. However grim the basics look I know the only sustenance that helps is dreams.

When I was young and energetic and a life closer to what I hoped still seemed within grasp I had energy to spare. I still have hopes though. The life I will have is something I keep having to re-envision as some things I dreamt of move permanently out of range but as I play out the life I have I do so hoping that over times more dreams of autistics are realized. That a strength based model will replace a tragedy one and that one day there won’t be more mes not because autism has been eradicated but because autistics are supported and encouraged to have full and rich lives. Not just managed, or warehoused , or set beside the path of life. That one day continuous access to appropriate supports will be a battle won and no one ever has to sit with the choice of dying slowly or giving up their dreams. It seems a modest enough dream. Society seems to have a different opinion. Until I am no longer or that dream is realized I will try to express whatever I think needs expressing to move that forward and to serve the greater good. I don’t think that as a life choice that’s much different from any other ethical being. Because my life is very much at stake whether literally or as the kind of life worth having, I will be obstinate about any attempt to dictate the words I must use. Everyone can feel free to be just as obstinate in their own word choice. Words are power and part of the power rests in a choice. If 44 years of autistic life hasn’t earned me the right to switch things up a bit when describing my own reality well that’s a tyranny of ideology I won’t submit to. It’s possible to believe in an idea but reject the imposition of it.

In theory I believe democracy is the right choice for some countries for example. I find the notion of imposing democracy to be somewhat counter to that very ideal just as I find the imposing of a single way to describe autism to be contrary to the whole point of describing it. To my younger, autistic brethren who can feel such offence reflexively by my description of myself well that’s a debate I was part of. That’s an ideology I live not by seeking out reasons to take offense based on small deviations from the semantic cultural norm but by trying to reach out. Because meaningful change to autistic reality can only happen in partnership with the neurotypical majority that is going to mean sometimes singing to the most reluctant melodies of change in terms they can accept. That is not like I said at the outset why my about is phrased as it is but sometimes it will be a deliberate choice for that very reason.

Let’s not be so focussed on the need to manage the message that we too become a force of oppresion. The reason you hold a position can only be strengthened by challenges to it so if my errant ways in my “about” made someone more sure of why autistic is the preferred term then that’s good I think. Certainty that it is the preferred term though just expressed in the same uniform way and the same accusatory phrases as always in the absence of the kind of arguments that were needed to advance the cause do make me worry that there are those who will seek to have people toe a linguistic line without fully understanding why. I am not saying that was even the case with the person who objected here as it’s the second time this year I’ve been challenged from within the community over deviation from semnatic norms. Being autistic doesn’t make us Borg – although that would be cool in a twisted kind of way. There is room to challenge each other without undermining each other. To celebrate diversity by being diverse.

So one of these days I will get to the other things this whole experience brought up. The questions that spoke to me more. I didn’t want to tackle those things though only to be handed an infraction card for the way I write about those things.

Warning April is coming!

by

It’s that time of year again. April fast approaches and with it the scramble to not so much become aware of autism but to be seen to be aware. Like any condition where being aware of it is “cool” there will be the usual Facebook things. For autism for whatever reason the colour of choice is blue. Like cancer awareness, autism awareness is an industry in and of itself.

You can buy blue accessories to show the world how aware you are. Along with any other number of things that really don’t do much for actual autistics at all. The foundation that shall not be named (I have chosen to treat this especially noxious group much like Voldemort is in the Harry Potter universe) will make a very hefty sum of money in April as will many other groups.  The raise money for autism trend is spreading so you can buy all sorts of things where a portion of the profits go towards something autism related. The rest of the profits of course are exactly that.

Perhaps the most controversial awareness thing right now though was a push to get people to spend two hours being silent with the premise that would give them an idea of what it is to be a non-verbal autistic. It was called The Six Degree Project https://www.facebook.com/TheSixDegreeProject . Proceeds from some dashing scarves – since you can’t have awareness without accessories these days go to the Canadian version of the foundation that shall not be named. While slightly less noxious than the original version that’s the easy thing to object to so let’s get that out of the way and tackle head on why this does nothing for autism awareness.

The ability to speak is only a tiny fraction of communication. It’s communication that is impaired in autism. Over-valuing speech as a component of communication or of autism for that matter is both bad science and a huge step backwards. The ability to produce speech is one of the more straightforward bits of communication. Some do, some don’t and some fall somewhere in between.  Autistics experience communication issues of a wide variety far beyond their capacity to produce speech.

Let’s look though at speech. There is a tendency to view those who are non-speaking as more autistic somehow or more severe. It’s a tendency not a fact. A tendency that some non-speaking people have challenged quite feriously.

This campaign is seen as very legitimate and heart warming because it is proposed on the Facebook page of someone who is not speaking. This alone is enough for people to label her severe. In the NT universe not speaking somehow grants additional autism credibilty whereas in autistic culture it is the quality of your ideas and how you express them that grants it. I once watched a documentary about someone I had known on a list serve for years and I had never actually known they didn’t speak. They were not viewed as less capable or more severe than any one else within our group. In fact they were one of the obvious leaders in the group that someone might pick out from the outside as being a leader.  It doesn’t seem to matter to the people describing this person as severe that she is able to post on Facebook or come up with these ideas. While that in itself has been debated I don’t see that as a productive path to go down. Never having heard of this person or project until two days ago I will stick to why a few hours of not speaking in no ways simulates being autistic.

My speech was delayed. A number of complicating factors make it hard to know how much of it was autism and how much was other reasons. In adulthood I consider myself unreliably verbal. That’s the strange thing about the focus on speech is whether a person is verbal or not is one of the first things that gets asked. It’s treated as if there are only two options despite the kind of issues I have not being all that rare that having obtained speech that speech might be unreliable is not discussed much. People say autistics think in black and white but so much about the condition is treated that way when we ourselves say that the reality is more complicated. I guess it’s understandable. If society puts a high premium on speech and attaches all sorts of meanings to the ability to do so that it doesn’t really have you don’t want to hear about the gray area. It’s a bit depressing isn’t it that someone could spend time in speech therapy, by middle aged and still have the ability to speak not be reliable. It’s usually there but there is that uncertainty. Uncertainty isn’t nice so who wants to hear that?

So back to the whole you can spend two hours choosing to be silent (while wearing an expensive blue scarf) and know what it is to be autistic. I have trouble understanding how it even makes sense. Clearly all you are experiencing is not talking. Not only not talking but choosing to not talk.

An actual autistic person might also be having trouble understanding what is being said around them, coping wth the speed with which things get said, if they understand the words many of the subtle things that actually make up the bulk of communication may be lost on them or require a great deal of effort to work out.

Communication is impaired for all people with autism and while progress may be made in various areas throughout a lifespan  it remains impaired to some degree by definition. For autistics communication will involve work and interpretation having to go on that the neurologically typical simply don’t experience. It’s taxing and exhausting and even if you can speak you may not be able to rely on that speech being available when you need it to be or even an option in some situations.

If you know you can’t speak and no one expects you to that’s a fair bit less stressful than unreliable speech. I remember the time before I spoke at all and the time I seldom spoke as relatively “nice” times by comparison to having to react to the sudden absence of a capacity people think I have. It usually departs in reaction to stress but the build up of stressors isn’t always clear to me so occasionally I have been completely oblivious to the fact it was about to fail me. The sudden inability to speak has risked my health at times, and having to factor in that this could happen to a careplan skews how people view me.

Still as stressful as that is that’s only one aspect of my autism. Only one aspect of anyone’s autism. So if I was purely non-speaking and you were trying to become more aware of what my life is like just opting out of talking would barely scratch the surface.

How would you simulate having to guess if people were joking or not? How would you experience the feelings of shame and stupidity that sometimes happen when you guess wrong? The inability to tell if someone is mad at you or not? If you did speak people suddenly getting mad at you because of an issue with your tone of voice? If you were trying to simulate life for the unreliably verbal how to stimulate the panic and frustration when you need those words and they are not there or the rush to wrap up a conversation when you feel the stress building and suspect you will soon be without words.

What about the lovely experience which I have described before of people making assumptions about your intelligence based on the absence of speech? If you have never heard the care of yourself compared to how a vet cares for an animal you haven’t experienced life in these shoes.

That’s just a small sampling of communication related issues since speech falls in that category but it’s such a small part of the overall picture.

How about dealing with whatever combination of communication difficulties you have while simultaneously having to deal with being unsure socially, and overwhelmed on a sensory level.

Not talking is not going to make you understand the social isolation that accompanies autism. Imagine always observing a world that appears to contain people like you but never quite being able to “crack the code”. Never really understanding those people who look like you but move smoothly in the world, knowing what to say and do. Who seem meant for the planet you live on in a way you are not. No amount of observing them will make you one of them and that’s a painful thing to live with. No hours spent in silence will give you any understanding of this.

The people who are communicating their objections most clearly and most specifically about the project are of course autistic. Of course you ask? Wait I thought there was a communication problem with autism. I thought that was your whole objection that speech is a tiny part of communication which is a tiny part of autism. Yes. Which is why those who have lived their whole life with it understood that the communication issue was on their side will communicate the clearest. We know exactly what communication mistakes get made and for the most part try not to make them. So although generalizations are being flung about it’s not by those on the spectrum. For objecting we get to be told we are vilifying a person even though people have been very clear that it is the project we object to and not the person. A distinction that isn’t always made when people speak about autistic self-advocates. Those badly behaving autistics do get villified almost daily. We get to watch the consequences to their health and wonder what kind of world do we live in when some of that money those dashing blue scarves, and puzzle ribbons and all the paraphenalia with which people have proclaimed their autism awareness goes to support attacks on adults with autism. So we are all very careful to say it’s the project not the person we are objecting to but our caution is not noted. We have failed to follow the agenda.

If you read the thread on the Facebook page you could actually get a better notion of what it is really like to be voiceless. To be voiceless is not the same as to not be able to speak because what you see on the page is a lot of politely written, careful to not insult the person, messages about why this is inadequate and what you see over and over again on the neurologically typical end is the kind of will-full fingers in the ears la-la-lala we can’t hear you,  that is the true root of our voicelessness.

Autism is in industry and nothing threatens that industry quite as much as listening to those who actually live it. Those who live it and won’t be poster people to raise money for an agenda we don’t support.  It’s not an inability to speak or even a communication issue with the autistic person that leaves us without a voice in the month supposedly about us. It’s that people only want to listen to a handful of pet autistics. Those that best fit the image that raises the money. Those autistics that people can respond to with glib enthusiasm and purchases funding research into prevention of autism. They, you see, manage to be heart-warming while our blood goes cold in the face of the enthusiastic fund-raising supporting preventing more people like us. The well behaved ones appear to be being exploited but that’s only my opinion. I can’t know one way or the other anything about such a carefully managed presentation. Within the adult autistic community the internet has given us the ability to be a community and some of us have known each other a long time while new media bring new comrades to our lives, it’s a long fight overall. A fight to have an actual voice. Not because some of us can’t speak but because too many people don’t want to hear what is being said.

We know how this will end. April will march on with an unrelenting supply of events like this. Those of us who protest will be called names, and insulted. While we may say “nothing about us without us”. and may even be able to claim some victories on that front (quickly pounced upon by the Voldemort foundation of course) what won’t happen in the month of April is that more people will be interested in an honest version of life with autism versus cute blue accessories and the appearance of being autism aware.

Every one of us not toeing the April agenda set by the Voldemort Foundation will be told several thousand times how lucky we are to be able to express ourselves. Lucky? Way to dismiss the herculean effort that had to be put into that. Lucky when no one wants to hear it anyway? Lucky when the way it is used is sometimes synonymous with not being as autistic as so and so or not really being autistic?  Our right to speak about our experience will be questioned. How legitimately autistic some are will no doubt come up. That the very reason we are objecting is precisely because some cannot object  is lost on those who feel the need to remind us of this. I was about to say you wouldn’t trivilize and monetize other conditions this way but of course it happens with alarming frequency. Still it doesn’t get to happen about autism without at least some fighting back. That the majority view of the adult community will be largely ignored isn’t news to any of us. We’ve lived through a fair few Aprils since someone saw the cash potential in autism.

April will be a nice illustration of communication disorder in action for sure but not because people are mimicking the inability to speak. It’s always a nice show of a receptive communication disorder and with more than a week of March to go this April is not disappointing that way.