Assumptions

Can I do everything or nothing today?

What? Why are you surprised by me asking? I'm told this, aren't I? I'm told whether I can do anything I'm asked, or whether I shouldn't even try because I can't manage. I'm told whether my capabilities mean I have no impairments, or my impairments mean I have no capabilities. It can't be anything in between of course.

So, tell me, which are you assuming about me today?

Is it the ever-common, because you are verbal, you can always communicate everything you want?
Or maybe, the if you can type, then you can do all sorts of self-care?

Is it that being in a relationship means all social interactions are a breeze?
Or that holding a job means that all impairments melt away, and no accommodations are necessary?

Is it that having meltdowns means that I will lash out and hurt you?
Or that I choose to hurt people when I shutdown, not being able to reply?

Is it that walking in public alone means that my body is reliable?
Or that because I need help to get through a city, I am incompetent and unintelligent?

Is it that I'm a liar when I talk about myself?
Is it that I cannot know my own experiences, or that someone like me can never be trusted to speak the truth?

Is it that I'm not allowed to ask for help, and any excuse is to be found?
Is it that I am too lazy to try?

Do you have to assume that it is impossible to be capable of much and still struggle with things you find simple?
Can you not understand that varying capabilities are normal anyways, we just take it to a further degree, to a degree you don't understand?
Am I just so uncanny valley to not be human enough to be able to have a voice to say things about myself?

So I ask again, what am I capable of today?

Expectations and the Implication Thereof

Another loud day. Another day where I figure out what I'm doing on the fly. Another day where I'm to do that while people shout around me. But that's what I'm supposed to do, I'm not really impaired at this.

I do the same thing, day to day, whether or not they want me to. I know there are limits from this. I know that that there are other things they'd want me to do, but this is always helpful, and always something I can do. It's always something I can remember before I can't think. I fall into safe space of understanding. But when we finish and I'm expected to do something else...that's usually when its loudest. That's when my head is spinning. That's when I don't know where I am. That's when I try to do something, anything, while I don't know what is going on. That's when I need a quiet space to myself for a sensory retreat to have a chance at making it farther in the day. But, can I get that?

I'm not given it. I have to take it for myself, leaving, and finding a spot. Holding myself close, in a quiet room, hoping it will remain quiet. Trying to recenter myself, trying to find my way back to the world, before I need to re-enter their world. Why am I not given this? Why can't I just have these few moments to myself? Why do I need to rush at someone else's schedule, or go out of my way places where I do not know where I am in such a body? Why can't they find ways to meet me when I work too hard to meet them.

In so many ways, I'm expected to meet the expectations of others about what I can and can't do, that when someone stops and asks "could something help you" or notices when I'm getting agitated, it means a lot. Things which shouldn't mean so much, mean the difference between being unable to face activities I want to do, and being capable of it, because now I have had someone else take up some of the effort, usually at little cost of their own.

In so many ways, these expectations surround me, meaning no matter how much I'm not bothering to try to look neurotypical, it does not matter. There are still perceptions of ability that I am always capable of finding my way around a building in their eyes, and I must find a way to manage or I'm left with only myself falling into pieces and still no help.

Listen

When someone speaks, or types, or flaps their hands, listen. When someone tells you what they need to get through the day, or when someone tells you that they can't handle what is happening, then listen. When someone tells you that they don't mind who they are, that they actually are rather happy, then listen. When someone asks for acceptance, please, listen.

How many times do these things need to be said? Shouldn't it be straightforward for someone to say "Hey, I rather like who I am" and to have people take this seriously. Or to have someone say "maybe it'd be easier for both of us if you just play the music quieter", and for people to do this.

Wouldn't it make sense for people to be able to have thoughts about themselves? And wouldn't it make sense to pay attention to all the communication, whether or not it is spoken?

I don't know, it seems straightforward to me. But, it seems that people don't know how to listen.

It seems that they don't know what is around to hear and what is around not to. That there is communication outside speech seems to be a challenge to understand, and learning how to read it takes time; yet at the same time there is an expectation of normal social cues. That there are voices speaking out saying "please, listen to me, I want to speak about my own disorder", is lost, and they don't find them or hear them; and when the few get through, its drowned out in their expectations of what they already understand to be their truth.

So maybe, its a process, and maybe its the first step. Learning to listen.
So, that's what I ask. Can you try to do that? Learn how to listen.
And then, listen to people who are autistic.
What do they say?
It won't all be agreement.
It won't all be the same.
But there will be people talking out about themselves, what they like, what they don't like, what they want, and how they feel. And they should be listened to.

Myself?
I want to be able to be me without feeling like I'm fighting people every day by existing.
I want people to notice when I need help, and offer it.
I want to be respected, rather than spoken over because of who I am.
I want to thrive.
And I want to find my way in the world.

A Step of Red

Bluewashed.

The lights go up changing the color of the world and saying "I am aware of the 'horror'".

Pity for the parents while the people are told "you're ruining the lives of everyone around you"

I swing, trying to help myself. Trying to do what others will not, while inside I'm crumbling from the words they are saying. Trying to find myself having lost how to share, with thing after thing thrown at me.

My words. My words mean nothing. My words that I try so hard to share. They are lost in the tide of bluewashing, and so I try to regulate.

But then...Along side all of this, there is a step. Someone who listens. Someone who shows they will hear my voice.

Simply, a step of red.

Thank you for hearing me.

Neurodiversity [and disability]

There was a post on wrongplanet asking about neurodiversity and disability. Are they mutually exclusive? How do they relate?

And really, looking at how people talk about it, it doesn't seem like people understand disability as part of neurodiversity.

So I responded. I responded the following:

Neurodiversity is about saying that disability doesn't mean lesser.

I am disabled. I am not a lesser person because of my disability. I cannot do everything that others can. I will never be able to. I will always have needs that others will not. I will always be disabled and not just different.

But that doesn't mean that I'm not good enough. It doesn't mean that I'm not human. It doesn't mean I'm less than someone who's not disabled. It doesn't mean that I need to be cured.

It means that I'm a disabled person.

And neurodiversity means embracing those differences. All of them. Disabled or not. It means saying that someone who needs to read to learn and someone who need to listen to learn both matter. It means someone who can't see a florescent light without getting a migraine matters. It means that someone who needs to use tools to remember what they're doing day to day matters. It means someone who doesn't know how to interact socially matters. It means that we're all people.

It means that disability isn't being broken. It means that disability isn't being wrong.

But its a concept larger than disability.

It means that being different isn't being wrong. Disabled or not.

That's what it means to me.

I'm disabled. I'm not less than someone who's not. I'm just me.

And people agreed. And people disagreed. People either said that high functioning autistic people weren't disabled, or they liked what I said.

But disability is what it comes down to. And its a scary word. And it doesn't have to be a scary word. An neurodiversity is saying its not a scary word.

I am not capable of the same things others are. I just cannot do things others can. This is not a question. This is just a statement. There are things I cannot do. There are major things I cannot do. The fact that its not a big deal doesn't matter. The fact that there's a lot I can do doesn't matter. The fact that I work around it doesn't matter. There are things I can't do.

That's what disability means - that there are things you are limited in doing or can't do. Not that you can't do anything. Not that you aren't good enough. None of that. I am disabled. I am disabled by the same stuff that calls me autistic. By the stuff that makes me deal with a sensory system most people can't imagine, and by the stuff that makes my nonverbal communication a mess.

But neurodiversity says I'm good despite that. Neurodiversity says I'm not wrong. Neurodiversity says embrace those differences because differences are good, even if it means I'm disabled. Disability isn't wrong . I might not be capable of everything. But I'm capable of enough.

I'm capable of being happy. I'm capable of enjoying life. I'm capable of making a difference. Sure, I need help. Sure I'm not capable of everything that's normal. That doesn't matter. I'm not a lesser human despite that. I don't need "fixed". I don't need pitied.

I need helped. I need accepted. I need treated like another person, and a person who's needs aren't the same as everyone else's. I need acknowledged. I need to be me not someone else.

So yes, I'm disabled. But accept me anyways. I'm not broken. I'm just disabled. And disability doesn't have to be scary.