(Quick Note to the people following This is not the completed project by any means this is just an overview of the half finished Project An Autism Autobiography that I have been working on for a while the first actual part comes some time in the next week. Also sorry for the weird formatting and caps I’ll get it fixed by Tomorrow hopefully)
People will often say you don’t look like you’re *Autistic* as if it’s just a compliment. Will honestly say things like disability superpower without realizing the effect of that statement. Will fling around the terms “high functioning”, “low functioning”, “average functioning’ without any understanding of the complexity of the situations or how those terms affect the people labeled as such. Will even praise the “useful” special interest or talents such as “Math and Science autism” While not praising (at leas not as much) less traditional forms like Music, Art, or language And/or literature type of autism (the last of the three being the worst represented), and even worse for “weirder special interests” I guess because it not seen as, as awe inspiring, and are easy to fit into the picture of what pop culture still somewhat actually believes to be autism. Right alongside can’t read direct boundaries at all, and will outright ignore those that have been established as such, but it’s supposedly okay because they’re autistic. And those are most allies, as with any allies I’m aware it’s hard to understand but in certain cases (such as mine) it is okay to ask as long as it’s not outright rude or intrusive, and if you know the person well enough you should know what’s okay and not okay with them including if it’s okay ask the questions in the first place. But in case you need an autistic persons personal Opinion (as well as anecdotes when appropriate and only about myself), and this is one persons opinion remember autism is a spectrum for a reason, and everyone experiences things differently. Now let’s get into what I’ll be discussing.
Autism In My Words: What It Means To Be Autistic To Me
First up, what does it mean to me to be autistic myself? And I’ll be extremely honest with y’all I don’t know. It’s like any time I’m asked what being trans means to me, or emotionally based questions I just don’t have the answers to. Because for me it sometimes usually just feels like I just sort of am those I am a transmasculine individual. I am autistic. It’s just always some innate feeling of difference in gender when it comes to being trans. And some testing and some other feelings if just being mentally different that allow me to understand yeah I’m autistic. But okay in the case of my Autism I can sort of try to describe it. Though not gender because that was just the best example I could come up with and it’s neither here nor there right now. I’ll explain more in the section about my autism and what it feels like to have grown up with it, and how it’s not innately better or worse, just different as the title suggests.
Autism “Superpowers” and Comments That Say The Opposite
Here be the comments, the positive, the negative, and the supposedly positive (that are actually kinda degrading to at least one of us). Here I discuss how autism though it can be awesome can also have some negative effects on the people, and how I feel I should be allowed to say that without it becoming an ‘Aw but I hardly notice’ moment for certain people with my reasoning coming in said chapter (or section depending on how much energy I end up pouring into this project). As well as how I feel actually feel best affirmed as an autistic Individual.
Functioning Labels: Why They Suck..
To put it mildly Functioning labels are kinda literally the worst, and tells you Minimal compared to talking about their support needs and are way more heavy and often assuming than actually knowing… ya know? I’ll go deeper into my feelings on both and how they’ve each affected me as a person trying to grow and get better like any other human, and how dehumanizing anyone is something as bogus and outdated as functioning labels themselves.
Big Wide Special Interest Info Dump (not in the way you think)
Come with me as I run the gauntlet of trying to tell you about my various “useless” special interests in as little detail as I can do so as to avoid issues if this ever ends up published throughout my life without getting sucked into any one of them once again. Then I explain how oh yeah special interest and “savant syndrome” aren’t limited to what it useful to general populace. I will not get into what I generally consider harmful or what is generally considered harmful, because those are topics I don’t feel emotionally equipped to handle at all though rest assured I’m aware of where the general limit lies. I will however get involved in the conversation about how saying grow up to a person who likes Power Rangers is about as useful as calling a “Math and Science” Autism person to a dork/nerd/geek it’s not gonna change in any helpful way and you’ll look like a jerk-face. And other such arguments are also going to be discussed about special Interests as well.
Autism In Pop Culture: What *every US American grew up with at my age
Here’s two controversial opinions 1) Almost all autism portales in pop culture are either bad or inconsequential; 2) Not all of those that are bad start out bad (just most). In one of the last two sections here I’ll describe what I as a Us American growing up sort of half in the 2000s other half in the 2010s (although by the end of that I was highly depressed and not really paying attention to anything except was on in my head) had for pop culture “autism” that I noticed. I’ll discuss the lack of representation (Canon or otherwise) in a lot of areas, and the quality of overall representation I had seen as a child as well as the one or two things I’ve seen now. And when I say see, I usually mean briefly glanced over and hoped it didn’t make a train wreck of what people understood of autistic folks like myself because ouch did some do that.
Intersectionality: Autism+ LGBTQ + Mental Illness+ Less “Unique” But Equally Important Stuff
Here will be the last section of what I consider important to note about myself and my autism as well as how it overlaps with other part of me to shape my personal experience with things like media, my opinions on special interests and functioning labels and passively hurtful comments, and shapes me in understanding my autism.
Here I’ll discuss what it means to me to be Autistic and LGBTQ+, Autistic and Bipolar, Autistic and Someone who believes in a christian god (though that one is complicated), and how where I grew up (and who I grew up with) across the years deeply affected me in all of these areas. I will finish by stating what I believe this adds up to in myself, and how I view my Autism, How I view my self, and how I view the world around me, before segwaying to my closing section and statement. So Yeah…
Atlas Ez Poetry 