Tag: autistic self-advocacy

Society does not treat disabled people with the compassion, respect or listening ear with which it treats our abusers.

After the dim spiral I had been on in the previous months, which I now recognise as a mixture of depression, and anxiety, and the last sputterings of autistic burnout, this show was exactly what I needed to see.

I shudder at the thought of it being an option to other vulnerable young autistic people, never giving them the chance they deserve to come through it and learn a sense of pride in who they are. 

‘Autism Awareness’ has been created without autistic people, and even though the door is being nudged open to let us in, we’re still stuck at the back of the room whilst the rich powerful neurotypical people hog the stage

Cooperation between autistic and neurotypical people is important. But we must be vigilant against the attitude that autistic people are obligated to educate.

A year ago, I had the privilege of joining three other autistic women to film a segment for a Channel 4 documentary.

In an age where cuts to support are justified by shifting the goalposts of ‘need’ , the Paralympics are held up as an example of what all disabled people ‘could’ achieve with a little bit of spunk and a can-do attitude.

Mainstream political concern about mental illness, neurodivergence and the relevant support systems exists only as a cover for an unwillingness to properly call out white male violence. 

I feel like an imposter in my own neurotype. And, in a room full of people I know I belong with, I find myself thinking: but what if I don’t?

But why, oh why, was I locked in a toilet doing my ‘calming down’ checklist in the middle of the afternoon? Two words: forced socialisation. 

Seeing Norbert Neurotypical – with his banking job and his wife and his baby and his mortgage and his vegetable couscous lunch – just makes me feel like a fraud playing at being an adult .

I will not stand by and watch the bastardisation of a word that is part of my very definition.