sjisableist:

bugbrennan:

fracturedrefuge:

(TW: Rape, abuse)

And I have come to a conclusion.

I really don’t want to live on the same planet.

I’m sitting here in tears, my stomach pushing bile up my throat, my chest physically hurting from the emotional pain I am in.

It is every bad thing anyone has ever said to me.

It is a person…

Please get therapy.

“Because mentally ill shouldn’t be on Tumblr, amirite? They’re less than human slags!”

Yeah, I know how that goes. I passed for reasons similar to yours, and it was hard. Much happier letting myself flap :) Also happier writing about all this crud to get it out, since it can be extremely stressful. I eventually needed to feel safe in my own skin more than I needed everyone else to think I was normal… Hence “I Hid.”

And since all you tumbler folk have links to your blogs automatically, I’ll do mine manually. yesthattoo.blogspot.com.

Of course it’s possible. Doesn’t mean it should be necessary or even encouraged.

Not sure exactly how relevant this is, but here ya go.

I Hid

I knew.

I knew what I was, what I still am.

I say what because so many of you see, well, that, as a what, not a who.

So I hid.

I hid because I knew.

I knew what would happen if anyone found out.

I knew that if anyone who could diagnose me, who could label me, ever got near me,

the game would be up in a moment.

I knew what they did with kids like me. With the Autistic kids.

We didn’t take hard classes. We didn’t even take normal classes.

What we could do was ignored to make the time to get us the abuses we needed.

But it wasn’t called abuse. If you’re autistic, it’s “therapy.”

So I hid.

I passed.

Not for “normal,” of course. I could never have done that.

But I could pass for merely weird as long as I avoided the people who thought they were helping.

If you’re just weird, you can take whatever classes you want.

If you’re just weird, no one bats an eye when you have two pairs of pliers in your bag.

If you’re just weird, you can spend a month in another country.

All that’s OK, as long as you’re just weird, not Autistic.

So I hid.

I had “quiet hands,” and no one even had to hold them down.

If no one knows you move like an Autistic, you don’t, right?

I looked at people’s foreheads.

No one notices you’re not looking them in the eye if you look at their foreheads.

I made sure my teachers knew I was smart.

The top of the class can’t be Autistic, right?

I was hiding.

But someone noticed anyways.

By then, I was in high school.

In high school, it’s harder to make you do anything, unless you’re already not quite human.

They have to convince your parents to force the issue if you don’t want to be evaluated.

Who’s going to convince parents who went through life with the picture of autism most of us still have?

The kid in the corner who doesn’t talk or look you in the eye, who bangs his head on the wall?

He’s autistic.

The girl who’s been doing her best to pass for merely weird, who flaps her hands when excited?

Not autistic.

Hiding was working. Not going was working.

I kept hiding.

Because I knew.

I knew that even in high school, that label would give them too much power.

I knew that the Autistic needed to be made normal in ways the merely weird could escape.

I knew that we were somehow broken and needed fixing.

I didn’t want to be fixed.

I kept hiding.

The problem is, hiding yourself is hard.

Maybe some people can do it forever.

I can’t.

All the problems are still there, and I’m terrified.

I’m terrified because I still know.

I know I’ll be an object of pity.

I know that some people will still see me as less human.

I know those same people will see me as broken.

I know they’ll try to break the person I am in order to fix the person I never was.

I know they’ll think I’m trapped in the shell of Autism, not the shell of normalcy they want to force me into.

I know I’ll be “too Autistic to understand,” except when I’m “not Autistic enough.”

I know I’ll be ignored.

But I also know that nothing will change unless we make it change, and those same people won’t.

So I know that I have to do it.

I guess I can’t hide anymore.

Alyssa Zisk

I work under the Creative Commons- go ahead and share for free as long as you cite me, but no making money off my work without my written permission! I can be reached at ahzisk@gmail.com if you want said permission, which I will probably give if I get a cut.

Oh, I don’t disagree, but it’s more or less a way of venting frustration as opposed to literal logic.

Parents constantly telling you to stop stimming, stop info-dumping, even getting beat for it.

nobody-nowhere:

I never know how to respond when friends/acquaintances say “I love you” to me.

I used to go with an awkward pause, and then “uhhh, thank you.” Eventually, I switched over to “thanks, you too” or “I love you too” (even when I don’t mean it), but it’s just so awkward and uncomfortable and just… blerrrrg.

I can never tell what people mean by it. Are they serious? Do they mean it? Is “I love you” a substitute for “that thing you just said/did was really awesome”? Because a lot of times it seems like it is, and that’s weird. And then I feel awkward because “love” and “in love” are obviously two very different things, and I’m always afraid people will be confused about which one I mean, even if they’re the first to say they love me. Once again, blerg.

Interpersonal communication is so unbelievably awkward and uncomfortable all the time.

Also, this is relevant because I am still trying to formulate a socially acceptable to an “I love you!” text message that I received an hour ago.

If they’re actively repressed, sure. 

lorycannotsupinate:

maybe they should make him wear better fitting shirts.

Maybe the reason why he’s such an asshole is because those shirts are so tight they touch his skin and drive him nuts.

If he wore slightly baggier clothes, he’d be in a better mood and he’d be more pleasant.

Important things.

deaf-aspie:

This is what allism looks like….my brother, Sam. He’s so precious and beautiful <3 His patience with the world makes me thank God for his existence and how amazingful he is! I wish I could be allistic for a day so maybe I could understand his peaceful, childlike mind <3 ILU Sammy! Maybe someday you’ll be autistic like me!