“Person with Autism” is the language police getting up in my face and yelling “I KNOW YOU’RE STILL IN THERE SOMEWHERE, BOBBY! DON’T GIVE UP!” while I grit my teeth and mutter “My name is Luka and I keep trying to tell you that you are standing on my foot.”

willow-wanderings:

vastderp:

the-real-seebs:

beakerdragon:

i really do. <3

Do you love them enough to ask how they feel about the “with autism” language? Because I think I’ve met maybe one autistic person ever who doesn’t find it offensive.

no see he loves them with (his) autism.

like, they lie there in bed all sparkly-eyed while he recites a list of concert dates for an 80s butt rock band he doesn’t even listen to. 

it’s like foreplay for us.

LOL at people who get butthurt over which order of the words is more/less offensive. There’s nothing wrong with that t-shirt design, the sentence structure is just fine.

People need to learn how the freaking english language works.

Exempli gratia:

If I have a kid who can paint/draw/sing/write stories/etc. then I have an artistic kid… or I could say that I have a kid who’s an artist.
Which one you use depends on the grammatical context of the words, not the political context. Political context can go piss up a rope.

“Oh my Jimmy he just can’t keep himself away from those water colours; I have such an artistic kid.”
VS.
“You have an artistic child? Wow, you know I also have a kid who’s an artist.”

CONTEXT. GRAMMAR. LEARN IT.

I’m not going to get bent out of shape going “How dare you say my child is artistic?! As if the art is the only thing about them! NO, they’re a child who’s an artist.”

Do you hear how stupid that sounds? That’s what you sound like. The order of words does not assign importance or precedence to them. ENGLISH DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY.

I don’t want people who are so easily offended by basic English grammatical structure (because they’re morons who can’t tell the difference between sentence structure and an insult) to be speaking as representatives of how I want to be spoken and/or referred to.

Off is the general direction in which I wish you to fuck.

No, “person with autism” versus “autistic person” is Actually A Thing.

It’s called “people-first language” and it was conceived specifically to make a distinction between a person and their autism. It’s pure politics from a movement that seeks to solve the autism problem by making the autistic parts of us not exist anymore.

People-first language has become widely accepted, over the protestation of a whole lot of autistics, to the point where non-autistics regularly correct us for using the term “autistic person” because accepting autism as part of your identity is now a slur. It’s so negative that you get the impression you can’t even tell someone you have autism unless you clarify that you are a person immediately before using the word.

It’s very well-intentioned, yes, but it’s incendiary. People first language is clumsy and prescriptivist and it pisses off all the autistic people I know because of its constant reminder that many non-autistics prefer to believe our terrible affliction is covering up or crippling the perfectly normal person we could have been, and who hides somewhere underneath the autism.

the-real-seebs:

beakerdragon:

i really do. <3

Do you love them enough to ask how they feel about the “with autism” language? Because I think I’ve met maybe one autistic person ever who doesn’t find it offensive.

no see he loves them with (his) autism.

like, they lie there in bed all sparkly-eyed while he recites a list of concert dates for an 80s butt rock band he doesn’t even listen to. 

it’s like foreplay for us.

concertoinc4:

vastderp:

vastderp:

A handy flyer about Autism Speaks.

[Source]

[PDF] Direct link.

adding a direct link to the PDF version since finding it on their site was really hard.

Is it just me, or did anyone else balk at the implications of prenatal testing in reference to “prevention?”  Because that seems to mean prenatal testing to check for traits of autism (kind of like the Down Syndrome thing) and thus painting them as a reason to abort the child.  That is one of the most horrible, ableist practices that is currently acceptable in society.  If I’m wrong, you let me know.

Then again, this whole organization seems to be pretty ableist anyway.

oh, their eugenics agenda is pretty strong. their main goal is the eradication of autism.

now, i will never ever speculate on the matter of parents who would terminate on the basis of prenatal tests of any kind, because it’s not my pregnancy. But with AS, we have an organization that deliberately presents a negative, agency-erasing, dehumanizing and unrealistically grim picture of autistic changeling-monsters replacing normal, lovable babies. if a single magic autism gene is found and AS continues being the charming organization we know and love today, how much of that 44% science funding will then be diverted into encouraging the pregnant poor into making Autism Speaks’ choice?

how can AS say they support me as a person “with autism” (lol forever) when they’re so comfortable sharing that the only reason I’m alive is that they didn’t get to my mom in time?

A handy flyer about Autism Speaks.

[Source]

April should be AUTISM SPEAKS RUINED JIGSAW PUZZLES FOR EVERYONE awareness month. 

Learn to measure your autism-like qualities! Sperg at your friends! Fun at parties!

I really like taking these things now that I am professionally diagnosed.

(scored 35)

i’ve been pretty much aware of it since i discovered asperger syndrome existed, but the main reasons for my diagnosis were

1. Existing diagnoses did not explain my persistent weirdness, which has always been a source of shame and feelings of inadequacy for me. I wanted to know why, because my existing therapy was not improving those areas where I am most deficient.
2. I need to be on disability (still have not had my application accepted) because I cannot work, so diagnosis is very helpful in confirming my claim.
3. Peace of mind! GOD WHAT A RELIEF TO FINALLY BE NORMAL.

I recommend it to anyone who can access those services. If you get to feeling like not knowing what the problem is has become itself a problem, check out your local library’s section on autism nonfiction or some websites and see if it sounds like you.

hypotheticalwoman:

vastderp:

the-rain-monster:

vastderp:

I am autistic.

I am very verbal by nature, but my communication skills are hard-won. I was not aware you could be autistic and still function at a nearly normal level until age 20, and I wasn’t formally diagnosed until I was 31. During my youth I was not given any kind of therapy, and it was incredibly difficult for me to teach myself to relate socially when I committed myself to doing so in a moment of preteen despair.

I rely, as most people do, on social cues. But for me, it’s easy for a signal to be missed or misinterpreted, and sometimes inaccurate information (such as an assumption that I am having a meltdown when I am not, when I speak enthusiastically about something that merely annoys me) enters the conversation somehow. My autistic ass gets thrown for a loop when this happens because I then I have to go back and figure out where the problem was, and that is just so many variables, and my awesome social subroutines only work if the person I am speaking to is also playing by the same rules, which people do about 80% of the time. I avoid the other 20% for my own sanity.

This is why I do not have many friends outside of text-based communication, and somehow every one of those friends except two have turned out to be autistic themselves, and we’re not actually sure about Rain.

Is it a reasonable comparison to say that neurotypicals communicate like Meulin and Kurloz with almost indecipherable subtext carrying the majority of the communication but in which some symbols can be gleaned, while people you relate to best use text-based methods?

it definitely used to be that way! they were meulin and kurloz, whereas i was a substantially less racist Mituna.

people wouldn’t understand me, which would piss me off, which would make me way more incoherent. i was more aware of how i was not being understood than of what i was missing when other people communicated with me, though, since i tended to be a bit oblivious of the presence of crossed wires unless i knew a signal was being sent out.

I’m currently wondering whether I am autistic. I will probably never find out, since the NHS doesn’t pay for autism testing in adults, so I just have to glean from things like the fact that I communicate *far* better in text than I do in speech, I tend to be told to ‘stop shouting’ when I’m not aware that I’ve raised my voice at all, and sometimes when I’m speaking I’ll kind of stick on a word, or part of a word, and be unable to continue - stammering like a stuck record till someone prompts me to start again.

Of course, there’s also the fact that I don’t adhere to many social niceties - I have all the verbal tact of an oncoming train - but that could be due to my stubborn refusal to deal with social mores which are simply dumb. Or the stubbornness could be an autism thing too.

WHO CAN SAY.

i am all for official diagnosis wherever possible but as it’s not possible here, let me share the impression i got from my screening:

if you chart out your strengths and weaknesses and it looks like the himalayas, and all the low points are where you plotted coping skills for things like changes to your routine and your communication/social skills, that is an autistic red flag. 

obviously this is not absolute, but that’s the pattern Dr. Luskin told me they looked for in clients who present with undiagnosed autism.  

if you have ADHD or other conditions, that has to be ruled out as a cause for the deficits, and there are some lookalike conditions like schizotypal personality disorder.

the chart with significant peaks and valleys showing huge jumps from low to high is taken into account along with whichever DSM criteria you’ve met, the doctor confirms that [society’s inability to adjust to] your weirdness has caused you serious and lifelong trouble interacting with people, and that is essentially when you get the diagnosis.

if autism memoirs make you go YES YES YES YOU UNDERSTAND ME THANK FUCK SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS ME, and the coping skills you learn from autism resources improve your quality of life, the diagnosis is mostly a formality to

1. give you, the autistic person, closure. you aren’t broken, you’re running a different operating system that is also used by 1 in every 88 human beings. you are in fact normal, and can relax, and can finally stop hating yourself.
2. gain access to whatever services and accommodations in school and the workplace require diagnosis.

I am autistic.

I am very verbal by nature, but my communication skills are hard-won. I was not aware you could be autistic and still function at a nearly normal level until age 20, and I wasn’t formally diagnosed until I was 31. During my youth I was not given any kind of therapy, and it was incredibly difficult for me to teach myself to relate socially when I committed myself to doing so in a moment of preteen despair.

I rely, as most people do, on social cues. But for me, it’s easy for a signal to be missed or misinterpreted, and sometimes inaccurate information (such as an assumption that I am having a meltdown when I am not, when I speak enthusiastically about something that merely annoys me) enters the conversation somehow. My autistic ass gets thrown for a loop when this happens because I then I have to go back and figure out where the problem was, and that is just so many variables, and my awesome social subroutines only work if the person I am speaking to is also playing by the same rules, which people do about 80% of the time. I avoid the other 20% for my own sanity.

This is why I do not have many friends outside of text-based communication, and somehow every one of those friends except two have turned out to be autistic themselves, and we’re not actually sure about Rain.

I seek out companions with whom communication is productive and satisfying, and that makes it very, very hard to interact with non-autistics long enough to get past the junk data passing through my social radar and bond as people. Meeting other autistics, it just clicks. 

But not everyone is autistic, and not all the junk data is benevolent. I’ve been told that autistics have a really hard time telling when they are being cozened or manipulated, but my problem is more the opposite. I’m often the first to see a scumbag operating, but that’s because I was raised by emotional manipulators in a violent and often unhappy home. This screwed up my signal receptors, primed me to see many honest miscommunications as deliberate, greatly increased my skill at recognizing bad people by their smallest behavioral cues long before they take advantage of me, and trained me to be paranoid that every word I say can and will be used against me, a fear that I still haven’t quite been able to eradicate.

When my parents were fighting, I used to go climb my tree and daydream about finding just the right way to say words so that my loved ones would stop doing terrible things. I would write letters to my mother, tear them up and feel horrible because there were not words available to me that would express my feelings. I virtually lived in the nonfiction section of the library, devouring memoirs and lay psychology texts and sociology and anything I could get my hands on that would feed my need to understand minds and interact with them.

I learned how to be a teenager by watching other teenagers in groups and pretending to be like them. It never once occurred to me to go over and interact with the group. Even trying to be normal, I missed that simplest solution to my problem because I did not understand how this action might be more effective than studying them like bugs.

Better yet, I only realized this was a thing I could have done about six months ago. That is how not-neurotypical I am, despite my excellent empathy* and social camouflage**

I was convinced that, since most of my problems related somehow to my failure to communicate, I could solve my parents’ relationship problems, stop my mother from drinking and fucking the neighbor and make them see the distress I was in on a daily basis if I could express clearly to them all the ways that it was upsetting to me.

That’s why I blog like a motherfucker, and why I fixate on the things I fixate on. Quite simply, I perseverated real hard to be the best little fake human*** I could be, and now I’m pretty good at it.

*This is neurotypicalese for “I do not see any obvious signs of emotions in you, so I have decided you have a deficit of them.”

**Which serves me well in my chosen media (text) but falls apart, I am told, the minute you meet me in person and I start to speak and wave my arms around. Whoops.

***Accurate.

fidonia said: i once saw some idiot who had completely convinced themselves that ADHD doesn’t even exist.

i had this conversation a few weeks back:

X: Aw, you’re not an autist

X: I’ve seen autists

Luka: nope i actually am

Luka: i got a diagnosis last year

X: Really? 

there’s aaaaaalways an expert handy.

hmmm. i need resources for the possibly autistic + questioning, and i KNOW i’m forgetting the best ones. what’s your favorite go-to resource?

OMG GUYS I THINK I’M AUTISTIC

[test here]

jumpingjacktrash:

vastderp:

aud and i got our flu shots yesterday and everything seemed fine

but then this morning i woke up with autism

CURSE YOU BIG PHARMA

#autism #wait wasn’t i autistic before #so what does that make this #like #double autism? #vaccinations

you totally have the double autism.

you are my autism sensei i am learning to be more autistic through your wise instruction

i am so autistic i can’t even make eye contact with my mirror.

trains? please, i snowflakespot.

one time i rocked so hard i accidentally beat the land speed record for bipeds.

also, i own a wolf shirt, but it’s too small to wear.

aud and i got our flu shots yesterday and everything seemed fine

but then this morning i woke up with autism

CURSE YOU BIG PHARMA