#I doubt this is work for word what my Autism assessment said but it's close enough

[b00knerd1o1]

Autism Assessment: DO you feel a compulsion to collect things?

Me: No

Autism Assessment: Do you enjoy organizing things?

Me: Have you seen the state of my room. Absolutely not

Also Me: (Creating a spreadsheet of all the books, rubber ducks, and pressed pennies I own)

[bigbluebarns-blog]

ABLEISM REDUX

Well… There are so many different dimensions of disability that people can be ableist toward those with different disabilities than their own. …And it’s only in the last couple of generations (within my lifetime, at least) that Disability Rights groups have banded together in a common cause (Rather than, say: Rights groups for the blind working only for the blind, Rights groups for Cerebral Palsy working only for Cerebral Palsy, etc.).  Matter of fact, based on my own recollections, I think working together for universal access rights only really got any steam in the 1970s – when I was already a teenager.

Confession time: until relatively recently (like, the last 10 years, or so), as a physically disabled person, I was biased against those with intellectual disabilities, and would get quite insulted if anyone mistakenly thought I was “R

—–ed.”

@theborkplanet IDK HOW TO SEPARATE MY COMMENTS FROM YOURS AND COMMENTS FROM YOURS. HENCE THE CAPS. 

I WAS ALSO BIASED AND PROBABLY STILL AM SOMEWHAT, TOWARD PPL WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES(ID). I TOO USED THE R WORD. GROWING UP MY EXP WITH PPL W/ ID WERE NEGATIVE OR GROSS, AND NO ONE EVER BOTHERED TO EXPLAIN SOMEONE’S ID TO ME, SO ALL I KNEW WAS NEGATIVE BEHAVIORS EG JO GRABS STUFF AND SCREAMS; NO ONE EVER EXPLAINED HER AUTISM. MOE HAS DOWNS SYNDROME, IS OBSESSED WITH SAYING “BOOBIES” LOVES THE EFFING BEACH BOYS AND FARTS A LOT AND NEVER SHUTS UP; HOW ANNOYING; NO ONE EVER TOLD ME ABOUT PERSEVERATING, OR THAT DS CAN CAUSE GI PROBS SOMETIMES. AL MUTTERS, HE STINKS, AND HE KNOCKED OUT HIS AIDE SO I’M AFRAID THAT AL WILL GET ANGRY WITH ME AND KNOCK ME OUT; NO ONE EVER EXPLAINS HIS CONDITION, SO I GLEAN MY INFO FROM EAVESDROPPING and RUMORS. THE ABLE-BODIED ADULTS DIDN’T BOTHER TO PROMOTE UNDERSTANDING EVEN THO WE WERE ALL TRAPPED ON THE SAME SPECIAL ED BUS, SO THE PASSENGERS WITHOUT ID TALK SMACK ABOUT THE ONES WITH ID. THE ONE TIME I ASK, “WHAT’S AL HAVE?” ABLEBODIED ADULT SHAMES ME FOR ASKING AND BLATHERS ABOUT CONFIDENTIALITY. NOT TRYING TO JUSTIFY MY PREJUDICE; JUST RELATING EXP. I’M ALSO WORKING THRU IT BUT U R RIGHT; NEVER 100% DONE. 

I’m working through it, and like to think I’m getting better (and one huge part of that is learning just how deep and intertwined institutionalized ableism really is, in our societies). But as with being a White woman dealing with racism, I have to remember that it’s a case of continuing recovery, and not something I will ever be 100% over and done with.

Thanks for sharing, @aegipan-omnicorn. You’re lovely.

@bigbluebarns, I don’t personally know anything about suffering racism, being a white american myself. However, I do know a thing or two about suffering ableism, both at the hands of able-bodied people, and disabled people.

People are incredibly social animals and will band together in groups with other similar people. This is natural, and it is good. It can be healing and cathartic to hang out with people who “get it.” But this tendency can also have an extremely dark side, as we see with “isms.” This is going to get long, so I’m going to break it here in consideration of people’s dashboards. Again, I can only speak to ableism and sexism so please keep that in mind.

OMG, I LOVE THESE NAMES AND TRADEMARKS. DID U INVENT THEM?

Ableisms I have suffered at the hands of disabled people:

The Cripple Police™: These are the people who, in an overzealous bid for limited access available, arbitrarily decide who is disabled enough to use a mobility aid, bathroom stall, parking spot, and even sometimes the label of “disabled.” If you are not Crippled Enough, you can be subject to any form of social punishment they deem to be necessary.

I HATE THE CP AND I’M CONSTANTLY REMINDING PPL THAT U DO NOT HAVE TO APPEAR DISABLED IN ORDER TO USE HANDICAP PARKING. IT’S LIKE THEY WANT U TO WEAR A TAG STATING U R DISABLED SO THEN THEY CAN ASSESS IF U MEET THEIR RANDOM CRITERIA.

Example: I used to be able to walk longer distances with a service dog, but was still a high fall risk. My doctor (a licensed neurologist) prescribed me a parking placard so that none of us had to worry (as much) about me passing out in a parking lot where no one could see me, and getting run over. A lovely woman in a wheelchair, who just happened to park in the accessible spot next to me, proceeded to scream at me and my service dog all the way into the store. A manager rescued me by going along with my ruse of knowing him, and invited me into the back were I fucking hid away until they told me she had left the store. It. Was. Scary.

EGAD SOUNDS HORRIBLE. BUT YEAH THERE IS A DISABILITY HIERARCHY

The Born This Ways™ : The experience between people who were born disabled, and who acquired disability later in life, vary a great deal from one another. BTW ableist types actively minimize the experiences of other disabled people, simply because they hadn’t been baptized since birth by xyz. In other words, the suffering was not identical to their own, thus must be invalid.

Example: I became disabled after adulthood, and tried to find solace after being subjected to ableist responses from friends and family members who were unable to cope with the “broken me.” I found lots of great disabled people who helped me, but I also found people who routinely scoffed at my experiences, again informing me that I was not “disabled enough,” and suggested I was being deliberately weak, or histrionic. Sometimes it was almost eerily word for word what my ableist friends/family said. How strange…

I’VE SEEN THE ACQUIRED DISABILITY IS BETTER. TM ADIBS MIGHT IMPLY, “WELL I’M A QUAD, BUT AT LEAST I GOT TO EXP BEING ABLEBODIED; I’LL HAVE EXP U SADSACK LOSER BTWS WILL NEVER HAVE. I GOT TO BE NORMAL FOR A WHILE” MOST OFTEN I SAW IT COME FROM PARALYZED PPL WHO WISHED THEY COULD WALK AGAIN. I WAS BORN WITH CP AND AB PPL ACTUALLY ASKED ME “WOULD U RATHER BE BTW OR AD?” BEFORE I THOUGHT ABOUT IT, I SAID “BTW, CUZ THATS ALL I KNOW AND I’VE HAD IT FROM DAY1 FALSE EQUIVALENCY WHEREAS ADIBS HAVE TO ADJUST” NOW THO I KNOW THAT EVEN I AS BTW HAVE HAD TO ADJUST TO CHANGING SYMPTOMS. DO U WANT 2 BE A TREE OR A MOUSE...UHHH...FALSE EQUIVALENCY ALERT, CAN’T COMPAPARE APPLE N ORANGE.

The Faker Police™: I think anyone with an invisible illness has experience with this one. This is when people who “look disabled” refuse to believe someone who “does not look disabled,” and proceed to treat them as hysterical attention seekers instead of…well, anyone else. These people often practice double ableisms–I have noticed that many also tend to judge Disabled Enough based on mobility aids. Then, they try to chase the “fakers” out of the community, because everyone knows “fakers” are why we have additional burdens added (like further hurdles to access, government aid, etc).

ALSO IF U HAVE AN INVISIBLE DISABILITY LIKE YOURS AND ME ALSO, I SEE THE “WELL EVERYONE GETS DEPRESSED/SAD/TIRED.” I END UP FEELING LIKE I HAVE JUSTIFY THE DISABLING NATURE OF MY DEPRESSION/ANXIETY TO A WEG. 

Example: Before my condition had progressed to me needing a mobility aid, I was already facing discrimination in the workplace. I requested an accommodation to have the crappy fluorescent lights removed from above my desk, as they provoke bad neurological symptoms. You’d think it was a little thing, but when I asked for advice on dealing with skeptical and belligerent management, I met the same reactions in some disabled people, followed immediately by “Fakers like you are why we see knee-jerk reactions like the word ‘no!’ Come complain when you’re actually disabled and need to have a ramp installed! Until then suck it up!”

The Totally Qualified Disability Judges™: This one seems to arise from the natural tendency of people to compare their situations to the situations of others. If they arbitrarily judge another person’s situation to be better or more favorable, then that person is not As Disabled, or Disabled Enough, or Disabled At All. Then, based on that judgment, they try to socially punish the condemned, or to excommunicate them.

Example: Some conditions are really straightforward and don’t vary widely. People with the condition all seem to have similar limitations. My condition is the exact opposite of that. I have the chronic form of migraine disease. Lots of people get migraines, but not all of them have more than 15 a month, and migraines can last anywhere from a few hours to three days. To some people, pain is the most disabling feature of a migraine, to others, the accompanying neurological weirdness is. (Migraines are often proceeded by cortical spreading depression, a phenomenon also exhibited in epilepsy. Just for an example).

So, when people hear what my condition is, they remember that one lady they used to know who had to lay in the dark for a couple days each month, and wonder why the hell I’m in a wheelchair. It doesn’t make sense to them (who cares that migraines don’t make sense to the most brilliant neurologists in the world), so they decide that I just must not be disabled. Or, if I am, it’s hypochondria. 

 I’VE SEEN: YEAH HAVE U TRIED XYZ CURE? IT REALLY HELPED THAT 1 LADY. IF U DON’T TRY XYZ WELL THEN UR LAZY N ALSO PROBABLY FAKING THE EXTENT OF UR DISABILITY?

Fun fact: Internalizing ableism from medical doctors, and from some close friends and family, and THEN the disabled people I came into contact with later, and from whom I seeked guidance, prompted so much self doubt that I had a licensed psychologist work me up for hypochondria and other related psychological conditions. It…turns out that I am not a hypochondriac. I could not find relief from all of these experiences until I encountered a neurologist familiar with my condition, and fellow disabled people who have been around the block, and who are not so embittered by their experiences that they deigned to expose others to the same.

For that reason, I will always be vocally critical of ableism within our community. I will not sugar coat it, nor will I flatter ableist disableds by giving them another name. That goes for my own ableism, too. Now that I have worked through a lot of my own, I can use my aids with confidence and obtain a freedom that is at least emotionally similar to the one I had when I first formed my adult identity (which was as an abled person).

AH YES, IN MY CASE, INTERNALIZED ABLEISM=ANXIETY N DEPRESSION. STILL NOT SURE IF DISABLED PPL CAN BE TECHNICALLY DISABLED BUT THAT’S JUST LINGUISTIC SEMANTICS.

CLEAERLY WE BOTH KNOW DISABLED PPL ARE CAPABLE OF ASSHOLERY.

CAN SOMEONE TELL ME HOW TO BOLD TEXT IN POSTS? #TUMBLR NOOB

For an example of sexism from women, see my post Never Underestimate Old Women, in which an old lady cashier schools us for self-righteous activism.

Thanks for the discussion!

[overexplainingautistic]

My Autistic Opinion on the Word “Aspiedar”

My autistic professor for my Social Psych class who’s spent years working with autistics professionally responded positively that I picked him out as autistic, and noticed that I’m autistic too. I’m looking forward to the coming semester in his class. In this exchange, he used the word “aspiedar” which prompted my interest and analysis. Here’s my take on that word and if it’s one that makes sense to use or makes sense to avoid, and what could replace it if anything.

So For the sake of brevity, I’m going to presume people are familiar with the issues with functioning labels, and that the word Aspergers and its derivative aspie are both included in that.

So an initial assessment might be “Aspie? That’s a functioning label, and therefore not good to say.” however I think this is a fringe case where the otherwise good disuse of functioning labels is misapplied. 

For one, he’s older enough that he likely learned language before the time when this sort of thinking was solidified, and so regardless within him it is a legacy word grandfathered in to describe his own experience. Though that doesn’t say much about whether or not the specific word aspiedar should be freely used by younger autistics as well who otherwise forgo use of any functioning label type terms completely. 

So to answer that, is there an alternative word which could be used instead? All that comes to my mind are just “autdar/autidar/autistdar/autisticdar” some form of affixing autistic to the -dar suffix. With my american english phonology in mind, none of these work. the “td” sound can’t happen without it sounding like a word break and just generally discontinuous. So that takes out the first and third listed options. The fourth is eliminated by nature of also sounding like two words as well as by no longer being much of a shorthand by only being one syllable shorter than “autistic radar”.

This leaves us with the closest valid option of “autidar” which has the benefit of being the same syllable count as “aspiedar” and by sharing the same vowel sound linking both parts of the word. This vowel is also very close to the end of the diphthong found in the original “radar” and “gaydar” which is a benefit in listener recognition of the word’s meaning by sounding more alike to familiar examples. 

Unfortunately in the phonology of english as I know it, to pronounce a “t” sound in the middle of a word where its syllable is not the stressed syllable of the word, it becomes soft and sounds like a “d” instead. So if one is familiar with the word “audist” then that could cause confusion even though I doubt anyone would need use of a -dar word for that.

Regardless it doesn’t sound good, it doesn’t feel physically comfortable or easy to say. The word’s pronunciation isn’t quick to intuit because one needs to decide what syllable to stress, and if an otherwise destressed t should sound like a t anyway.

Aspiedar doesn’t have this problem, simply in terms of ease of use, I would say that it far surpasses any other variant enough to justify its use. It’s not unheard of in language and the natural evolution of words for outdated terms to remain in some few instances. Years down the line it could be a cool story to have when younger people ask “where does the aspie in aspiedar come from?” when all they know is the word autism. A subtle hint to remember the complex and imperfect past. 

That being said, I have no clue if I’ll end up actually using the word myself, but I have no problems if anyone else wants to. If anyone has their own thoughts, or thinks I missed any points, I encourage you to express them. I want to know other people’s thoughts on this, I only know what myself and one of my friends think. 

[stimtoybox]

I'm such an idiot I already knew I didn't have it. So I went to my therapist to see her thoughts on it, and she said she doesn't think I have autism. Especially becuse my previous therapist and psychiatrist were experts/more experienced in diagnosing that they would've picked up on it if that were the case. I feel like such a fake for thinking I had it. I guess I just thought maybe I had it too because almost all my close friends have it. I feel like an idiot. I'm sorry.

Anon, you have no reason to apologise.

What are you apologising for? Because you have experiences in common with autistics? Because you found something useful in the autistic community? Because you wondered? Because you sought out advice or an assessment? Because you wanted a label that makes sense of who you are? Because you tried out a label and it turned out to be the wrong one? You’ve committed no crime, anon. You’ve done nothing wrong.

I’ve never heard of an autistic person being mad because someone else thought they were autistic but turned out not to be, and if someone is, that’s a failing in that individual. That’s not a response common to the community or generally accepted by it. You’re not an Autism Parent or an Autism Ally speaking for or over autistics by making your identity around autism; you’re somebody trying to understand yourself. So you’ve tried on a few labels in search of those that fit? Join the club, anon.

I’m sure there’s a lucky neurodiverse person or two who hit on the right labels the first time around, but most of us, I suspect, have tossed aside a few in the quest to find the right combination of words that describe the mental and developmental landscape of who we are. I have. Trauma/PTSD and autism look pretty similar, so similar I was treated as having the former. BPD may or may not describe my moods and various other struggles; it may be a word I’ll find myself tossing away, because there’s another PD that better fits, but right now that doesn’t mean I don’t get to explore it to see if it makes sense of the person I am. And if I find resources and connection with others who have similar experiences, well, it’d be an uncommonly awful person to begrudge me that.

Anon, if you agree with your therapist, that’s fine. You’re ND in some way. (You don’t have to specify how you’re ND or to what degree you’re ND, not on this blog.) You still belong in this community. This blog and many other general ND blogs are still yours. This isn’t an autistic-only space and autistics aren’t the only people who stim. Our resources and this community are for you, always.

If you don’t agree, know that therapists can be wrong. My first therapist just called me “quirky” and talked about my trauma. My second said that I was “like her autistic son but she doesn’t like labels”. My third said was “difficult”. My fourth said I was “probably borderline” because that was the only DBT program on offer. Only psychologist number five actually took the time to explore autism with me. Ironically, since then the people I’ve worked with haven’t doubted autism once I mention it. Neurodiversity can be hard to diagnose, and it’s often a matter of just finding the closest labels that group your symptoms/experiences. There’s little exactitude here.

If you decide you feel, now or later, that autism still makes better sense, your word is enough for the majority of the community. It’s enough for me.

If you don’t? Doesn’t matter. This isn’t an autism-only space.

Wondering, exploring and investigating a label is no bad thing, anon. Even making a mistake isn’t a bad thing: it gives you information. If you agree with your therapist, then now you can start looking for other words that make sense of who you are. Cross that label off your list and keep on searching.

Anon, I’d like you to do a favour for me. Please, take some time out to look after yourself.

Listen to some favourite music. Watch a movie or a TV show you like. Go out with a friend. Wear your favourite clothes, play with your favourite stim toy, use your favourite bath wash. Take a sheet of paper and write down at least one awesome thing about yourself and then put that paper in your pocket. Stand before the mirror and say, out loud, that you are proud of yourself for talking with your therapist. Stand before the mirror and tell yourself that you are allowed, always, to explore who you are. Stand before the mirror and tell yourself that you are allowed to make mistakes. (The shower is often a good place to do this sort of thing, as the water covers up the sound of your talking.) Do something special that you don’t ordinarily do as a reward for your courage. Take a day and make it a treat day in all the ways you can think of, in which you treat yourself as nicely as I think you deserve. I want you to be nice to you, in acknowledgement of this difficult thing you’re dealing with, and all it has taken from you to explore it.

Your ask, anon, tells me that you care very much about not hurting people, and that’s amazing, but you do not need to apologise.

You’re not a fake. You’re not hurting others. You’re not pretending to be something you’re not for some kind of advantage or gain. You’re just someone trying to figure out who you are.

That isn’t something for which you need to apologise.

- Mod K.A.