#but im tired and have seen so much ableistic discourse lately

[nebulousboundsofthisworld]

ok I'm a little more coherent now & I think I can actually put some of this into words now. I've basically just been thinking about all the different discourse going around currently wrt ADHD/autism and how so much of it just perpetuates ableism and ableistic ideals. I'm gonna put this into a sorta list thing cause I can't connect it sufficiently well enough right now:

1. "autism/ADHD isn't a disability, our brains are just wired differently uwu"- okay but that ""different wiring" is still disabling to me!!! like if you don't feel disabled by your ADHD/autism I'm genuinely happy for you! that's great! thats not how all of us feel though!! and I'd say especially for autism it's a minority of us that'd confidently say they aren't disabled by their autism. and that's not a bad thing! being disabled isn't a bad thing, disability isn't a dirty word!! and it just feels very ableistic to insist on ADHD/autism not being disabilities!!

ALSO I only ever see "lower support needs"/lower level (I don't really know what the right term is currently) autistic people saying this and I feel like "higher support need"/higher level autistic ppl are always always excluded from these conversations. which can be ableistic in itself!

2. "if we didn't live under capitalism my ADHD wouldn't affect me"- again, happy for you, can't relate though! my ADHD impacts parts of my life that have nothing to do with a capitalist society. would some things be easier if we didn't have capitalism? for sure, yes. would I be "cured"? definitely not. my ADHD greatly impacts things that bring me joy, caring for myself and sometimes caring for others. no matter what economic system I live under I'd still need to like, feed myself, which is very hard on most days!

3. "ADHD people are valuable bc we are creative/spontaneous/good in emergencies/fun/etc."- actually ADHD ppl are valuable bc we are people!! we shouldn't need to solely focus on the positive qualities of ADHD (and therefore disregarding any struggles that come with ADHD) in order to "prove our value" to anyone!! I don't have any of the most commonly used "positive traits" of ADHD and I'm still worthy of respect and love and kindness!

i think the thing that connects all of these points is that it feels like through raising awareness about autism/adhd (GOOD!!GREAT!!) some ppl started to strip anything disabling from these neurotypes (BAD!!). People hate disabled people and don't want to be associated with disability and instead of working on that (internal) ableism they started saying that autism/adhd aren't actually disabilities throwing everyone under the bus who is actually disabled by them.

anyways theres probably way more to this, but im just trying to get my thoughts out right now bc i have seen way too much of this bullshit lately and im fucking tired.

Stop talking over people who have different support needs than you do!! and start examining why you are so adamant to disconnect yourself from diability & disabled people!!

(Disclaimer: I'm a low support needs AuDHD Person. If anyone with higher support needs/ higher level autism wants to share their perspective I'd be super grateful!)

someday soon I'm gonna go absolutely feral over the way ADHD and (differently bad but still) autism are being talked about online currently. I can't even begin to actually express why bc on one hand I'm very very happy that ADHD/autism are being talked more about (one of the reasons I was actually able to be diagnosed with ADHD!!) but on the other hand there's sooooo much misinformation out there and there are so many people trying to strip any actual struggles from them and also there's not enough higher-support needs/higher level autistics being involved in this whole conversation and also ""autism parents"" still exist & misinform others & often abuse their kids for views and I'm just gonna scream!!!!!