“Would You Like To Know Me Better, [Maybe]?”
(source: Pinterest)
Something else I want from Autism Acceptance Month (aka April aka “Autism Awareness Month) besides a collective disinvestment from Autism Speaks, Applied Behavioral Analysis, Relationship Development Intervention, and things of that nature:
For everyone to understand that nobody self-identifies as autistic because it’s fun, or cool, or easy, or fashionable, or whatever other anti-autistic ableist ways people like to describe the rise in people self-identifying as autisitc.
Not a single person does it for those reasons, especially due to the fact that everyone is painfully aware of how much autisitc people are demonized by society. (The fact that it’s considered a “mental illness/disorder” is key in all of this, by the way.)
People do it because it’s necessary for them to do so; to make sense of the parts of themselves that society has continuously shown, openly shows, and regularly shows hostility towards with no other reason why beyond the fact that it’s socially acceptable to because psychologists and psychiatrists and non-autistic-led organizations and (mostly) white cis het autisitc men who have yet to deal with their internalized ableism say so; to honor the anger and shame and sadness and guilt they feel about existing differently in a world that would rather you dead than be yourself.
Misunderstanding this, intentionally or not, is the reason why people who pretend to be autisitc online to troll actually autistic people can always be spotted.
It’s why non-autistic people and autistic people aren’t having the same conversation about being autistic.
It’s why non-autistic people write about “people with autism” or “someone who has autism,” and why autisitc people write about autistic people.
It’s why Rain Man, Music, Atypical, Sheldon Cooper as a character, and a good chunk of Sherlock (BBC) are not great to downright abysmal representations of autistic people.
It’s why accidentally/unintentionally autistic-coded characters are usually far better than characters who are intentionally written as autisitc.
It’s why autisitc people are stereotyped as only having an interest in STEM as opposed to music, writing, and the arts.
It’s why we’re stereotyped as unimaginative, elitist, cold, and lacking empathy.
It’s why Anthony Hopkins can get “diagnosed” as autistic, and Chris Rock gets “diagnosed” as having Nonverbal Learning Disorder (which is essentially the racist, white supremacist, and anti-Black way of saying that he’s autisitc but not like how cis white boys and men are autisitc so he can’t be afforded an actual autism “diagnosis”).
It’s why cis autisitc women, and queer and trans autisitc people (especially queer and trans autisitc people of color) often get misdiagnosed with borderline personality disorder.
And it’s why mental health professionals and experts can ever truly adequately diagnose anyone as autisitc nor should they be allowed to.
