5:16am August 11, 2013

➸ Trying to find the right words: I am anti-cure

But you know what else I’m against?

Refusing to acknowledge that impairments are a thing and being super judgmental of people who do things in order to be less impaired. Or to accommodate their impairments in whatever way.

FFS I like taking certain medications because they give me more control…

Also I’m against a cure BUT…

I’m not against people who want a cure.

Some of them have done way more for autistic people, than many who don’t.

Because they know there’s far more to autistic activism than “we don’t want a cure”.

And I’ve seen people come in here, say nothing more than they want a cure, and get ripped to shreds or asked if they’re even autistic.

That said, one thing I do NOT like.

Is when people who want a cure claim they want it because their autism is more severe than people who don’t.

No. Uh-uh. Don’t go there.

There are people who are severely autistic by anyone’s standard, who don’t want a cure. There are people who barely qualify as autistic, who desperately want a cure.

Wanting a cure is not about what your autistic traits are or how extreme they are.

It’s about HOW YOU FEEL about them.

Two people with identical autistic traits can feel differently about it.

So don’t spread that myth around.

To paraphrase Call Montgomery, “I don’t think there’s a clear difference between high functioning and low functioning in the first place. But if there is, you can’t find it by comparing our political opinions.”

By the standards most people use, my autism at this point in my life is more severe than most people I meet who want a cure. I find it really infuriating to be told by people who can use speech for communication, hold jobs, mostly take care of themselves, live with minimal or no extra support, have no trouble understanding language, can easily identify objects in their surroundings, can use words without getting a headache, can go new places without severe nausea and vertigo and pain, can see new things without their vision breaking to pieces…. that my autism must be mild because I don’t want to be cured.

I mean come on.

I don’t actually like the divisions mild severe high functioning low functioning. Because I think autism is too complex to graph on a single line like that.

But I know how they’re generally applied. And I know where I sit on that usual spectrum, even if my actual abilities show why that spectrum is invalid. But I know most people would look at my current life and see severe autism. Not the most severe possible, but severe.

That’s not a label I give to myself, so don’t call me that, don’t call me mild either, and don’t assume ANYTHING about my life on this basis. I’m just reporting how people see me.

And is irritating to see people who do buy into such a simplistic way of seeing things, classifying me in ways they’d never otherwise classify me, just because I prefer to remain autistic.

Oh and yes I do know that some autistic people do some things worse or better than some others. I just think there’s too many combinations of such things to put it all on one single line from mild to severe.

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