1:53am November 10, 2013

Autistic people not acknowledging the differences between us is a real thing though.

youneedacat:

madeofpatterns:

crown-of-weeds:

chavisory:

madeofpatterns:

Even as simple as things like not all of us do well in quiet spaces.

Some of us understand body language better than words.

Some autistic people can’t live safely alone and would die without support.

Many, many autistic people are not remotely academically capable even if they have a lot of language and can think well.

It’s… some of this really *isn’t* always acknowledged.

This is true.

Yes. I get hit by this a *lot.* But there’s a difference between in-community bullshit, and Not My Child/Not Really Autistic.

Yes, absolutely. That’s why I didn’t say this on that thread.

Yeah this is a big problem for me, too. I can’t tell if I’m actually unusual among autistic people (some reading suggests that I’m mostly surprisingly usual with only a few unusual traits, but I don’t know how far to trust it on either count), or if I’m just unusual in certain segments of the autistic community. But I routinely deal with people basically saying I don’t exist because the existence of people like me is not ideologically convenient.

And from multiple directions and for multiple reasons.

Yeah definitely.

In the most simple terms, there’s people who don’t want to acknowledge my abilities, and people who don’t want to acknowledge my disabilities.

And then of course there’s people who think they’re being cool and hip and with-it by not acknowledging one or the other. And people who think they’re showing their lack of gullibility by not acknowledging one or the other. And etc.

And that’s just the most basic level. There’s much more.

Notes: