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3:39pm July 5, 2014

➸ http://youneedacat.tumblr.com/post/90866219315/differentblogtitle-i-dont-remember-flapping-as

nicocoer:

differentblogtitle:

I don’t remember flapping as a child, the most I remember is swinging my arms back and forth around my body as I watched TV…I remember noticing I flapped a little when I was excited and jumping up/pacing after I got diagnosed, but now I flap a lot more and I love it but I…

I actually have a lot of feelings about this from looking at how cultures form and change. People pick up tiny cultural units naturally, be it a new Stim in autistic culture(s) or a new word/musical phrase/idea in broader culture. That is kind of how that adaptation works.

Sure, not everyone picks up exactly the same memes (units of culture), especially not anymore, but it is a key (though perhaps not universal I don’t know) part of human experience to pick up these memes and have them become part of us. Sometimes it is effective at forming social units, sometimes not at all, sometimes they protect us and sometimes they put us at risk, but it is the mechanism that is what is there even if it only picks up thoughts.

it is extremely and beautifully human when we gain stims from seeing and hearing about it in others. Same with new scripts, as much as it is less subtle than the memes that are often picked up in the broader culture. It should not be something to be ashamed of and is no less inauthentic than any other part of what we pick up.

There may be a meme in certain subcultures saying that new growth like this is inauthentic in disability, or inauthentic when a teen does it, but that is just a meme, not a fact. It denies certain populations are capable or well when doing the same things that anyone does, even of they/we do it in a much more obvious sense. It is just as authentically human and authentically you as any of the ideas and concepts and other things we gain as we grow.

We are human, and we build memes into ourselves, even if only a little and even if only into our minds. The things we keep are the things that fit with the other parts of us that we have kept.