as small as a world and as large as alone

2:51am July 30, 2014

madeofpatterns:

twistmalchik:

A fucking aspie supremacist made a comment about how people choose to be nonspeaking. I’m using AAC today, and it’s made me feel really unsafe. That kind of comment silences people like me, who are not always able to speak.

AAC gives me a voice when mine does not work.

There is absolutely nothing in the world wrong with communicating in whatever form works best for you. Speaking is a form of communication, not a moral obligation.

I heard about ½ of the comment that guy made; not enough to catch all of it, but enough to be horrified.

What happened?

Also, some people do choose to be nonspeaking, and that’s fine.  But lots of people it’s not a choice, and acting like it is, is disgusting.  People often treat me like it was a choice for me, and it wasn’t.  At all.  I still remember the last phone call where I realized I really couldn’t speak anymore, and it was a horrifying experience.  The person on the other end said she’d had potatoes for dinner, and all I could say was potato, no matter what words were in my head, that’s all that would come out, and that’s when I realized my speech was well and truly and permanently fucked.  And it was not a good thing.  And definitely not a choice.  It should be able to be a choice, for people who want to make that choice, for any reason, whether they are disabled or not.  But for a lot of people it’s not a choice and nobody should ever ever generalize that it is.

39 notes