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9:16pm August 19, 2014

I just had a semi-hypnagogic revelation that is important for once and not just silly.

I was reading words on a typed screen.  They said something like, “Watch out when you hear one person telling another, "you didn’t even get that right, real autistic people flap their hands top to bottom, they don’t shake them.”  When people start telling you that your expression of your own disability is inauthentic.  More importantly, though, when you hear someone gloating like that about another person – “Ha ha, they tried to get it right but they totally failed, real disabled people don’t think/speak/move/act like that” – that is a warning sign.  It’s not a warning sign against the person who supposedly “couldn’t get it right”.  It’s a warning sign to get the hell away from whoever is spreading gossip like that.  Don’t believe their claims to expertise on how “real disabled people” operate.  Just stay away.  Don’t repeat their claims.  Don’t believe their claims.  Speak up about it if you see other people believing them.  Because they are bullies.

And they are bullies that are using a tactic.  They are saying “I am smart enough to see through this person’s act, and if you’re smart too, you can see through it.  If you can’t see through it, you’re stupid and gullible.”  And that is a tactic that people who’ve been called stupid and gullible our entire lives are very prone to falling for.  Don’t fall for it.  If someone tries to manipulate you by saying you’re stupid and gullible if you don’t believe them, something is wrong.  With them.  Not you.

My hypnagogic hallucination was more pithy but this will have to do.