#i beg of you all please autism is a disability and it can fucking suck

[korkietism]

It’s a bit silly but I get a bit peeved when people fail to understand the complexities of things yet still pass harsh judgements. Or when people claim to support someone but then actively go against that.

A lot of autistic support I see isn’t actually very supportive methinks. They’re supportive of the idea of us. They like the idea of special interests and stimming. It loses appeal when we act weird and get irritable and miss out on events constantly. It’s no longer a tism moment when you’re seen as a bother.

[transkingbee]

“But masking is hugely detrimental to our physical and mental health, it contributes to burn out, and requires a significant amount of energy to do!”

Yup. It does. All of this is true. It doesn’t change the fact that the reason we mask is to keep ourselves SAFE. It’s a safety mechanism. And some of our fellow autistics CANNOT MASK. Which means they are not kept safe from the things we are keeping ourselves safe from.

I beg you, for two seconds, to LISTEN to the voices of our fellow autistics with higher external support needs. It sucks that so many of us went under the radar and didn’t get the help we needed. But going under the radar also kept us safe from a lot of ableist abuse.

I’m not saying we didn’t go through ANY ableist abuse. Of course we did. Allistics pick us out instinctively. But we likely didn’t go through ABA. We likely don’t go through the intense infantilization they go through. Those of us who can talk, don’t get spoken for. Those of us who can move typically don’t require another person just to go to the bathroom.

PLEASE think about higher support needs autistics. PLEASE think about intersectionality and comorbid disorders. PLEASE think about folks who’s disabilities affect them in different ways than yours and what that means for them when you are talking about us like a monolith. Autism is a spectrum. Disability is a spectrum. Our struggles are not comparable. This isn’t a competition, if your advocacy isn’t about ALL of us than it’s worthless. If your advocacy doesn’t include the MOST disabled, the MOST stigmatized, the MOST mistreated than it’s fucking WORTHLESS. And refusing to acknowledge that some people have it worse than you and that that doesn’t negate your struggles as a disabled person, makes you a worse advocate for your community.

[dovesndecay]

I know, I know, down to my bones, that people mean to be kind and that they mean to be helpful.

and I am not @ing anyone specific.

But if you suggest food banks to people asking for monetary help to get groceries, you are doing the equivalent of suggesting yoga and increased water intake to the disabled.

Stop it. Please, fucking hell, stop. I'm begging you all to stop. I am so tired of having to drop a goddamn dissertation of my medical history to justify needing money to buy food, and having everyone & their liberal autism-mommy meets wine aunt on Facebook suggesting food banks.

Seriously?

Do y'all really think we've never heard of a food bank? After several years of having to e-beg to keep a roof over our heads, a vehicle for work, and food in our mouths, y'all really think we're just stupid? And I'm sorry if this comes off angry, or mean, but I'm tired and honestly just a little hurt. I'm always fucking tired, and opening my notes to people making "helpful suggestions" that I've had to explain do not actually help us over and over and over again is exhausting, and painful, and it just sucks.

I should not owe people explanations of my dietary needs, but if I don't give it, then I don't eat. because then I'm viewed as a lazy ungrateful peasant that thinks they're too good for the free cans of rich peoples' cast off green beans that's been in the back of their cabinet for six months that they oh-so-generously donated for this holiday season.

Food banks can and often are a wonderful resource, and our local options are ones we've utilized before -- which is how we know that it is not a resource that is good for us.

If someone asks for options, fine, offer them!! But if they say outright, 'what I need is financial help', it is simply not your right to assume that they just don't know that they need something else.

[ladymariayuri]

Hi smiles weakly. Making this post just to pin and not reblog. Not life or death emergency but life kind of sucks right now. I hate to e beg but at my wits end.

My dad is kicking me out of the house and refuses to financially support me in any way besides college tuition. I was kicked out to my moms but she can’t support me either since she is disabled. My only option is to go back to college next month which I didn’t want to do since I will have no money to sustain myself on a day to day basis and it was wrecking my mental health last year but it’s all I have left. My dads house is utterly toxic and i am basically berated and treated like shit compared to mystep siblings. I’m not allowed to have my car, phone, or computer unless I live on a college campus. My mom lives on disability and has mental breakdowns that make her somewhat of a threat to herself and anybody nearby. So this is my last resort in some weird, hilariously ass backwards way.

My mother will chip in when she can along with some of her side of the family but I still need to buy some necessities while on campus. This being some food but not all, gas for my car, my adhd medication which has to be mailed to me from my dads to my campus 3 hours away, and a data plan for my phone. I need data for my phone in order to contact people and it is my substitute for a laptop which my college classes require while in person sometimes. I only need a smart device, which was my phone, and my computer is a desktop I have to keep in my dorm.

I have autism, severe adhd and depression, anxiety, a plethora of things which makes me somewhat disabled and it fucking blows. The entire reason I’ve lost financial support from my dad is because of these diagnoses being made official. Move in day is a month away and I can’t get a job to scrape up money since it’s so close + no car and no phone. I am literally using my moms phone to type this.

I don’t want anybody who is struggling themselves to give me money since I’m still fortunate enough to even have tuition paid for and my moms family is helping how they can, but I really don’t want my time at college to be worse than it has to be, and I don’t want to starve there, be trapped with no gas, no smart device for my classes, etc. but I’d appreciate anything sent my way as long as you are safe and secure enough to do so.

blue money giving app with pal in the name username is /hal7401. I can’t even accept the money on the app until august when I have my computer set up, fair warning.

E begging bruises my ego and I don’t want to accept things for free so I can try to do things in return. I’m not a great artist but I can make silly ms paint doodles for laughs. I type extremely fucking fast so I can caption a YouTube video for you or something. My strong point is video games! I’ve logged into people’s accounts on g*nsh/in to do their daily chores before and I’d be happy to do that as well. I can level ur ov*rwatch account to 25 or SR boost up to 3500 or a little higher on tank or support, I’ve done this dozens of times on my own free time as a side hustle. I can theoretically do up to 4400 but I’m washed. I can duo queue boost in wow with leveling or mythic+ up to whatever, never done that before but I was 2500 on dps in season 2. Those are just some examples and again I can’t really do any of these until late august.

Anyway I don’t really want people to reblog since I’d feel weird about it but if you’re so inclined to you can. I’d appreciate anything at all but please make sure you’re okay before me :)

[onlyonewoman]

Shit I want NT people to know about autism

1. It’s not a disease, it’s a functional disability. There is a difference. 2. Please, don’t say “but you don’t seem autistic” to an autistic person. The reason why this is called an invisible disability is because - wait for it - it’s often not visible! 3. Autistic people exist within all the scale of intelligence spectrum. We’re all different, just like you. Most of us are not like Rain Man (Savant Syndrome is very rare and way different than autism, okay?) and if you throw out a package of peas on the floor, we wont be able to count them, just ask ourselves why we are considered disabled and not the moron throwing food on the floor. 4. We can have romantic and sexual relationships, friends and families too. Some of us are parents and doing fine. 5. The math professor you’re passing by in the corridor at university, the cleaner who’s trolly you just saw around the corner, the teenage girl waiting for the bus, the old lady walking her dog around your block, the musician you just heard on the radio, the toddler that seems uninterested in playing with the other kids in the park, the dad who’s always looking at his cellphone, may all be autistic. We are everywhere. We’re different. 6. When it looks like I’m going through the day smooth, it’s because I’ve done rigorous plans to not get a meltdown. And no, most meltdowns are not visible.    7. Being autistic, often means it’s difficult to reckognize feelings and separate them. That’s called alexithymia and that too is different from person to person. Some have more of it than others. It doesn’t mean we have less feelings or don’t feel as strong as non-autistic people. It simply means a lot of us have to spend time figuring out what we’re feeling and why, because our brain don’t tell us that automatically. That makes us feel chaotic, perhaps even frightened. It’s fucking exhausting too. 8. A lot of us hate surprises. That doesn’t mean we’re boring. It means that our brains have a limitied capability to visualize new situations and to shift focus. It can also be extremely frightening and make us feel loss of control, exposed and vulnerable. 9. It’s very difficult to try and tell your autistic brain that, for example, trying new food or going to an unfamiliar place with your friends to have a good time in safe company, is enjoyable. When you have a hard time both visualizing and generalizing, things that non-autistic people think are about the same, could feel like completely different things. We think in details, not unities, and that makes us perceive the world in ways that differ more than the usual differences between people.  10. We take things literally. Yes, we do. Even people who, like me, belong to the high functional part of the spectrum. We don’t read between the lines, we are often not very good at reading body language, faces or tones of voices. The spoken - or written - words are, for most of us, the one thing communication is about. Don’t get mad at us for not knowing that you really meant “life sucks and I need a hug”, when you said “I’m fine”, okay?  11. Generally, we care less for emotions than facts. Not because we don’t have emotions or don’t care about others - believe me, we do - but because they are a very uncertain navigation tool for us. It often makes us end up in situations where we come off as cold, indifferent, hard or just socially very awkward. As an autistic woman, this is often way, way more difficult with non-autistic women. I’ve lost count on how many girlfriends I’ve lost because of my inability to read between the lines and their inability to speak plainly. 12. It’s a tricky disability, because it takes so many different shapes. Sometimes it’s not visible at all, sometimes it’s even a strenght. Some of my autistic features, I wouldn’t want to live without. Others have the capacity of literally ruining my life. To be a 30+ female with an objectively smart brain in some areas, that somehow fails miserably with food, cleaning, remembering where things are, keep even basic order, doing the dishes, focus on studies, finishing tasks, shift focus and has such difficulties with surveying, short term memory and sense of time, is not a minor inconvenience - it’s a neverending, daily struggle that drains me and makes me feel like a complete failure.  Lot’s of girls and women with autism and ADD, never get the help they need, because we’re so good at hiding our difficulties. The diagnoses still very much describes boys and men within the spectrum, but girls and women often have a bit different symptomes - and we’re good at hiding them. Our family, teachers and friends, may not see our difficulties as “real” difficulties, especially not if we are high functioning in some ways. People think that since I read at least five times faster than the avarage person, that means I must be smart in “simpler” areas, like keeping track of time or knowing proper social behavior. But autism doesn’t work that way and even when our difficulties aren’t shown, they’re still there and make our lives harder than others. It’s not whining, it’s telling it like it is. And if “pull yourself together and just get more organized” helped, believe me, we all would’ve been fucking masters on organizing, planning and prioritizing - and you would’ve begged for our assistance. But, alas, it doesn’t work that way. Do you even think that an autistic brain, who craves logic and order, would freely live in chaos if it could maintain order just by “pulling itself together”? Really? No, I didn’t think so. The world isn’t nice to an autistic brain. And if you, like me, have been blessed/cursed with ADD as well, the world could be your fucking arch enemy.  So, if you’re a girl or woman with autism or ADD or both - or just suspect you might have it, or maybe just think “holy fuck, some of this shit actually describes some of what I’m feeling and thought I was alone and just a fucking failure”, I want to say: You’re not alone, you’re not crazy and you’re not a failure. Your brain simply works different and you have the right to both ask for help and guidance with the struggles that you may feel embarressed about not getting right, and to find ways to use your strenghts and enjoy life on your terms. You’re not spoiled, you’re not a “snowflake”, not a brat or a lazy bastard just because people can’t see your struggles. Be nice to yourself. For many years, I wasn’t. And sometimes I’m still not. I wake up in the mornings, longing for normality, for control and a quiet brain. I accuse myself, I’m unforgiving and ashamed. And then, when I’ve walked down that spiral, I somehow always get back again. And I realise I kick ass, for going through life and not giving up. That I’m not a brat for wanting what the people accusing me of being lazy, unfocused, rude or stupid are taking for granted: a mind that doesn’t constantly, 24/7, does it’s best to fuck up normality in an endless guerilla war you didn’t asked to be a part of.