The majority of the world see being Autistic as a tragedy. That we couldn't possibly have rich fulfilling lives because of our struggles.
Well I want to help change people's perspective on Autistics. Be a part of making positive changes in the world's view of us. Help people to see our neuro-culture as just as valid to existence as theirs. I will be sharing from my own experiences as an Actually Autistic adult and also as the single parent to a Autistic teen, as well as sharing blogs, articles and stories from other Autistics and new information that I find. I also run Planet Autistic the FaceBook page (click learn more below to take you there) that has been up for 8 years now. Welcome to Planet Autistic. |
Taking the mask off.
Short post about masking.
Masking.
When we’re young and innocent there is no need for it. We’re ourselves.
The older we get the more is expected of us and the more we have people put masks on us to make us fit into the world around us.
Because it’s so wrong for us to be ourselves.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re male or female.
The older you get and the longer the mask is on, the hard it becomes to take it off.
You could have finally found your Autistic identity and accept yourself knowing that there isn’t actually anything wrong with you. Your a good person and you try to make a good impact on the people you come in contact with as you move through the world without leaving too many big ripples.
But that mask is still there.
It’s automatic now. It doesn’t matter how hard to you try to keep it off, when you go out into the world, that mask flips into position on first contact with another human.
That training you went through as you were growing and developing, forcing you into a mold you weren’t built for damages you in so many ways.
It causes psychological damage and so much stress and trauma.
There isn’t anything wrong with an Autistic neurology. We weren’t all built to be the same.
There is so much diversity in the animal and insect world and yet for strange reason humans expect all of them to be exactly the same? Why is that?
Diversity, different thinking, it strengthens people rather than making them weaker or wrong. It doesn’t matter how you move through the world. Whether you’re verbal or non verbal, whether you stim loud or stim quietly. As long as the impact you make on the people around you as you move through it is a good one.
And that's exactly what I'll teach my boy.
#actuallyautistic
#actuallyautisticmother
#masking
When we’re young and innocent there is no need for it. We’re ourselves.
The older we get the more is expected of us and the more we have people put masks on us to make us fit into the world around us.
Because it’s so wrong for us to be ourselves.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re male or female.
The older you get and the longer the mask is on, the hard it becomes to take it off.
You could have finally found your Autistic identity and accept yourself knowing that there isn’t actually anything wrong with you. Your a good person and you try to make a good impact on the people you come in contact with as you move through the world without leaving too many big ripples.
But that mask is still there.
It’s automatic now. It doesn’t matter how hard to you try to keep it off, when you go out into the world, that mask flips into position on first contact with another human.
That training you went through as you were growing and developing, forcing you into a mold you weren’t built for damages you in so many ways.
It causes psychological damage and so much stress and trauma.
There isn’t anything wrong with an Autistic neurology. We weren’t all built to be the same.
There is so much diversity in the animal and insect world and yet for strange reason humans expect all of them to be exactly the same? Why is that?
Diversity, different thinking, it strengthens people rather than making them weaker or wrong. It doesn’t matter how you move through the world. Whether you’re verbal or non verbal, whether you stim loud or stim quietly. As long as the impact you make on the people around you as you move through it is a good one.
And that's exactly what I'll teach my boy.
#actuallyautistic
#actuallyautisticmother
#masking
Our Golden Moment.
Global coming out for all Autistics
April has approached with dread for Autistics ever since light it up blue and Autism $peaks decided that we were incapable of speaking for ourselves.
This misinformation and fear mongering have made us fearful of coming out as Autistics because of the treatment we suffer from, and peoples preconceived ideas about us and misinformation that they have been fed.
Parents are, upon their child being diagnosed, bombarded with so much rubbish about therapies and treatments and the cost of raising an Autistic child, and the bleak future their children have because of the label Autism, that the harm our young ones suffer from is beyond child abuse.
children are even dying from this fear of Autism.
And adults are too scared to come forward because of the view people have of us.
This fear surrounding us is harmful and down right dangerous for us.
From the first recognition of and labeling of Autism in the early 1900's from Hans Asperger and Leo Kanner, to the first therapy to change us to a neurotypical with ABA, therapies and treatments to cure and rid the world of Autism have increased in severity and brutality.
The bleach cults and anti vaxxers are at the top of list for the worst of the fear mongerers.
Even though it's been proven in countless studies that Autism is genetic it is still approached as a disease and something to be feared.
Epigenetics and other research is being done to find a way to prevent us even being born. You will soon be able to get a test done while pregnant as you can with down syndrome, so you can decide on whether or not you want to keep the baby.
If you are an adult Autistic past the age of 45 you have gone past your expected age limit, so says the statistics. Death from caregivers, from parents, from law enforcers, from suicide are more likely to occur over old age.
The use of functioning label serve to segregate us within even our own community. The Aspie supremacists not wishing to be compared to what is deemed as lower functioning on the spectrum.
No one wonder people are afraid to come out of the Autism closet.
So starts Our Golden Moment.
This April we want to start what we hope to be positive steps in changing the worlds perspectives and knowledge on Autism.
It's light it up gold and the infinity symbol over light it up blue and the puzzle piece because we are not a puzzle to be solved and we aren't gender specific to boys only.
Autistically run organisations and business are welcome to partner up with Our Golden Moment to help with this movement, as has Planet Autistic.
We encourage such businesses and orgs to do the same.
We are stronger together.
Nothing about us without us.
Dates to mark on your calendar:
31/03/2020--Coming out day.
01/04/2020--Disruption Day/Virtual Vigil for Autistics who have lost their lives.
02/04/2020--Ally day.
Click the boxes below to go to Our Golden Moment website and FaceBook page.
Facial Expressions
How many autistics out there struggle with reading faces? Or effectively “passing”‘enough to make their own?
It was when I was in my late teens that I started paying attention to when people asked me why I alway looked so angry or upset.
I was constantly asked what was wrong. “Nothing” I’d reply. I could be happy or sad but my face never showed it. Not unless it was extreme emotion.
I’d look in the bathroom mirror and wonder why they’d say that. I could certainly feel those emotions. I could see it in my own face.
But I started to practise embellishing on those expressions to a level that was more acceptable to others.
Because that’s what I was told to do.
I felt like an absolute idiot when I did that. I wondered why everyone wanted to feel that way. Walking round like idiots with fake expressions on.
I didn’t realise that that was what neurotypicals did.
But I did it. I didn’t have much of a choice. If I wanted to have friend, because that’s what I was told I had to have to be acceptable and be happy, then I had to force my face to do things that didn’t come naturally.
That was the start of my masking.
It was also the start of the troubles I got myself into. By pretending to be what I wasn’t in order to “fit in”.
Why is that so important to neurotypicals to the point that they make life so much more difficult for us by making us feel like we’re broke or defective because we may not want to or be able to socialise to the extent that they do?
What is so wrong with trying to meet us half way?
The amount of energy it takes from us to act all the time makes us more anxious, makes us sick, exhausts us, makes us depressed. And in the end makes us feel more isolated.
I didn’t realise till a little while ago that as soon as I go in public or encounter people my face will automatically go into a smile all on its own.
Not all the time but most of the time.
I really want to be able to go back to my “factory settings” before all the training ruined my original programming.
Telling us to smile when we aren’t feeling it (or even if we are), or show appropriate emotional reactions on our faces even we are already feeling but you can’t see it, is really abusive. It cuts at our self esteem and chips away at us.
There are other ways of reading emotions in people other than with facial expressions.
It really shows how limited a neurotypical is if they can’t read body language or feel the energy from other person as forms of picking up emotions.
Our abilities to do this are stripped from us because most neurotypicals can’t understated it. We are made to feel that faces are the only way. That eye contact is the only way.
It is not. At all.
Typical Humans seem to be limited and restricted to only a few ways of communication.
And then we come along. We can tell the fake smile on your face and the condescending tone of voice in the way you address us. We can pick up your energies and can feel your emotional state when you enter a room.
But the psychological warfare you wage with us in trying to make us like you seriously interferes with our abilities to read you.
Of course not all of us are like that. There are some who may be completely unable to pick up your emotions or even read their own.
It is a spectrum.
But whether we are super sensitive or enable to do it doesn’t give you the right to make us feel bad because we aren’t like you.
How many autistics here are able to read faces? Or body language? How much energy does it take you?
Planet Autistic x
#actuallyautistic
#facialexpressionsareoverrated
It was when I was in my late teens that I started paying attention to when people asked me why I alway looked so angry or upset.
I was constantly asked what was wrong. “Nothing” I’d reply. I could be happy or sad but my face never showed it. Not unless it was extreme emotion.
I’d look in the bathroom mirror and wonder why they’d say that. I could certainly feel those emotions. I could see it in my own face.
But I started to practise embellishing on those expressions to a level that was more acceptable to others.
Because that’s what I was told to do.
I felt like an absolute idiot when I did that. I wondered why everyone wanted to feel that way. Walking round like idiots with fake expressions on.
I didn’t realise that that was what neurotypicals did.
But I did it. I didn’t have much of a choice. If I wanted to have friend, because that’s what I was told I had to have to be acceptable and be happy, then I had to force my face to do things that didn’t come naturally.
That was the start of my masking.
It was also the start of the troubles I got myself into. By pretending to be what I wasn’t in order to “fit in”.
Why is that so important to neurotypicals to the point that they make life so much more difficult for us by making us feel like we’re broke or defective because we may not want to or be able to socialise to the extent that they do?
What is so wrong with trying to meet us half way?
The amount of energy it takes from us to act all the time makes us more anxious, makes us sick, exhausts us, makes us depressed. And in the end makes us feel more isolated.
I didn’t realise till a little while ago that as soon as I go in public or encounter people my face will automatically go into a smile all on its own.
Not all the time but most of the time.
I really want to be able to go back to my “factory settings” before all the training ruined my original programming.
Telling us to smile when we aren’t feeling it (or even if we are), or show appropriate emotional reactions on our faces even we are already feeling but you can’t see it, is really abusive. It cuts at our self esteem and chips away at us.
There are other ways of reading emotions in people other than with facial expressions.
It really shows how limited a neurotypical is if they can’t read body language or feel the energy from other person as forms of picking up emotions.
Our abilities to do this are stripped from us because most neurotypicals can’t understated it. We are made to feel that faces are the only way. That eye contact is the only way.
It is not. At all.
Typical Humans seem to be limited and restricted to only a few ways of communication.
And then we come along. We can tell the fake smile on your face and the condescending tone of voice in the way you address us. We can pick up your energies and can feel your emotional state when you enter a room.
But the psychological warfare you wage with us in trying to make us like you seriously interferes with our abilities to read you.
Of course not all of us are like that. There are some who may be completely unable to pick up your emotions or even read their own.
It is a spectrum.
But whether we are super sensitive or enable to do it doesn’t give you the right to make us feel bad because we aren’t like you.
How many autistics here are able to read faces? Or body language? How much energy does it take you?
Planet Autistic x
#actuallyautistic
#facialexpressionsareoverrated