Suffering From Judgment

Floating around on youtube this morning I came across a video discussing how we do not suffer from Asperger’s we suffer from society.

This is something I have thought about many times over the years, even before being diagnosed with AS. I have never suffered from my differences, only from the judgment of others about the value of those differences. When held up in contrast to their own needs my life seems hollow and disconnected and so it’s easy for them to jump to the conclusion that there must be something wrong with me. They fail to see how full and rich it is when compared to my own desires.

30 years of being told there is something wrong with you takes its toll, and I feel it through secondary mental disorders. As time passed and I was increasingly expected to take part in society as a “normal” person I developed anxiety and a social phobia. Although I don’t imagine I would have either of these were it not for AS in my life, I’m quite certain they are not a symptom of the AS itself but rather a symptom of societies reaction to my differences. The social phobia is almost a benefit now; I feel much less guilt about my inability to function in the outside world when I’m not making constant attempts to do it. Still I hear on a regular basis that this is no way to live my life, that there must be something wrong, that I ought to be looking for a cure.

Am I angry about it? Not really, I cannot blame the vast majority for not knowing any better, it is after all not something they have been prompted to think about. Those that should know better but don’t are another story, but I am happy to know their true character and even more happy to leave them out of my life. I just think it would be a vast improvement if people stopped trying to decide what was “right” for everyone else.

The Missing Voice

I’ve been doing a lot of research these last few weeks. I have a driving need to find out exactly where Autism fits into my life so I can decide where to go from here. I’m shocked at what I have found. In mainstream coverage there is one thing significantly lacking. Where is the voice of Autism? How can people who have no idea what it is like to have Autism claim to know all the answers about how it affects your life and what you should do to “cure” it? Why are we listening to the NT parents of Autistic children and not listening to the adults who have lived with this their whole life? Those same adults who were once children with Autism.

I see a general sense of panic happening over the issue of Autism, and I don’t really see the point in that. I’m all about getting the stats out there but this tendency to react with horror and disbelief is a little childish in the face of the facts. An average of 1 in 150 children are on the Autistic Spectrum, and I agree these numbers are staggering, but they are not new despite their relatively recent appearance. If 1 in 150 children have Autism then 1 in 150 adults have Autism. You grew up beside us, the quiet kid at the back or the class clown. You worked beside us and maybe once in awhile wondered where our minds were wandering off to. You sat beside us in the coffee shop and wondered what book we were reading. You sat beside us in the movie theatre and didn’t even know we were there. Autism isn’t new, people panicking about it is.

This rush to find a cure frustrates me. How many Autistic people did they talk to before they decided we need a cure and how much of this push is coming from parents who just want a “normal” child. I’m amazed that people who consider themselves intelligent and rational are buying into and contributing to this hype. I’m even more amazed that they perceive this as the whole truth when it is so blatantly half of the story. Digging deeper the real story is there, the endless accounts of people who have lived with this their whole life. Acceptance of who they are. An overall sense of confusion about why the world can’t accept them as they are as well. People who know that like everything else in life it isn’t all bad, that the upsides to being Autistic more than balance it out. People who wouldn’t want to be NT for all the money in the world. Oddly enough, I haven’t found anyone with Autism screaming for a cure.

Normal vs Sane

What is normal but a figment of their warped imaginations? It doesn’t exist in my world, never has, despite the endless times it’s been thrown at my feet. They tried to throw it at me but it never stuck, how could I be something that doesn’t exist. I may as well try to be a unicorn or a dragon for all the good it would do me. I can’t be anything other than what I am, and try as I might I will never master the magic of transformation. I tried and I failed before I learned how to mimic their cries and let them come flocking to what they wanted to see, I’ve forgotten now how to do even that. Not that I care.

I refuse to pretend, I’ve spent my life pretending and I don’t think it’s too much to ask for my loved ones to accept me for who I am. I know it isn’t for most, the ones who already knew about my world and love me and would never ask me to change, but I worry about the rest. Will the social stigma Autism get the best of them? Will they crumble beneath the pressure of the media to find a cure? Will they stop seeing me for the person I am in the face of what they see as a disease? Or will they open their minds and their hearts and see the truth about the girl standing in front of them and all she has to offer? I don’t know, I can’t predict how they will react, I don’t understand them at all. It seems so easy to me. Stop trying to change the things you have no control over and just accept reality into your life.

I’m not hurting anyone, hiding away in my little world. I don’t pose any threat by remaining peripheral from all those but the few who will meet me half way. I could wish for the ability to expand this close circle, I could visualize it in my mind, but still I would open my eyes to find that the power is not mine to make their choices and all that remains are my whispers and the hope that they will hear them. One little voice saying that trying to be normal is counterproductive to remaining sane. You may as well try being a unicorn, or a dragon, for all the good it will do you.

Opening Minds

I’m not going to cry, I’m not going to whimper, I’m not ever going to let a lone tear roll tracks down my dusty cheeks. I won’t let the world know the pain they cause, the scars that cut through my soul, marring the edges of my very spirit, and leaving me crying in agony on the inside. A cold face is all they will receive in return. Their cruel taunts will pass my ears with the speed of a wave, crashing against the rocks, and yet will not wear me down. My strength is moored in the lines of the earth, and the energy that sustains it runs through my bones as well. Laughter may echo across the lands of my mind, but my own can join it in harmony, and soon the mocking shall fade, no power without consent. I won’t let them see the shattered webbing of the core that is created, when laughing minds refuse to see the truth, when the sheep inside their hearts follow blind along paths of destruction.

The fear that rocks my being is one for them alone, and yet they will never understand this, for the weight of the world rests in their hands, and the power of it makes them gluttonous. Wrapped deep within layers and layers of gauzing, cushioned from the damage they cause themselves, and everyone else in the process, my heart still weeps but I won’t let them see. If they opened their eyes, saw the lines in between, walked the tunnels with lamps instead of blindly floundering on, then the world might last forever. Takes but a moment to ask the questions that provide illumination for this journey of ours, and the light a single one may cast can light the way for countless others who follow in their wake. But no, some people fear the light, and the knowledge it may bring, that in the glare of the truth they might find they their perspectives a little warped. So they hide behind Ire, and claim to have a greater understanding of the world at large, when all they can really see is the walls they have created in their own little reality.

True bravery takes a step outside that door, those walls of safety and comfort, to see the world from the eyes of another. Why won’t I cry? Whimper? Because it would make no difference, cruel eyes would just flash and call it weakness. They would jump to conclusions, assuming they hurt me, that the wounds that appear across the flesh of my soul are theirs. But they belong to humanity, romantic as it is, for these people will mean the end of the earth, Armageddon, Ragnorak, if they don’t learn to listen to the greater songs that are the energy of us all. Why embrace anger, when acceptance comes easier, why embrace hate when the heart wants to learn. Why claim understanding before even listening. Open your mind and embrace clarity.