Last night I rewatched the movie What About Bob? for the first time since learning I'm Autistic and deeply researching issues surrounding mental health and media representation, etc. It was interesting. And there won't be any big spoilers in here for anyone who hasn't seen it. First of all, some critiques: Bob's struggles are often … Continue reading Movie Nostalgia: What About Bob?
ableism
Internalized Ableism, Others, and Reassurances
Honestly, I've not given all that much thought to internalized ableism. I've read about it, yes. I've even written a little bit about it, but it has never topped my list of "things I need to personally work on." Until now. It has, rather abruptly, come to my attention that I have internalized way more … Continue reading Internalized Ableism, Others, and Reassurances
Remembering How Others See Us
My time is arranged specifically in many ways so that I can manage life in general. These arrangements also serve to keep me away from professionals, teachers, and other people who have been trained to see us as "people with autism" or "defective" or whathaveyou. Primarily I interact with people who know I'm Autistic, but accept … Continue reading Remembering How Others See Us
Communication is Hard
In going through my saved links recently for a different post, I came across this post from Cynthia Kim --Echolalia and Scripting: Straddling the Border of Functional Language. I've read it before, of course, that's why it's in my saved links; but today this quote from it felt really familiar. It describes a recent experience … Continue reading Communication is Hard
Respecting Autistic Children Doesn’t Sell Books (apparently)
Otherwise entitled: "Parents Defend Damaging Autism Parent Memoirs" Two people, so far, have directly responded to my concerns about the spread of damaging "autism parent memoirs" with the idea that Autistic adults don't want parents to "have a voice" or write at all in the first place. It's possible that some of us do want … Continue reading Respecting Autistic Children Doesn’t Sell Books (apparently)
Accomodation, Assumption, & Presumption
I want to write about how arrogant it is to assume that one knows what another person intends better than that other person does. Quick note: I'm not talking about intuition or situations of abuse. If your intuition is telling you that someone is not a good person for you to be around then you … Continue reading Accomodation, Assumption, & Presumption
Last April – Allistic (non-autistic) Reactions
I wrote this on April 4th last year and the rest of April apparently exhausted me so much that I completely forgot about this post until today. I'm keeping the language the way it was when I wrote it so it's accurate for April 4th, 2017 and not necessarily for right now. It's been a … Continue reading Last April – Allistic (non-autistic) Reactions
Re-Stating (Writing) Dentist Supports
CW: Dentist visit After avoiding dentists by necessity (no extra money or dental insurance) for most of my life, it seems that I'm seeing the dentist with alarming regularity these days. Bad tooth genetics, struggles to find a regular tooth hygiene routine that works for any amount of time, and a lack of previous dental … Continue reading Re-Stating (Writing) Dentist Supports
Work, Energy, & Autistic Inertia
CW: some internalized ableism regarding productivity and energy levels. I was (text) chatting with an Autistic friend a while back about how some of our abilities can make us appear to be far more functional to others than we actually are because we do some things that most people would find difficult to do, but … Continue reading Work, Energy, & Autistic Inertia
Autism, Chances, and Abuse
In the last several years I've watched many of my Autistic friends get out of bad or abusive relationships. The majority of these relationships lasted for over a decade or even two. It is such a sad thing to me that my friends were in abusive relationships for so many years and their situations have … Continue reading Autism, Chances, and Abuse
Mamautistic 