Non verbal or not non verbal?
I've really struggled to express this and why I am having difficulty with not using the term become non-verbal. I'm gen x and I'm trying to understand. Please be kind.
This it's been a part of my life always really. It's just when it got to this point I would hide away my own. It wasn't really an issue in my day-to-day life because I was masking so much. However I would burn out and need to take days and days off work to recover on I've regular basis. Places of work don't like this.
When my daughter was unwell and I was caring for her full time and intensively, I became very burnt out. I Began noticing that I would start to do what I called- loose my words. It would be like there was a fog in my brain between what I was thinking and feeling and putting that into language and then expressing that in words. At its best this would just be a verbal difficulty and at its worse I couldn't communicate in writing either.
When my daughter hit crisis, so did I. When she went into a crisis house and then went into a psychiatric unit, I began to notice the periods of me having difficulty expressing myself with words was becoming more frequent. As I said at best this was a shutdown verbally and at worse it was an inability to communicate using language at all.
It seems like the more stressed I was, the more stressful the situation was, the more emotive situation was and the more communicating I needed to do, the more difficulty communicating I had.
I still have these issues. I can feel them coming on most of the time. When it's all getting too much and I'm shutting down and my communication ability shuts down too. I still use the phrase losing words. However most people don't understand what that means and what it means for me.
I have used the phrase becoming non-verbal to describe my difficulties during these periods. I have recently read on Tumblr from people who are non-verbal all of the time that this is offensive. I don't fully understand at the moment why that is but I want to understand.
I don't feel the term semi verbal quite describes me as the majority of the time I can communicate using my voice and typing. I don't feel the term selective mute is an adequate definition of what it is I experience. I don't know I could be wrong on this.
I don't want to use language which detracts from other autistic's experiences or obstructs understanding. I do however need to use words that other people generally are able to understand the meaning of.
I think discourse is important. It is vital to establish a shared and precise comprehension of the meanings of words. It is equally important to grasp their significance within different social groups. These meanings contribute to the associated ideas, assumptions, and stereotypes related to those words. The common understanding of these words and any prevalent stereotypical beliefs associated with the group they describe can unfortunately result in discrimination and prejudiced actions.
However I don't believe in the gatekeeping of terms, definitions, labels, over who can use them.
I am queer and there are many definitions of what that means. However generally it means not cis-heterosexual.
Queerness like autism is a spectrum consisting of many parts. My queerness is more evident in some parts of my life and less so in others. My autism is impacts me to different degrees in different areas of my life. I am 100% autistic and I am 100% queer. Both those labels apply to me as an individual, as ways of describing my gender identity and sexuality succinctly and as a way of describing my neurotype succinctly.
People are argue all the time about who has the right to use these labels. I don't care if you are self-diagnosed autistic I think that is just as valid as a diagnostic label. I don't care why or for how long or when you decide that you identify as queer. It is just as valid to decide that you are queer in your teens or when you're 50.
I experience not being able to use language verbally at times. I don't understand at present why it would be offensive or wrong for me to say I experience becoming non-verbal at times. As this is a succinct and well understood way of describing this experience in a way that others can understand.
If someone can explain this issue to me in a way that makes sense and can suggest another way of me explaining my experience and getting my point across regarding my support needs to people in general without saying I have periods where I am non-verbal, then I will stop using that term.
