Ash's Autism Blog

25 y/o autistic loser/alt-right pipeline survivor

[smasher1921]

sometimes people make what i assume they think is a pleasant expression towards me, but to me it looks exactly the same as the expression a chimp makes before its about to rip your face off. its specifically people who are so socially apt that they can instantly tell i have autism but they know that ostracising me for no reason would make them look bad so they smile and try to engage me in conversation. it never works. i avert my gaze, maybe in the same way a socially awkward chimp would in nature, hoping that they can see im not a threat and leave me alone. that never works either.

[smasher1921]

one part about having autism that i find particularly annoying is that i actually do need a community and friends and a support system but i DONT want to talk to people 😭 its gotten me stuck with some pretty poor relationships because id rather take a shit community than no community even for a while but i also cannot and will not go through the efforts of establishing more relationships as an adult than the like 3 close relationships i already have 💀💀💀

[smasher1921]

people are getting dumber and meaner and more afraid and its making me feel hopeless. why doesnt anyone care about eachother anymore

[smasher1921]

i find it extremely frustrating and disheartening that most of the disability related content online and more specifically on tik tok is either 1)parents of disabled children sharing feelings about their own kids that are so harsh and hurtful that it makes ME feel worthless or 2) a disabled person speaking about how horrible life is and how much abelism exists online. and the secret third option is basically just "wow look at all these r*tards living their lives! theyre almost real people!" and thats as close to a positive spin as you can get. its so upsetting. knowing that not only am i disabled but so is my child, my partner, my friends. why cant anyone just treat us like regular people why is it always that either we are a burden or we arent human?

[smasher1921]

im not sure how im supposed to cope with the fact that if i am to be myself, most people will just dislike me and not even give me a chance or even the benefit of the doubt and that most people find it acceptable to be rude and aggressive towards me because im different from them.

[smasher1921]

sometimes I think back on my childhood and I remember that my mom used to be a skeptic YouTuber who took part in creating the alt-right pipeline and that's just like part of my life now. like there's not much left of it but there's enough that I can prove to myself that it wasn't like some kind of weird fever dream and that it did actually happen, but it's unbelievable that that's like a real thing that I experienced, and the fact that because the internet is forever a lot of that information is still out there is just kind of nuts to me and there's not really any kind of space for me to like discuss it because that whole side of the internet has changed and grown into something completely different so the old community that my mom was a part of doesn't even really exist anymore.

[antisinful]

Even though I have somewhere between moderate to high support needs autism, I hate the idea of science ”finding a cure” before there’s been even a genuine attempt at radically changing society into something that’s not actively hurting us.

Because why should I be expected to go through something so potentially personality and life altering, so as to not be a burden to other people? Why is the onus on me and others like me to change for society rather than have society change for us? Why can non autistic people never put in even a fraction of the effort many of us do, just to feel safe and avoid their ire?

This is a genuine political point for me. I don’t think the act of searching for a cure for autism is morally neutral in a world running on capitalism and eugenics.

It has little to do with our well being, it is solely because we are seen as being less worthy of life on a fundamental level, and being punished for suffering from ableism in every aspect of our lives.

If it was for our sake, discussions about what it even means to cure autism and whether or not it will actually be beneficial for us would be at the forefront. There would be extensive talking about the sheer diversity in autistic presentations, and whether or not curing social disability is even possible after birth.

I’m not saying that wanting a cure is bad by any means, I often wish myself that I could have been born without this.

But I just cannot stress enough that the scientific endeavour itself cannot be separated from the discrimination we face. Until we tear down the system that intentionally suffocates us, this matter will remain rooted in violence.

[smasher1921]

ive noticed that almost every single bit of research or recommendations or therapy or whatever is all aimed at making autistic people seem less irritating to neurotypicals despite the fact that much of this very same research shows consistently that the irritation and misunderstanding is MUTUAL. now i am of the opinion that generally, conforming to the majority makes sense and is ideal, but with a social and communication disorder, that doesnt make sense because social groupings and communication styles vary greatly. its frustrating that i spend my entire life trying to accomodate the world and the world does not accomodate me

[smasher1921]

THIS IS A RANT SO SCROLL IF YOURE NOT INTO THAT

nothing, and i mean NOTHING pisses me off more than seeing a bunch of dumb FUCKS theorise about what could possibly be the cause of autism. people suggesting its in the food, or that its because of cleaning agents, or the air we breathe but NO ONE can even CONSIDER the possibility that ITS FUCKING GENETIIIIC AND MAYBE MORE PREVALENT NOW BECAUSE THE WORLD IS FULL OF NOISE AND DISRUPTION WHICH MIGHT MAKE IT MORE OBVIOUS IF SOMEONE IS AUTSITIC. oh and dont forget the fact that we literally found out about autism worldwide in fucking 1943!!!!!!!!

like bruh if i was a peasant farmer id be indistunguishable from a normal person doing the same shit eating the same bland food saying the same phrases to people every single day of my life but now i have to deal with noise noise noise and so many bright lights and so many different smells and textures and thats all like pretty new! autism is NOT NEW!!!!! WTF!!!!!

[mouselikething]

sometimes autism is not a grave insult or a tragic diagnosis sometimes its just like. a fact of life

a little while back i had a teacher who gave me a very backhanded compliment about how i know so much and was the smartest person in class (this was absolutely backhanded, it was very much said in the "youre an obnoxious smartass who corrects people every time theyre wrong" way) and i said "yeah thats the autism" and she looked at me like she had accidentally cursed my entire bloodline. she apologized so much and its like… well i am an obnoxious smartass and i am autistic. thats not an awful curse i survive with thats just a fact of my existence. you didnt insult me by acknowledging that i express symptoms of a disorder i have you just said a fact

[smasher1921]

I get this a lot especially when it comes to me describing my own symptoms and describing why I feel the need to mask. For me, the necessity of masking is not so much an oppression of my being, but more just a way of functioning in the world. Some of the behaviors that I display because of my autism are innately antisocial and when other people display these behaviors towards me I feel as though they are being antisocial towards me, so it's only fair that I make efforts to mitigate my own behavior in that way. This doesn't necessarily apply to every behavior but it does apply to a lot of them in my case.

[vash-the-trans-catboy]

Cute little rainbow heart for pride month tumblr but how about you stop disproportionally banning trans women and marking sfw queer posts as mature

[smasher1921]

Happy pride month from a girlmoding trans(suspected intersex) man with two autistic babies and a big strong husband who i love very much. And remember, always be gay and do crimes

[smasher1921]

I think something that more autistic people should own is that our existence is innately countercultural. one of my favorite movies is called dinner in america and it touches on this subject somewhat, the main character is clearly some kind of neurodivergent and cannot help but to stand out and be different and she crossed paths with a punk rock musician who is very intentionally countercultural, and he sees a beauty in her that no one else in the film seems to, and that beauty is that she is innately anti status-quo. she can't be normal no matter what she does, and I very much relate to this as an autistic adult, especially when I think about the effects that masking my autism have had on me throughout my life. owning this fact is obviously much easier said than done, but the fact that there are entire movements dedicated to pushing against cultural norms should hopefully bring some comfort to any autistic people out there who might be reading this, there is a place for us, we just have to find it.

[smasher1921]

I find it incredibly frustrating when I as an autistic adult talk about something that people attribute to more "profound autism" like elopement. I as a 25-year-old parent of two with a life partner still, on occasion, elope, and the fact that I am self-aware of that does not change that it still happens, but I have come to realize that in the world's misunderstanding of autism at large, people believe that self-aware capable adults are not people who elope. I have been ruminating on this all day because it's an incredibly distressing subject to me, the idea that because I am self-aware and I am somewhat capable of managing myself to cope that somehow i must not struggle at all and that i never do anything thats out of my control.

[smasher1921]

sometimes I think about experiences that I've had and I realize that it's genuinely baffling how inhumane people are towards autistic people. people who are more profoundly autistic tend to be treated with kid gloves which is demeaning in and of itself, but high-masking autistic individuals tend to be treated with like genuine hatred and vitriol, and that's honestly just extremely disheartening. I was reminded of a time where I had left my autistic child in the care of someone who was a child care professional, more specifically they were the director of a daycare center and they called me whilst I was at work to tell me that my child was being so irritating that they wanted to hit him and that I "needed to come get him before he got beat". I was also being treated so poorly by these people that I had developed symptoms of a personality disorder which I was then wrongfully diagnosed with, and once I left that situation it was discovered that I actually never had a personality disorder and that I simply was autistic and was going completely unaccommodated for too long that it was quite literally driving me to insanity. it was not my child's fault that he had a hard time sleeping and regulating himself, and it was not my fault that I did not understand the intricacies of what was happening to me socially, and these people claim to be understanding of autism and what it entailed. this child care professional had worked with multiple autistic children. that is mainly the part that I find so shocking, is that people who I thought were maybe more educated than the general public about autism were some of the most hateful towards myself and my child.

[smasher1921]

been experiencing an immense amount of sorrow regarding my autism lately. i feel sad for the child version of me who was constantly being chastised for reasons i didnt understand. my parents were my first bullies and that impact may never leave me. as i grow older i learn more about what behaviours of mine are autistic and which arent and im beginning to notice that essentially all my behaviours are related to my autism. the way i approach hobbies, the food prefernces i have, the way i approach my job, everything.

[smasher1921]

I really hate any discourse surrounding autistic people online because I often find myself feeling the need to defend people who I otherwise wouldn't really care to defend at all. Every time that a new lolcow comes up or some autistic person is on a TV show and maybe doesn't make the best impression, me and every other autistic person has to sit through months of hearing how shitty we are just for being autistic. Its a harsh reminder that the world at large does not understand nor does it want to understand what being an autistic person is like and that honestly is shameful.

[smasher1921]

it constantly baffles me that I went through several years of therapy and was put into two psychiatric institutions and was constantly telling every single mental health professional that I could talk to that I just wanted to be normal and that something was wrong with me and somehow not one of them could figure out that I was autistic. it took like eight more years before I got a diagnosis