Avoiding eye contact isnât ârudeâ
Avoiding eye contact isnât âimpoliteâ
Not for people like us - who are neurodivergent
Who are autistic or have ADHD, or both
Whose brain structures differ from that of a neurotypical structureÂ
Who donât function the same way as neurotypicals do
Who feel threatened by eye contact due to the way their neurology has develooped
Who feel pain when making eye contactÂ
Who are different because of their psychology
We speak our own language
Yet you want us to be fluent in yours
And refuse to learn our own
You ignore our language - while thinking yours is the only real oneÂ
Without acknowledging that this is how we communicate
That we understand each other and can comprehend our own mothertongue
And this could be applied literally to different situations
But our brains are built in ways your architects didnât installÂ
So we have our own navigation through our minds
Labyrinths that we know every path and crevice to
We are adjusted to this; you are not
Search engines arenât hard to come by if you have technology
And you donât study with the resources available to you
In favor of so-called âprofessionalâ opinions
Even when theyâre proven wrong by professional scientists
And you give us âtherapyâ you think will give us your brain structure
But thatâs not how neurological science works
And itâs not how any human brain functions properly
You call it âhelpâ and then abuse us with ABAÂ
You think the organization that silences us speaks for us
And disregarded what we had to say
In favor of fueling their political ableist agenda
In favor of spreading their anti-autistic propaganda
You think we donât look like ourselves
Despite telling us to wear a mask all our lives
But when the mask falls off, you donât believe itâs us underneath
Even though you were the one that put it on our faces in the first place
You act like we donât know who we are
Or that weâre not human
Weâve done mountains more research than youâll ever know
Scoured Googleâs pages for information, or bing
Or whatever engine we use, we look through as many pages as we can
Without losing spoons - our word for our energy
We go years undiagnosed, because of factors you refuse to believe
The sexism in the medical industry is rampant, yet you disregard the statisticians who told you it was true
Women like me go undiagnosed for most of their lives
Because you think itâs a âboyâs disorderâ
Because your precious allies used blue to represent men
As if women couldnât be part of our community
When thatâs blatantly not true
And itâs not just gender or sex eitherÂ
That blend into one another
That make it a challenge for us to find a well-trained professionalÂ
To get a diagnosis so you will finally believe us when we say
That this is our experience
Even if we donât have a label yet
That these are things that make so many of us feel like outcasts because of how you treat usÂ
Because when weâre little, you donât teach your kids to respect us
And they treat us like outcasts
But none of those are true
Because normal doesnât exist, itâs a concept created by society in order to force those who were different to fit into their social ideologies
Because âmentalâ is an outdated diagnosis that was used to demonize mentally ill and neurodivergent people back when asylums were still legal and abused their power over vulnerable populations
Because autism isnât psychosis. Theyâre two different things, and neither makes the person a monster, or lesser than
Because even though weâre some of the smartest people youâll ever meet, saying someone shouldnât have a right to live because they arenât as smart as you is oppressive elitism
Because âretardedâ is another outdated diagnosis and is routinely used to dehumanize people like usÂ
Because weâre not lazy, you just donât know what the words âexecutive dysfunctionâ mean and you refuse to help us when weâre faced with challenges we donât know how to cope with
Weâre not going anywhere anytime soon
Weâre not ill, our brains are just different
And youâ d better fucking get used to it
Because weâre not useless, weâre revolutionaries.
And weâre going to change the fucking world, whether you and your ilk like it or not.Â