Note For Anyone Writing About Me

Guide to Writing About Me

I am an Autistic person,not a person with autism. I am also not Aspergers. The diagnosis isn't even in the DSM anymore, and yes, I agree with the consolidation of all autistic spectrum stuff under one umbrella. I have other issues with the DSM.

I don't like Autism Speaks. I'm Disabled, not differently abled, and I am an Autistic activist. Self-advocate is true, but incomplete.

Citing My Posts

MLA: Zisk, Alyssa Hillary. "Post Title." Yes, That Too. Day Month Year of post. Web. Day Month Year of retrieval.

APA: Zisk, A. H. (Year Month Day of post.) Post Title. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://yesthattoo.blogspot.com/post-specific-URL.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Because some people write problematic things.

Trigger Warning: Swearing (in the small bold text ONLY)

Another day, another round of problematic things, eh? A friend of mine, also on the autism spectrum, wrote this note as a status

Dear the majority of non autistic people who post in the 'autism' tag,
I sincerely want to punch most of you in the face. Seriously, you are the worst.
Please stop comparing autism to AIDS, cancer, or saying that it's caused by vaccines and sugar substitutes. Stop telling us how heartbreaking it is to watch your autistic sibling do something the way they want to do it. And for FUCK'S SAKE stop telling us how badly we need a cure.
Love,
Elijah
 (Said friend did give permission, and has his own blog at http://consulting-ashaman.tumblr.com/)
I would never have said those words myself for a few reasons:
1) I don't swear.
2) I don't threaten violence outside of LARPing/fencing type situations or with friends who I know won't read it as a threat.
3) I don't think I could have signed that with ``Love." I'm too pissed.
But it makes a sufficiently good point, and as long as I am doing so with CRTL-C and CTRL-V instead of having to actually say or type those words, I can put it out there. It needs saying, and I am tired of being diplomatic. I am tired of watching people comment on other blog posts making arguments from tone. (An argument from tone is when you talk about how rudely something was said and completely ignoring the points that were made, even when if this were happening to you, there is NO WAY you would have the patience to be polite. I usually will be polite, but if you are hurting me right now and you didn't stop immediately when I was polite, I'm done being polite.)
 I also did briefly stop by the autism awareness fundraiser at my college yesterday, and I can't decide if reality is better or worse than what I saw. Most of the people involved didn't have an incorrect picture of what autism could look like because they had no clue... and admitted as much. At least they didn't pretend they knew things they didn't know or spread the vaccine nonsense, right? But there wasn't any real awareness, either. It's sad. (I did look up the autism project. They were missing a few key things, like resources for AUTISICS as opposed to just parents and professionals, but what they were saying seemed fairly close to reality. They included Aspergers in what autism can look like and made it clear that autistic people can accomplish things just fine, along with some actual good advice. ) So if they had actually given people the picture of autism that they use while raising money for awareness, I'd have been cool with it. Still better than Autism Speaks, where the picture they paint is plain bad. But also still not good.

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