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.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Failure

References to cure, death, and instutionalization

Failure

Cure, Death, Institutionalization.
Waiting for just one wrong move,
Just one bad step and it's the institution for us.
Death of our choices (Beware the choice! Beware refusing it!)
Cure for other's discomfort over our existence.
Institutionalization, Death, Cure.

Make us become so numb,
To be less like me, and be more like you.
Beware our choices, beware refusing them,
Instead choose to control and hide them.
Waiting for just one wrong move,
Just one bad step,
Prove we are failures, all, to you.
Then enforce the endings three.

This might seem a strange poem to put up on Autistic Pride Day, to submit to the Autistic Artistic Carnival for Autistic Pride Day, but there are reasons.
This poem is not an expression of my pride. I do that often enough, here and elsewhere. When I stim openly, in public (as I will also do, this Autistic Pride Day,) that is an expression of my pride, that I am proud of who I am. When I assert my right to exist, as I am, in spite of all the messages otherwise, I am asserting my Autistic Pride. This poem is something different. This poem is why we need Autistic Pride. This poem is what we're up against. And this poem is echolalic. I take other's words and turn them around to say what I want to say.

The cure, death, institutionalization pattern: I've used it before in The Ends, and I pulled it from an article written by a disabled person about the representation of disabled characters in fiction. I've since lost the article, but the words stayed, repeating in my mind.

There's some pulled from The Saturday Nights, or from a song they played two name changes ago, Strangers Fate, which I've also written about before. The line's I'm using are: "Waiting for just one wrong move,/ Just one bad step./ I'm a failure to you." Those are from the refrain.

"Beware the Choice! Beware refusing it!" is a Young Wizards reference. (Book of Night with Moon, Tetrastych XIV: “Fire Over Heaven”) It's by Diane Duane, and as long as you're sticking to the New Millennium Editions I really recommend the series. The print editions are mostly OK except book 6, which is terrible in the original version and awesome in the new version.

The last reference is from Linkin Park's Numb, in the refrain. "I've become so numb" is the first line of the refrain, and the last three lines of the refrain are "All I want to do/ Is be more like me/ And be less like you." I changed it around, because while I do, in fact, want to be more like me and be less like expectations of what I should be, I'm not talking about what I want here. I'm writing about what they're pushing, which is for us to be more like the expectations.

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