One Last Autistics Speaking Day

I actually don't remember the start of Autistics Speaking Day (I'd just started my freshman year of college), but I've read about it. 

I've participated a few times.

I helped with the Tumblr for it, I think 2014-2016? 

But as time moves on, the ways people engage in communities have changed. Yahoo groups were before my time. I began engaging in the age of blogs. I saw #AutChat start. I think we're in the age of social media, now, more so than stand-alone blogs.

I'm not sure that's a good thing, but I think it's true. Facebook groups are where I'm most active, now. 

I'm still speaking. Just... not usually orally, and not usually here. 

(It's also relevant that I've been writing in places that aren't blogs or social media, but that's more the academic side of things than the everyday.)

Literally Speaking About Not-Always-Speaking on Autistics Speaking Day

This Autistics Speaking Day, I presented at the American EducationalStudies Association conference on my paper, “Am I the Curriculum?”

Given the origin of Autistics Speaking Day as a response to a Communication Shutdown event, telling neurotypicals to get off social media for the day to simulate and empathise with autistic communication difficulties, I think giving this literal speech on Autistics Speaking Day was fitting.

Autistic people often use tools like social media to support our communication. I believe that our doing so should be considered as the communication support it is, just as augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) researchers do for people they recognize as needing AAC. (I also think speaking autistic people should be recognized as needing AAC. Heck, AAC for everyone. Let's not depend on speech language pathologists specifically, or outsiders in general, to recognize communication difficulties that AAC could help with.)

I use social media to support my communication. That's literally what I'm doing with my blog. That's literally what Autistics Speaking Day is. The Internet is, so often, our lifeline. I am no exception to my statement that speaking autistic people can benefit from AAC, or that social media is part of this.

So speaking about my experience as an AAC user, as someone who often has to use tools other than speech (like social media, but not only social media) to communicate, on Autistics Speaking Day, seems fitting. Advocating for AAC for everyone, which I've said before and will say again, on Autistics Speaking Day, seems fitting.

And speaking back to the awkwardness of entering professional spaces as an autistic AAC user, to advocate for these changes, to advocate for increased access to AAC for us? Yes, that's part of Autistics Speaking Day too.

"Speaking" to academia #ASDay

I wear many metaphorical hats. I'm a teacher. I'm a published poet. I'm a disability studies scholar, affiliated with a university but not for disability studies. I'm a graduate student in neuroscience. I'm an Autistic advocate, and not only a self-advocate (advocating for myself is often harder than the general stuff.) I'm a blogger.

Always, I am all of these things (and a bunch of other things). Sometimes, I get the opportunity to combine them. I've been blogging for GradHacker, part of Inside Higher Ed, since the start of the calendar year. That's for writing that's relevant to graduate students, or about graduate school.

Even though I know disabled graduate students exist, and disabled professors exist, and anyone teaching will eventually have disabled students, I've worried before every disability-related pitch I've made to them. Is it a topic that anyone outside disability communities would care about? Do they have enough background to understand the issue even if they care? Will the editors go for it, even if the audience would find the post useful?

It's far easier to talk about something like my discussions with my union, where my example "just happens" to be about disability. I know graduate assistants unions and contracts are widely relevant. I know "read your contract!" is good advice for any graduate assistant. One of the reasons I give is about knowing where I go for my accommodations, but it's not the only one I give. There were all of three disability posts on GradHacker before I started blogging for them, so far as I can tell. Breaking that pattern was a bit nerve-wracking. (Three of the posts I have up for them are explicitly about disability, and all but one at least references it. Seems like a lot, but I said I could bring a disability perspective when I applied and they took me so they kind of asked for it? That's what I tell myself, anyways.)

The disability series I'm writing for GradHacker now didn't start out as a series at all. It started with a post I'd had the idea for, and then suddenly couldn't not write. That's how a lot of my writing happens, actually. The disability stories I'd heard over the course of my time at university, either from professors or from other students, scare me. A way of explaining the pattern came to me, and I had a post. I was about to post it here, and then I realized that the GradHacker audience was the one that really needed to see it. They're reasonably likely to be teaching college later, and they might be doing so now! That became of the most commented-on pieces on GradHacker, because I "spoke" up. (Maybe the most commented on. Definitely the most commented on since I started blogging for GradHacker, almost by a factor of three.)

Now it's going to be at least four posts: one about disability stories, one about using AAC as a student, an upcoming one about the accommodation talk as a student (written, but not scheduled to post until late this month), and one an editor suggested to me about disclosure as a disabled teacher.

I'm talking to academia, or the future of academia, about things that directly affect me as an Autistic graduate student. Some people might even be listening. I hope so.

Autistics Speaking Day 2015

Autistics Speaking Day 2015 was a day when I did not speak aloud.

Not because I couldn't.

Because I didn't need to.

I used social media sites to talk to the people I wanted to talk to, today.
I rode my bicycle around the town, exploring, and then I sat and watched a river flow by, today.
I worked on applications to PhD programs, today.

And because I did not spend the energy on speaking aloud, I have the energy for other things.

I write.

Today, like every Autistics Speaking Day, is November 1st. That's the first day of National Novel Writing Month. I am a bit of a NaNo Rebel this year, because what I am working on is not a novel, but I am participating. I have quite a bit of writing that I am working on -- statements of purpose and personal history statements and various other essays that I need as I apply to PhD programs, short fiction with autistic characters, either of the two novel ideas I've got on the back burner, blog posts, poetry, narrative of some sort for Autonomous Press -- the list goes on, I'm sure.

I read.

Like most writers, I read a lot. I read fiction, both in the genres I write (science fiction and fantasy, mostly) and in other genres. I re-read Watson and Holmes: A Study in Black today. I started reading Accessing the Future today. I read blogs. I read non-fiction. Right now I'm reading Biopolitics and Utopia, and also Neurotribes.

I meditate.

Like many Autistic adults, I have pretty bad anxiety. Meditation isn't a miracle cure, not by any stretch, but it calms me down a little. One more tool in the box is always handy, in any case.

I speak, metaphorically.

Because I have the time and energy and platform to do so, I can tell my stories to anyone who'll listen. I can tell people how oral speech doesn't matter that much to me, that whatever they might imagine being unable to speak is like (for the folks who have to imagine), that's probably not how it is for me.

Here's the thing:

I don't actually care when speech gives out on me, not in itself. I might be annoyed about the reason, like when flickering lights gets me. I might be frustrated if it's disproportionately hitting one activity (sorry, measure theory.) I might be scared if I'm around people whose reactions to speech going offline are as yet unknown, because sometimes people do react poorly. I might need to think about the logistical question of how best to communicate without speech, if it's the first time I've needed to in a given environment.

These are all different from being upset about the inability to speak. Some of them boil down to being upset about ableism, whether about access barriers or about biases against people who don't speak with their mouths. Even the logistical question could fit under that category, since there'd already be an easy answer if society were really set up for people who don't speak orally.

My concern about disproportionately losing speech during one particular class I'm less certain on how to classify. Partially, as much as the professor and my classmates seem to be totally fine about my not always being able to speak and my writing on the side board instead when I can't, I'm worried about what they're going to think. As a teaching assistant, I teach a class, face-to-face. As much as I know teaching without speech can be done, as much as I know people who do it, I haven't done it yet. Not classroom teaching with 30-50 students in a lecture, while I can't talk.

I've done tutoring without speech, and I gave a conference presentation without speech, but I've not done regular classroom teaching without speech yet and I don't really want my colleagues wondering how I would manage that until after I've got an answer I know works.

Whatever it is, it's still not finding the inability to speak inherently frustrating. And I've solved the logistical questions for most of the environments I spend much time in.

And here's what I don't do:

I don't purposefully avoid methods of communication I know I can use, and effectively. I don't think that doing so would teach me what it's like not to be able to use those methods, because times when speech is working fine but I am choosing not to speak for some reason (someone else is talking, sore throat, not actually having anything to say) are very different from the times when speech isn't working.

That's what Communication Shutdown would have been, and it's what taking an hour of silence (at a time you choose, too!) to try and understand what it's like not to always being able to speak would be. 

Autistics Speaking Day 2013

Warning: References to Ableism (super-vague)

Oh hey, it's November 1, Autistics Speaking Day. I'm Autistic. I don't always say words with my mouth, but I communicate, and that's the version of “speaking” I'm using. I've got two main ideas for what to talk about: I've got an autistic character planned for my NaNoWriMo novel(s) who types “I was able to say words. That turned out not to be the same thing as speaking” about a potion that let her... say words. The idea was to let her talk. It's a fantasy novel. I've also got the speaking I do in my daily life, educating people by way of being the autistic adult that they actually know of. The way diagnosis looks in China, there aren't exactly a lot of autistic college students who know they're autistic here. That's not to say there's no autistic students: I think that one of my classmates in graph theory might be autistic. But there's not really people my age who know they're autistic, or there's not a lot of us and we're mostly not in colleges.

First off, offline stuff. I'm out as autistic to my Chinese language teachers, my Academic Director, my Residence Director, all my classmates for my language classes, my roommate, and a couple people in my materials science class. My roommate knew pretty much nothing about autism when I met her, and then I told her that I'm Autistic, and then I lent her Loud Hands because she wanted a book that was in fairly simple language but wasn't meant for young kids. So that's a way of having several Autistic people speaking to her about autism from across the ocean. That was pretty cool.

There's also been conversations with my Academic Director. Some have been really productive. Like this one. It was in Chinese, like basically all our conversations, but here's approximately what was said. She is Zhu Laoshi, I'm me.

Zhu Laoshi: So are you interested in visiting one of the schools for autistic kids while you're here? I could go with you.

Me: Uh, maybe? I'm a wee bit scared, though.

Zhu Laoshi: They learned a lot of stuff from American NGO's.

Me: Yeah, that's what scares me.

Zhu Laoshi: Why?

Me: Because the biggest autism related organization in the USA is really bad.

Zhu Laoshi: Have you told them what their problems are?

Me: Yup. So have a ton of autistic adults. One of the problems is that they don't listen to autistic people.

Zhu Laoshi: That would make it hard, yes. [Conversation continues, but that was the bit I wanted to share.]

Or I explained both a problem I have [I don't always realize I'm cold] and how I handle it [I get goosebumps normally, so I check for those instead of checking to see if I feel cold.] That happened with a classmate for materials science, after which I explained that no, autism does not always mean incapable of oral speech. That's just one of many autistic things, and not all of us have that specific one. Selective mutism, learning to talk later, and word choice differences are all possibilities, and yes, one person can have all those things at once. Not me, I talked super-early, but it's possible.

Now for NaNoWriMo. That's National Novel Writing Month. I'm Autistic. I'm writing fantasy, and I'm including multiple disabled characters including multiple autistic characters. Not that they have the word “autistic,” but people reading in the modern day are meant to read these characters as autistic. One is non-speaking. She designed her own AAC device- it's based in magic, because fantasy, and she spent a really long time studying magical theory in order to design it. After spending similarly long studying to try to make a potion that would let her talk. It sort of worked, but not entirely- the potion that she came up with would let a person who just has physical issues with speech, but if there's also a disconnect between the languaging and the mouth-making-words, the potion doesn't fix that.

And yes, her dealing with ableism is a major part of the plot. Like, the decisions she makes, often in response to people being horrible in various ways, are probably the biggest factor in driving her story arc. Yes, I'm writing a non-speaking autistic character with agency into a fantasy story, and yes, she's got some magic, but it's not because of her being autistic and people missed her magic for a while because she's autistic. I'm not entirely sure about how organizing the bits of story will go and I won't know until I'm well into writing, so I'm not sure exactly when you first meet her, but she's important. And pretty cool. If she were real instead of being a product of my imagination, she would write an awesome post for ASDay. But she's a product of my imagination, so I talked about her a bit instead. Woo autistic people being in fiction. I seem to do this a decent bit- started a series of Young Wizards fics following a non-speaking Autistic character while trying to keep myself away from my NaNoWriMo story until November started. Because being reflected in stories is important. It really is.

One Week More

Autistics Speaking Day. This is going to be my second one (wow when did this happen?) It's also my second one being involved with helping run stuff, because this is me and apparently helping all the blogs be things is what I do (really what is this?) Not even joking. AutisticsSpeaking Day. Autism Positivity. Pile of one-shot flash blogs. Autistic Alligator. Allistic/NT Privilege. We Are Like Your Child.

The thing in common between all of those? It's about Disabled people making ourselves heard (usually specifically Autistic people, though Allistic/NT Privilege is all neurodivergences with a focus on autism because I'm autistic and We Are Like Your Child is any disability with some autism focus because of who the mods are.)

 

And looking at the history of Autistics Speaking Day, it looks like what I'm doing on those other blogs, what I'm doing on my personal blog? Are pretty well in line with the idea behind Autistics Speaking Day. I can work with that.

 

So there it is. Autistics Speaking Day is coming. I've been doing stuff that's in line with Autistics Speaking Day. That doesn't mean I know what I'm writing for it. Last year I talked about Autistics Speaking Every Day. I want to do something different this year. Not sure what. I should get thinking, because it's only a week away, and I don't want to be writing my post on the day of because then it won't be my November 1 post. Also because November 1 is the start of NaNoWriMo. I'm more than happy giving some of my non-writing time on Day One to helping run ASDay, but no, I am not writing anything other than novel on November 1 outside of class time. That is not a thing that is happening. Not if I'm making my Day One Ridiculous Goal of 10k words and my Weekend One Ridiculous Goal of 50k words at the end of the first weekend. Yes, that is “winning” NaNoWriMo in three days. At my typical/low-ish typing speed, it's about 20 hours of writing over the course of Friday-Sunday. I can get faster, but I'm calculating off the low end because it's a lot of words and a lot of time.

ASDay and NaNoWriMo Day One are the same day. That's gonna be fun. One week more....

Why I am not going silent today

Trigger Warning: Silencing of disabled people, probably ableism.

Six Degrees has an event. I do believe they think they have good intentions, and I do believe they think they are trying to listen and help, which is different from believing they actually have those intentions and they are actually trying to do those things.
The event runs from 10am-12pm today, and the idea is to not speak for those two hours, "because some people with autism don't have a choice."
But there are real problems with the event.
I think it's pretty straightforward to state that this is a simulation of disability, which means that Autistic Hoya's critique is relevant. You can find it as black on white here, and white on black here. Disability simulations don't create "I get what it is like to have this disability" in my experience. (Yes, I had to do one for blindness in middle school, and I didn't learn much of anything from it.) If done properly and explained properly, you can simulate what it is like to deal with some of the ableism and inaccessibility issues, but you can't really simulate what it is like to actually be disabled.
For example, you could even explain a not using oral speech thing as getting a taste for how people treat those who do not speak, how people don't want to take the time to communicate with those who do so differently. And if that's what you went in looking to learn about, you could get something out of it. Not the full experience of dealing with it day in and day out for a lifetime, but a taste. It would work especially well if you were using an AAC device for that time, because then it would be clear that you weren't just being kind of quiet during that time. Everyone would know that you were using alternate communication, and they would make judgements based on that, and you would get a taste of that piece of our experience, which is the one that actually needs to be fixed.
Or you could explain it in much the same fashion as the days of silence that other groups have done- as a protest of silencing they face. A day of silence to protest ableist silencing (remembering that behavior is communication, all people communicate) would work well.
But that's not what this one is framed for.
This one suggests that two hours not speaking will explain why autistic people who do not speak have outbursts. (No, it won't. Because it's not just a lack of oral speech that causes outbursts. Communication frustrations are part of the issue, but lack of oral speech and inability to communicate and communication frustration are three different things. No, really. You can have a substitution aphasia that means you have oral speech but not be able to use it to communicate. Without some other form of communication, there won't be communication, which leads to frustration. With another form of communication (AAC is a wonderful thing!) there is the ability to communicate, but frustration can still come from people not being willing to take the time to work with an AAC user, and that's still communication frustration. Or you could be unable to use oral speech but capable of typing. That's a pretty common situation for autistic people, and over the internet, you can't really tell who is a typer and not a talker unless they tell you. And AAC users and talkers and part-time-of-each folks can all have communication frustrations from other people ignoring their communication, not just from problems sending the message.
The event is, I think, conflating lack of oral speech with lack of communication (ironic, considering that the event was promoted in a way that doesn't use oral speech and that most of the discussion of it hasn't used oral speech either.) It's conflating the issues that come from actual communication difficulties with the ones from people reacting badly to those who use AAC. I've spent two hours and longer non-speaking before- properly accommodated, it's not that big a deal. Really, it's not.
And of course, there is the question: Who is this event really about? I know they say it's for autism. Everyone doing anything related to autism says it's for autism. But autism isn't a who. It's a nebulous noun form for autistic, which is an adjective used to describe people whose brains and nervous systems are a certain way. Is the event about autistic people and helping them, is it about making would-be allies feel good about themselves, is it about education? What is the purpose? And does it accomplish that purpose.
I think that the organizers are consciously torn between trying to make it about educating and about helping autistic people, but that it has become about making would-be allies feel good, like they are doing something.
It doesn't succeed at educating as run and framed. It's not going to teach people what it is like to be autistic, and autistic people know it. Some have even commented on the event photo, explaining why. (We/they are the ones who are framing the issues with the event in terms of it not actually helping autistic people, not the ones saying things like that participation would get us fired. You can kind of tell who is who by looking at what issues we say there are.)
It doesn't actively provide help to autistic people either. I don't think anyone has come up with a direct material benefit to autistic people that this event could give, and I don't think anyone can. The only way it could help us was if it helped people understand what it was like to be autistic in ways that led them to accommodate us better, and that requires actual education. It's not going to happen as framed.
It does, however, succeed at making participants feel like they are doing something. You can recognize it by the way that they defend it- the people it is supposed to help show up and explain why it isn't going to work and what you can do instead, as Amy did:

You cannot understand in two hours or two days. And the fact that we don't speak is not the problem. The problem is that there is little understanding and willingness to listen to us. Everybody communicates. Spend two hours trying to understand a different way to communicate or listening to an AAC user.

When the answer to that  is something like this:

WOW !! Can't Even UNITE on Something So SIMPLE !! & This is WHY There will Never be PEACE About ANYTHING !! Its a SAD SAD World WE Live IN !! My Son Was NONVERBAL !! & I WILL DO THIS FOR EVERYONE OUT THERE WHO IS NONVERBAL !! BECAUSE IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO !! WE ARE TRY'N TO RAISE AWARNESS TO THE CAUSE !! 1IN 88 !! GET IT !!...

That's how you know that it's about feeling good about themselves, because they are claiming it is the right thing to do for people who are non-speaking and complaining about the inability to unite on it, when the people who are not being united, who are saying why it doesn't help and providing helpful comments on what would be good, are the exact same people that are supposed to be helped by it.  That's a form of silencing and it ties into privilege politics and of privileged groups making things about them when they aren't. It makes it extremely clear that the event isn't really about us, that our opinions aren't mattering here which is a common issue with things "about" disability.
One person did notice that both sides are talking from a me-I standpoint. That person missed a couple important things. One, Autistic people are taught from an early age to advocate about all their issues using I statements and to make it about their feelings because we are apparently impersonal, or something. So it's kind of their own teaching doing that on our end. Two, there is a group that this event is actually about. That group, which is autistic people, should be able to talk about it as me-I stuff, because it's about us. If it's not about us, that's part of the problem with it.
Now, for a comment that illustrates the problems we truly face, we autistic people who have communication issues. "... and would get me fired." Yes, that. Even when we can communicate with AAC and the job we want can be done just fine using AAC, the lack of speech thing can and does get us fired or keep us from being hired. That's the kind of thing that we need to be fixing. Discrimination against those of us who communicate differently.
It's a step up from Communication Shutdown, in that not speaking is a thing we deal with as opposed to staying off the sites we use to communicate in a move that doesn't even relate to how our disabilities work, but it's still not actually helping and it still has the ability to give people the idea that not speaking is the cause of the frustration and push people further away from accepting and including, making the problem yet worse. This kind of misguided attempt at helping and spreading awareness is why Autistics Speaking Day started and is needed. Listen to autistic people, that's how you learn about us and our lives.

The Comment I Sent To The House

Discrimination and accommodations are two of the biggest issues Autistic adults are facing. No matter what the laws might say, discrimination against autistic adults is A Thing, and it is a big problem. And guess where it comes from? It comes from the attitudes about autism that are currently mainstream, that are spoken nearly every time autism is discussed. No one wants to hire a public health crisis, even if the health crisis can do the job. No one wants to hire a tragedy, even if the tragedy can do the job. No one wants to hire a situation or an epidemic, even if the situation or epidemic can do the job. And no one wants to hire a burden, which makes calling autistic people burdens a self-fulfilling prophecy. Illegal discrimination is a thing, and ADA lawsuits are not an efficient way to handle that- not every Autistic person has the resources to file and go through one, especially with the lack of employment that comes from this discrimination.
Even in healthcare, where the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act BOTH state that this sort of discrimination based on disability is not legal, it happens. The petition on the White House site about organ transplant denial to "people with autism," (http://wh.gov/X4yM) or Autistic people as many of us prefer to be called, is not there purposelessly. It is there because doctors are breaking the law by discriminating against Autistic people and because someone who needs an organ transplant is not likely to be capable of dealing with an ADA lawsuit.
Or there is the issue of accommodation. The simple solution for a business would be not to hire an Autistic person, but that is yet again, discrimination. Assume, then, that this person has gotten hired or has gotten accepted into school. In either case, getting any accommodations requires disclosing Autistic status, which opens them up to discrimination. Even post disclosure, clearly reasonable accommodations such as "I am allowed to bring in my own noise-cancelling headphones and use them to reduce the noise level," or "I am allowed a quiet, non-distracting fidget toy for times when my hands are not actively required" are not given. In many cases, those basic things would be sufficient. In others, "Text-based and face-to-face communication are to be used whenever possible to communicate with me and phones to be avoided" is the needed statement, and that, too, is not given. These are accommodations which do not cost anything to provide, and yet they are not given. This sort of basic accommodation would allow so many Autistic adults into the workforce, but is rarely discussed as a needed policy change. It's needed. It may be the most efficient method of making Autistic people more self-sufficient, and that is a goal I expect those worried about the costs of autism to have.

Additionally, more Autistic voices are needed in any conversation about autism. I strongly suggest reading the entirety of that which is written for Autistics Speaking Day, of course, but here is one.
 Autistics Speaking EVERY Day.
This post can also be found at the Autistics Speaking Day blog here.

Today is Autistics Speaking Day. (Unless I messed up my queue or I messed up which day it is or blogger is broken. But I'm assuming that none of this happened.) Today is a day when we all (or as many of us as can executive function in time to write/submit something by today, which is why I am actually writing this all the way back on September 21st) write something about our lives, our experiences, whatever as far as I can tell.
And what I have to say is that we speak EVERY day. Not all of us do it by talking, and even those of us who do aren't always consistent about it. Not all of us do it by typing either, though that is how I am speaking today
Having a day when we all get together and speak is great as a community thing. It's great for flooding people with reminders that we speak all at once. It's great for reminding us that we can speak out.
And I want to use that one BIG day to make sure we all remember something important: We all speak every day. When I stim in public, I say that I am not embarrassed of how my brain is wired. When I get done what I want to get done, I say that I am NOT inherently broken. When I smile, I say that I am not purely tragic, that I can be happy. When I decide that I do want kids of my own, I say that no, being autistic is not a horrible thing that I wouldn't risk passing on. It's something I feel perfectly OK with. I say that I am OK with bringing more autistic people into the world. When I melt down, I am saying that something is wrong. Whenever I do anything at all, even just sit there and not really do much, I am saying something about who I am and what I think. We all get to say things like that.
And sure, educating people isn't our job. I know that. I probably do more educating than I really need to because I like to teach, but I am aware that specifically educating is not my job unless I'm getting paid for it (only in math. sigh.) So rather than spending lots of time explaining everything over and over again, I ask: Do I act like I find my life and the lives of those like me tragic? Does Henry act like his life is inherently tragic? How about Kassiane? How about Ari? How about Amy? How about... and I continue. We don't act like we think ourselves tragedies because we don't think ourselves tragedies. We act like we matter because we do, whatever some other people might think. When we act, we speak. Today, what we say is that we do speak. Today we remind the world that we are people with our own ideas and our own opinions, and that we can and do communicate them. All they need to do is listen.

The Anxiety of Publishing (Guest Post)

Guest post by Andrew Edward Collins, also found on the Autistics Speaking Day blog here.

So, it’s been brought to my attention that “Autistics Speaking Day” is coming up. Of course, as usual, I’d like to contribute something. But it occurred to me that I’ve already done quite a lot of “speaking” about disabilities through my previous publications. This would seem to be a good thing, but now, I can’t help but feel as though there’s a certain anxiety attached to every bit of writing I make public. 

I’ve always had high aspirations. Currently, I want to do work for the United States Department of Education in some sort of administrative position—as high up as I can get.  Everything I want to really accomplish in my life depends on how well people are going to listen to my ideas—so, what do I do if someone finds something I’ve written in my teenage years, and tries to use it to invalidate something I’m working for later on in my life? In almost every bit of non-fiction I’ve ever published, I’ve identified myself as being disabled. Literally tens of thousands of copies of my articles have been circulated to people all over the country in various magazines.  

Tens of thousands of people know that I’m disabled. I’ve gotten emails from complete strangers. While most (if not all) of the periodicals I’ve been printed in will be recycled by the time I’m out of grad school, everything I’ve gotten put up on the internet will never go away. So, what’s to stop some naïve employer or opponent of my ideas from judging me or using it all against me? What’s stopping anyone from assuming that  just because I’m disabled that something I’m saying is invalid?

In short, I have cast my weaknesses and struggles into the limelight, and thus, I have left myself in a very vulnerable position.  I worry every day that a classmate of mine is going to Google my name and learn about  all my personal battles. I’m not ashamed of who I am,  but that doesn’t mean I’m comfortable with having so much personal information available to people who are predisposed to judge me. Disabilities are not well understood by those who do not have them, so I want people to know I’m disabled only when I think they’re ready to hear it and when I’m ready to tell them.

I don’t know for sure where I’ll be in the future, but at least I know that, for now, I’m doing the right thing by publishing. I don’t regret anything I’ve ever written yet. I know my work has been of use to many people and is important in furthering many of the causes in which I partake. I’d like to think people know better than to use the things I’ve written against me, but I know that’s not true. I’m sure in a few years from now many of my opinions and ideas on what I’ve published will have changed as I continue to mature, and I can only hope anyone who happens to find something I wrote as a teenager will be decent enough to understand this. 

But how knows? Maybe it could all end up helping me out somehow. Or maybe I’ll just never rise to any status or situation in which it will even matter if people know of my personal disabilities and challenges. But for now, I’m eighteen, I’ve got two new articles coming out soon, and I’m going to continue doing what I know is right, even if it means leaving myself vulnerable to the judgment of friends and strangers.

-Andrew Edward Collins

Autistics Speaking EVERY Day.

This post can also be found at the Autistics Speaking Day blog here. 

Today is Autistics Speaking Day. (Unless I messed up my queue or I messed up which day it is or blogger is broken. But I'm assuming that none of this happened.) Today is a day when we all (or as many of us as can executive function in time to write/submit something by today, which is why I am actually writing this all the way back on September 21st) write something about our lives, our experiences, whatever as far as I can tell.
And what I have to say is that we speak EVERY day. Not all of us do it by talking, and even those of us who do aren't always consistent about it. Not all of us do it by typing either, though that is how I am speaking today
Having a day when we all get together and speak is great as a community thing. It's great for flooding people with reminders that we speak all at once. It's great for reminding us that we can speak out.
And I want to use that one BIG day to make sure we all remember something important: We all speak every day. When I stim in public, I say that I am not embarrassed of how my brain is wired. When I get done what I want to get done, I say that I am NOT inherently broken. When I smile, I say that I am not purely tragic, that I can be happy. When I decide that I do want kids of my own, I say that no, being autistic is not a horrible thing that I wouldn't risk passing on. It's something I feel perfectly OK with. I say that I am OK with bringing more autistic people into the world. When I melt down, I am saying that something is wrong. Whenever I do anything at all, even just sit there and not really do much, I am saying something about who I am and what I think. We all get to say things like that.
And sure, educating people isn't our job. I know that. I probably do more educating than I really need to because I like to teach, but I am aware that specifically educating is not my job unless I'm getting paid for it (only in math. sigh.) So rather than spending lots of time explaining everything over and over again, I ask: Do I act like I find my life and the lives of those like me tragic? Does Henry act like his life is inherently tragic? How about Kassiane? How about Ari? How about Amy? How about... and I continue. We don't act like we think ourselves tragedies because we don't think ourselves tragedies. We act like we matter because we do, whatever some other people might think. When we act, we speak. Today, what we say is that we do speak. Today we remind the world that we are people with our own ideas and our own opinions, and that we can and do communicate them. All they need to do is listen.