#NothingAboutUsWithoutUs - The War on Autism is Back. And So Are We.
Stop Talking About Autistic People and Start Listening To Us. We're Done Being Studied Like Ants. You Can't Understand an Experience You Don't Have.
Are You Tired of Non-Autistic People Explaining Your Own Brain To You?
I am.
I am so sick and tired of listening to non-autistic people, who don’t understand even the basics of the Autistic Experience, talking “about Autism“.
So many times over the years, I’ve had countless non-autistic people try to tell me (an ACTUAL Autistic Person) that I am “not Autistic enough“ to advocate for “real Autistic People“ because (they claim) “real Autistic People can’t advocate for themselves“.
Excuse me? That logic isn’t logic-ing.
If I’m “not Autistic enough to advocate for Autistic People,” then what makes a non-autistic person think they are more qualified, if they themselves aren’t Autistic at all?
Non-autistic people are incapable of understanding what it is like to BE Autistic because they don’t experience what it’s like living with an Autistic brain (in a world that has been designed by and for non-autistic people).
Non-autistic people don’t share the Autistic Experience, so the perspective they carry about Autism will always be limited to observations and second-hand accounts.
You Can Study the Ant Hill, But You’ll Never Be an Ant.
They can study us, similar to how I can study ants (or any other kind of animal).
I can learn many facts about ants, watching them under a magnifying glass and reading facts about them for hours upon hours, but no matter how much I study and learn about ants, I will never know what it’s like to be an ant.
Similarly, on a human level, we wouldn’t go to a women’s rights (or Trans rights) seminar led by a cisgender man. But somehow we’ve got non-autistic people (like RFK Jr.) leading entire initiatives that are somehow supposed to “help“ Autistic People (without including any of our thoughts or voices, to say what we actually want and need).
The leaders of the so-called “MAHA movement” are not Autistic.
Because they’re not Autistic (and aren’t listening to or amplifying Autistic People), they see Autism (and Autistic People) as a problem to solve (instead of trying to solve the problems of the world that make Autistic People’s lives more difficult).
How non-autistic “Autism Advocates” were holding our movement back.
I was diagnosed Autistic more than 9 years ago, but I could have learned about my Autism earlier, had the common descriptions of Autism and Autistic People not been written by non-autistics (who only saw Autism as some life-ruining curse).
Months before my Autism diagnosis, I almost figured out I was Autistic when I stumbled across a book about animal behavior written by an Autistic individual who briefly described their Autistic experiences of the world, and how it made them better at understanding animals.
Reading those first-hand descriptions, from an Autistic Perspective, about being Autistic made me feel seen, shedding light on parts of myself I’d kept hidden for most of my life because I didn’t think anyone would understand them (things I thought no one else in the world experienced).
“Could I be Autistic?“ I thought to myself.
Eager to learn more, I turned to the internet, typing “Autism“ into my browser’s search bar, but the results that came back (all non-autistic accounts of “how horrible Autism is“) quickly put me off the idea.
Though reading the Autistic author’s first-hand account of being Autistic made me feel seen, I could not see myself in the ways non-autistic people described Autism and Autistic People, only by our weaknesses (like a life-running curse)... so I shelved the idea.
Many months later, after countless doctors’ appointments and months of deteriorating mental and physical health, I found myself pondering Autism once more.
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I hope this helps,
- Lyric Lark Rivera
