By Philosoraptor
What makes someone autistic? A diagnosis is a very specific kind of explanation and measurement for a much broader experience. A picture of a canyon is not the same as walking through it. A representation inherently can’t encapsulate everything. Autism is an internal divergence from “normal” but it’s also expressed by our behaviors and mannerisms. Undiagnosed autistics will display the mannerisms and give off the same energy independently of any psychological self-awareness. So diagnoses have limitations.
My fellow abnormalists: can you smell a prejudice when it reeks? The aversion and absurdity speak louder than words….We are not specimens in a lab to be analyzed but honorable variations regardless of how the tyranny of the normalcy sways.
Everyday we have to interact with neurotypicals, and their responses to our autisticness inevitably influence how we see ourselves and our place in the world around us. But, now is the time for us autistics to accept our energy and our mannerism, regardless of the comfort of the neurotypical. Yes, we may suffer from discrimination, ostracization, and having to explain ourselves more than we would ideally prefer by embracing our autistic instincts; but the price of continued masking is the perpetual expectation of displaying non-autistic traits and behaviors. This leads to anxiety, burnout, self-loathing, frustration, and even depression. Why can’t we be who we are?! Politically this resembles a liberation movement, and like all movements of liberatory change, change must first occur within the oppressed population.
We cannot expect change to come from elsewhere. Each person who accepts their own autisticness fully increases the likelihood others will collectively honor our uniqueness’.
We do not need to rely on diagnoses from outside ourselves to draw us a map. When you hike a canyon do you bring a picture or map with you to remind yourself what you see is real? Of course not! You trust yourself, your senses to tell you that a canyon is real, not the map. What can a diagnosis really tell you about yourself that you don’t already know?
The DSM (diagnostic dictionary) has changed throughout time. Homosexuality, moral insanity, and hysteria not too long ago were diagnosable disorders. Diagnoses change like fashions. Big picture–do you trust yourself or not?
My fellow abnormalists: can you smell a prejudice when it reeks? The aversion and absurdity speak louder than words. While we are not specimens in a lab to be analyzed but honorable variations regardless of how the tyranny of the normalcy sways. Some people will always minimize and dismiss our community and us as individuals, despite our best efforts. How those who view our divergence from a strict normality is largely out of our control. We must do our best to accept our whole mind, and the whole minds of others while making allowances for the traumas – the emotional scar-tissue that shapes us all.
Oppression of the neurodivergent must end so we can pursue happiness with less anxiety and suffering. We must learn to accept the parts of ourselves which the gatekeepers of “normal” may prefer we repress; largely at our expense.
We must work to accept ourselves unapologetically.
I dream of a society where each neurodivergent person’s authentic expressions of their uniqueness isn’t excessively classified or dissected by institutions, where we don’t have to ask permission to be in harmony within our own being. That is my great hope for the future.
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The Revolutionist 