A train analogy for autistics. I love Moby Dick. This is one of my favorite quotes. I've never found myself represented in the world around me until really reading this from Captain Ahab, who can't take the advice from people to moderate, change course, take breaks, do self care:

"Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!"

That's me. I'm a train. I had no life, identity, or direction in this world trying to pretend to be a sedan like everyone else. I'm not a sedan. I don't do errands. I can't change course. I can't go multiple directions. I can't pump the brakes.

I was a train without tracks for a long time, believing I was a sedan. I can haul way more than a sedan. Hell, I can haul an army of sedans, but it takes me a long time to build up steam. And I cannot stop or change course. I'm not flexible.

I have a purpose, and now I found it. And those tracks are laid. And there's a lot of steam, and a lot of coal, and a lot of momentum. Asking me to jump track or change course or do other things, too, isn't what I'm built to do. My design isn't perfect. I'm rusty.

I'm archaic and clunky and can't maneuver, but I'm not a sedan. And instead of pretending I'm a sedan, it's better to understand that I'm a train and can't do highways without causing a lot of problems.

I think this is what @GretaThunberg meant when she was asked if Asperger's was a disability or a superpower. She was miserable when she was a sedan. But her train found a track, and now it's okay because that's what a train is supposed to do.

But if we looked as different as trains and sedans look, maybe our arguments against ABA would make a lot more sense to people. Because they can't see that we aren't ever going to be happy as sedans, no matter how much we perform like a sedan, because we're trains.

But when you actually are autistic, then you can easily understand the difference. You easily get that the world would be better off if trains were given tracks, safe stopping points, and schedules that make sense for trains.

Trains aren't broken sedans. They're totally different types of vehicles. It doesn't suck that trains exist. Trains are real clumsy when they are functioning like sedans.

And just like sedans, trains can have mechanical problems. Some trains can haul more weight. Some are meant for short distances and many stops, some are meant for long hauls across thousands of miles without stopping.

What would be tragic is to continue to treating trains like cars that need interventions. What would be tragic is if we continue to have the debate about what the most appropriate intervention is. Trains functioning like cars are going to wear out quickly.

And maybe if you don't like where the train is going, then you need to fight harder to lay the tracks in the right places. And if you keep explaining trains according to sedans, with measurements designed to measure the performance of sedans, then all of society loses.

Because my differences really are at least as striking as the differences between a train and a regular passenger car. I'm not like the difference between a minivan and an SUV, or even a gas or an electric car. I'm a damn bigass train trying to explain existence with car language

And yes, I get real frustrated if you just tell me to take a break, or just do one thing right quick, or to pause because you really can't see that I'm a big steaming locomotive and you don't get that I'm not a Ford Taurus or a Dodge Caravan. Yes, I'm that different.

My autistic brother says he's a fire engine. Rescue vehicles have always been a special interest for him. He was almost completely nonspeaking for a lot of his life, and he was treated very differently. People used the "r" word against him a lot.

I feel like the analogy fits. We understood that we were different kinds of vehicles always punished for not being able to perform like sedans. Fire trucks are not convenient everyday vehicles, they have a terrible turn radius, they don't stop quickly, don't pick up speed fast.

The suspension is terrible, he said. You can run over a quarter and tell if it was on heads or tails. They feel every tiny bump and lump magnified. They're loud for emergencies.

No mechanical engineers look at fire truck engineering with the objective of figuring out how to make them better at going to pick up the mail from the post office every day. Doing that, it would lose life-saving potential elsewhere. They realize fire trucks are not sedans.

Maybe we need to look at neurodiversity and education the same way. Stop throwing billions at trying to make trains and planes and fire engines into sedans. Start realizing that society needs these vehicles to perform essential functions, and that specialization is an asset

And laying tracks for trains is expensive. But it's a social win all around-- all of society benefits from that labor and cost. And imagine the potential for the future of trains and fire trucks if we stop trying to engineer them to be more like sedans & mourning that they're not

My brother is a badass firefighter and EMT now. He's a real hero. <3