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Non-autistic people of the world, please could you imagine something?
Imagine that you notice every sound that& #39;s made around you, all the time, and that this gets worse if you& #39;re stressed. /1
Imagine that you notice every sound that& #39;s made around you, all the time, and that this gets worse if you& #39;re stressed. /1
Imagine that every colour and visual detail is sad omehow more potent, more noisy, like a 4K TV with its contrast turned up, and that things you notice distract you. /2
Imagine that your train of thought is placed on its tracks do precariously that anything - any tiny thing - can derail it, leaving you bewildered as to what on earth you were originally thinking about. /3
Imagine that sometimes a smell hits you so hard you want to vomit, or it gives you a headache, or makes you so upset you are close to tears, but everyone else is find with it. /4
Imagine that seeing different elements of your meal touch on a plate makes you feel so deeply unhappy and disgusted that you simply can& #39;t go near it, but no-one understands. /5
Imagine that you can feel your clothing at all times, that you can& #39;t block out their texture, weight, roughness. But you get mocked fof wearing the same comfy things every day. /6
Imagine that you cannot speak. You can think, you have ideas, you are fully aware of all things but the words can& #39;t come, they won& #39;t come, and people get frustrated with you. /7
Imagine that you make involuntary movements, that your arms and legs cannot be trusted to do what you& #39;ve instructed them to do, and people think you are & #39;funny& #39;. /8
Imagine that you just cannot show your emotions - your facial expressions are pretty simlar and people are always telling you to cheer up. /9
Imagine that you often misunderstand people& #39;s intentions and get traumatised regularly when you discover what they are: rarely is it a pleasant surprise. /10
Imagine that you struggle to know when to take part in conversations and find yourself constantly stalling, on the edge of socialising, or accidentally interrupting and annoying everyone. /11
Imagine you can& #39;t trust yourself to know when someone is joking. Ever. /12
Imagine you have a long, long history of multiple failed communications that have left you traumatised and in constant fear of further upsets. /13
Imagine that you are so stressed all the time by all of this that you need to stick to a steady routine, no alarms, no surprises. /14
Imagine that if your stress levels get to high (higher than most neurotypicals could even imagine) you& #39;ll melt down and everyone will accuse you of having a tantrum. /15
Imagine that you learn to try to pretend to be like everybody else, to the point where you copy behaviour from TV characters. You don& #39;t really even know who you are anymore. /16
Imagine all this copying, trauma, failure lead to a terrible terminal decline in your abilities - but out. Imagine it never goes away. /17
Imagine no one believes you could possibly be dealing with any of this because you& #39;re a woman, or a person of colour. /18
Imagine you& #39;re probably dealing with a lot of this plus you& #39;re trying to get people to understand your gender and sexuality. /19
Imagine you find such solace in some activities that people say you& #39;re obsessed and try to stop you doing them. /20
Imagine you want to tell the world about your favourite things but no one is interested. /21
Imagine you know there& #39;s something different about you but no one is willing to help you work it out. /22
Imagine even if you do get help, that help stops at 18. /23
Imagine that the only representations of your neurotype that you see in media are either cold emotionless jerks or comedy fools. /24
Do I need to go on? /25
Seriously? /26
You& #39;ve been imagining just some of what many, many #autistic people experience every single day. These are the things we feel, the things we do. And I& #39;ve only scratched the surface. /27
Now people say we autistic people are the ones lacking empathy.
But you& #39;ve just imagined our experience. I& #39;m sure you now understand why we need your understanding. /end
But you& #39;ve just imagined our experience. I& #39;m sure you now understand why we need your understanding. /end
Please note - not all #autistic people are the same - the above are just 20ish fairly frequent traits that occur.
This one has taken it out of me. I& #39;m leaving this here as I work damned hard and I& #39;m exhausted - any contribution is really appreciated. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UfTVnRY ">https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UfTVnRY&q...
Also remember *this*:
Despite all this, despite how difficult it is, we #autistic people carry on and we survive and we try to adapt and we change the world.
Thank you.
Despite all this, despite how difficult it is, we #autistic people carry on and we survive and we try to adapt and we change the world.
Thank you.
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