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TREAD: Ooookay then. Seeing as #AutismAwarenessMonth seems to be going exactly the way many #ActuallyAutistic thought it would, with people being told they "can& #39;t be autistic", "aren& #39;t autistic enough" etc it& #39;s time for another jolly personal thread. Oh good. Isn& #39;t this fun? 1/
Look, this is only my personal experience. I& #39;m not speaking for everyone here and never would. I am, however, formally diagnosed, you know by actual professionals rather than a random person on Twitter, so I kind of feel I& #39;m allowed to call myself an autistic individual. 2/
Here& #39;s the thing though, and this is a biggy, it wouldn& #39;t make a difference if I was formally diagnosed or not. Self-diagnosis is the only way a lot of people to have get any form of diagnosis, due to multiple factors, time, costs etc. It& #39;s also fairly accurate nowadays. 3/
Over the course of my life I have trained as a special education primary school teacher, worked as a journalist in more than one country, been a newspaper and magazine editor, hosted two tv shows, worked in PR, marketing and fundraising and set up a human rights consultancy. 4/
That& #39;s not a brag, far from it, a bit of consistency would be nice. It is however a point to be made, because there are a lot of people out there who would say my CV alone means "I& #39;m not autistic", when in fact being autistic has contributed to it. Both in good and bad ways. 5/
I am married to a wonderful woman, I have a daughter and I love both of them very much. I also have a cat and two degus, but that& #39;s not overly relevant, although the cat may disagree. Point is that I can have relationships, something which some say means I can& #39;t be autistic. 6/
It& #39;s not all sunshine and roses though. I& #39;ve spent quite a bit of my life, in school and work, being bullied, mainly, but not only, because I do struggle with some social interactions. Simply put, I just don& #39;t get people. They rarely make sense. 7/
For some reason though it always seems to be #ActuallyAutistic individuals who are told that we have to fit in with everyone else. I don& #39;t need to attend an office party to be good at my job, as a random example, yet have been told I must attend to show I& #39;m a "team player". 8/
Even when it comes to asking for fairly minor adjustments, such as being allowed to wear headphones or sunglasses to avoid additional stimuli, I have been told I "don& #39;t look autistic". As if there is a way we are meant to look. 9/
The point is this. Not everyone is on the autistic spectrum, please stop saying that, but when someone is it& #39;s not a clear cut line from x to y. You can& #39;t tell by looking, or what job we do, or our relationships status. Stop gatekeeping a community where people need support. 10/
And for those who& #39;ve faced such gatekeepers, don& #39;t listen to those telling you "aren& #39;t autistic", or aren& #39;t "autistic enough". I was put off not only a diagnosis, but then accepting it for years because of being told this and it left some deep scars. You are always enough. 11/
Oh and one final point, despite my use of the # in the first tweet, can we please stop with the "awareness" when every single time it ends up with people gatekeeping and talking over autistic individuals? What& #39;s wrong with year round acceptance? #AutismAcceptanceMonth 
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