RAWRface

Listen to me, listen- don't let people manipulate you by saying you didn't understand them. Don't let people say things thatre blatant insults to you and then go "I was obviously joking, you just can't understand that" when you get mad. Especially if it's a problem you only encounter with them.

April is Autism Awareness month, and April 2nd is Autism Awareness day, but we need more than just awareness now. The problem now isn't that people aren't aware of autism, but that they don't accept or understand it. The ignorance when it comes to autism is staggering, especially in the medical field and in politics.

The more people have been willing to listen to autistic people, and the more autistic people put themselves into medical professions, the more factual information has come out about autism. When I was diagnosed 22 years ago I didn't know another autistic person, but now, as we've learned more about autism, more and more autistic people are being diagnosed, instead being overlooked.

If so, then why. Why do 1/3 of adults with ADHD suffer from depression? Why do nearly 50% of people with ADHD experience clinically significant anxiety? Why are children with ADHD 9 times more likely than their peers to meet criteria for a learning disability?

Because to live with ADHD is to feel incomplete.

Haunted by an incessant need to seek and to do. Searching for something formless and unnamed. Always, an itch in your bones, a fog in your mind, and a pit in your stomach.

Never satiated, never freed of a desire unknown, of searching, of itching. Longing to be punched, to be burned, to be crushed. A force to match that inside.

Churning, racing, constant pain of the mind of the body. Never enough. Never enough sleep. Never enough drink. Never enough food. Never enough pleasure.

Consumed by feeling. Eaten alive.

Raw. Like a nerve ending. Like a fuse. Ignition imminent. Tears fighting to fall.

Nothing sticks. Nothing holds. Thoughts fleet like gnats. In and out. In and out. In and out.

Emptiness eternal.

"That's not an autistic thing, that's wrong and they need therapy"

"That's not because of autism, they shouldn't be let out of the house"

Often, it IS autism. Often, it IS because of autism.

But a lot of those symptoms/behaviours tend to be labelled as "bad autism" or "scary autism". Due to that, it becomes a taboo topic to talk about in public spaces, in online spaces.

There has been a lot of backlash in online autism spaces when these very common and real behaviours of autism are talked about, and it needs to stop.

Just because you don't relate to it, or don't want to be associated to these behaviours doesn't mean it's not real for autistics to experience due to their autism.

It is so important for the "bad" symptoms, the "scary" symptoms to be talked about in autistic spaces. People need to be educated about the whole spectrum and how it presents, not just the "quirky" side of autism.