Well maybe I don’t WANT to work double as hard as abled people!! Maybe I deserve a BREAK!! Maybe I’ve been working MORE THAN double as hard for MY WHOLE LIFE and it’s led me to immense burnout & caused me to develop several MORE disabilities!! Maybe I should be ACCOMMODATED so I don’t have to KILL MY BODY AND BRAIN over trying to do what abled people can do!! Maybe I DON’T have to work double as hard!! Maybe if there’s the option to let me NOT work double as hard, I should have it, because I’m already working double as hard JUST TO SURVIVE!!

If (mouth) speech makes you tired,

if speech makes you have meltdowns,

if speech makes you shutdown,

if speech makes it so you don't know your own brain, your own thoughts,

if speech makes you feel like someone who isn't you takes over your mouth and says only a fraction of what you want, the wrong thing entirely, or rambling nonsense,

If being expected to create perfect verbal speech spontaneously at any time makes you want to scream and run away,

if a long day of being made to use speech makes your brain feel hollow, foggy, slow, or restless and angry,

If you find yourself avoiding situations where you know you will have to speak, even to extreme consequence,

If speech comes out "wrong",

If speech causes sensory overwhelm, from the internal sounds or vibrations, or other reasons,

If speech happens so fast that your thoughts can't keep up,

If speech hijacks all the brain power from other, more important uses of your energy, like sensory processing, language skills, visual processing, and so much more, leaving you unable to do certain things in your life (or only able to do them poorly),

then you can stop.

You can use AAC (Augmentative and alternative communication, or as some advocates call it, augmentative and assistive/adaptive communication)

you can use writing on paper or whiteboards, dedicated text-to-speech or symbol-based AAC apps, pointing to letters symbols or pictures, communication cards, email, texting and messaging apps, gestures, pointing to objects, non-speech vocalizations, and so many other ways I couldn't even list them all! !

You can learn a different communication style!

Maybe one that uses a bit less verbal speech.

Maybe one that uses very little verbal speech.

Maybe one that uses none, or very close to none, at all.

It may not be safe to, or those around you may not understand or deny you the right to the best possible communication method for your brain and life, but you still deserve it. You are not wrong for being you. You have the right to be who you are. I hope that someday, you can be.

You don't need permission from anyone, and you aren't stealing anything, taking something that wasn't meant for people like you. It is for you. Communication is a fundamental human right.

It's your life, only you know how your brain works and processes the world. There's a million and five reasons why someone might have problems communicating with spoken word, or find it otherwise to be the least optimal form of communication for them personally.

Mouth speech is not a superior form of communication, so someone should never be made to feel shameful for being unable to use it, struggling to use it, or yes, even preferring not to use it even if they could, even if they seem to produce it with relative ease.

You can never know what's happening behind the scenes, or how much work it's taking for some people to sound fluent, or the true intent of thought behind seemingly-fluent but ultimately insufficient speech. Or the hidden costs and consequences of producing that mouth speech.

To recover, you literally need to manually learn skills that most people learn as a toddler

You need to learn what makes your body uncomfortable, and what to do to fix it

If you are high-masking, that usually means that you have learned to ignore every distress signal your body sends unless it is a distress signal that a neurotypical person would recognize. People have likely been unintentionally gaslighting you about your lived experience your entire life

If you feel bad or panicked for no reason, stop and try to pay attention to your body. Are you tense? You are likely feeling physical pain somewhere. If you've been gaslit about your pain your entire life, you might not be able to identify it.

Go through a sensory checklist.

SIGHT: Try closing and covering your eyes. If this gives you relief, the lights are probably too bright. You may also need differently-colored lights

SOUND: Cover your ears. Does this give you relief? If so, you may need earplugs or noise canceling headphones. You may also benefit from a neutral or pleasant background noise, like soft music or brown noise.

TOUCH: Are your clothes uncomfortable? Your chair? Your body? Do you feel greasy, like you need a shower? Do you need softer, sensory-friendly clothing?

TASTE: Do you need to brush your teeth or tongue? Would chewing on something help?

SMELL: Is there a strong or unpleasant smell in the room? Do you need to clean or empty a trash can? Would an air purifier help? Would a pleasant smell like a candle help?

INTEROCEPTION: Are you hungry? Thirsty? Tired? How is your posture? Are any of your muscles tight or sore? Scan your body slowly from head to feet, tensing and loosening each group of muscles. Going for a walk or doing a series of quick stretches may help a lot.

Learning how to do this stuff is not intuitive, if you've had an entire lifetime of gaslighting telling you that everything hurting you isn't a big deal and you're being dramatic over nothing.

This takes time, it takes work, it's not intuitive, and it's hard. Most people forget how hard it is, because they learned this as toddlers.

But there is a couple of things that i don't like about being an AAC user, and being someone who can use it whenever she thinks that she will need it. I hate not knowing when i should, if that makes sense, need and use AAC. I hate having the fear of being fakeclaimed, of being told that i cannot use it because i could speak or was speaking as well as using it to communicate. I hate people. Especially when i am out and about using AAC.

The next day an ex-nurse teacher took one look at my toes which were quickly becoming black-bruised and swollen and told us that I'd definitely broken my toe and started wrapping it up with bandages, and all the adults who told me to just calm down and stop being dramatic were suddenly falling over themselves to apologise because they didn't realise I'd actually really hurt myself.

I got diagnosed with autism a couple months before my 22nd birthday and it feels like this. Like there's something wrong and there always has been something wrong and it hurts and why is everything so difficult it's not supposed to be this difficult please someone help me and all I hear is 'it's like this for everyone. Don't be a drama queen' but here! Look! A real grownup has finally said what I've been telling you this whole time, will you finally listen? Am I allowed to suffer now? Do I have your permission to be in pain?