Dysautonomia Adventures

my gastrointestinal system:

Accessibility is seen as a burden and us demanding too much like the greedy people they claim us to be. No handouts! No Handouts! We are invisible and subhuman. We are the other. We are portrayed as burdens to society for simply wanting to exist in the world as they do.

The ability to live week to week is constantly in jeopardy. Lost jobs from sick days. Rising costs of medical care and accommodations. Your government assistance becomes a talking point and a target. People rallying for you to starve instead of paying any taxes to your care. One day your means to live just disappears without fanfare or your input. ‘Austerity measures’ being levied on us for being ‘leeches’. They might not kill us directly but they don’t care about leaving us to die.

Right to die advocates fighting valiantly for euthanasia but doing nothing about disability rights. Nothing about accommodations. Nothing about accessibility. Nothing about subsidies or in home care. They’d rather give us the ability to die than allow us to live. Because we are tragedies.

like you all would struggle to walk outside without em, it’d be painful and really inconvenient… but some you all could in theory do it too?

but it’s just so messy and painful that you don’t.. so your mobility is affected by whether or not you wear shoes..

and tbh, i wish we all would just look at other stuff the same way too.. like, many CAN do so and so.. it’d just be slow, painful, and inconvenient..

and with disabled people you don’t get asked “why are you unnecessarily straining your body?” but an abled person would get told “be careful, you might step on something sharp”.

you all’s easily pierced skin, is basically like my fragile joints and bones.. they can easily get hurt and leave you in pain… but you all feel more justified in defending that than you feel i should be justified, and it’s literally only difference is that abled is the norm, so therefore shoes are too.

like you all would struggle to walk outside without em, it’d be painful and really inconvenient… but some you all could in theory do it too?

but it’s just so messy and painful that you don’t.. so your mobility is affected by whether or not you wear shoes..

and tbh, i wish we all would just look at other stuff the same way too.. like, many CAN do so and so.. it’d just be slow, painful, and inconvenient..

and with disabled people you don’t get asked “why are you unnecessarily straining your body?” but an abled person would get told “be careful, you might step on something sharp”.

you all’s easily pierced skin, is basically like my fragile joints and bones.. they can easily get hurt and leave you in pain… but you all feel more justified in defending that than you feel i should be justified, and it’s literally only difference is that abled is the norm, so therefore shoes are too.

They’re trying to identify the genes that make us autistic so we can be identified as foetuses and a mass eugenics campaign can be staged against us – like what’s happening with Down’s Syndrome right now, where pregnant people are told abortion is the only real option, pressured out of continuing the pregnancy, and not offered any information or resources on how to raise a disabled child. The vast majority of wanted, viable foetuses with the markers for Down’s are now being aborted thanks to mass eugenics campaigns by medical establishments around the world.

Autism Speaks wants expand these eugenics campaigns to autistic foetuses as well, because they think the world would be better if people like us were never born at all.

That’s horrifying in its implications for how a society so eager to eliminate us treats those of us who are still here. (And it contextualizes the fact that the most popular ‘therapies’ for autistic children are abusive in nature and prioritize submission and conformity over safety or mental health.) It also means that even if a cure were actually achieved, that ‘cure’ would never exist for us as individuals.

In a society whose Top Autism Priority is to eliminate future generations of autistic people, the autistic people who exist now are being left in the dust. Children are being forced into abusive and sometimes incredibly violent ABA therapy to seem less ‘weird’ instead of being given positive communication tools, strategies to minimize suffering, or information about our own neurotype. Autistic adults are either over-institutionalized and denied the most basic autonomy or offered zero support and left to struggle and fail in a society not built to accommodate our needs.

Hiring discrimination runs rampant, doctors are not taught to understand the way autistic people physically experience pain and illness differently (and process medication differently), and autistic people of colour are being killed by police officers who think ‘odd’ body language is a good excuse for murder.

Let me tell you something about autism

I know an autistic person who

Can usually make eye contact for short periods

Can usually understand body language

Can usually understand sarcasm

Rarely goes nonverbal

Rarely has meltdowns or shutdowns

Does not stim “loudly” around other people

This person does not look autistic, they can hold conversations and pass as neurotypical. They seem to be “high functioning”.

I also know an autistic person who

Often cannot go to the store alone

Often cannot tolerate being touched

Often forgets to do things like shower and eat

Often cannot hear people speaking to him when other people are talking

Often cannot change tasks/start a new task without intervention even for important things like switching from browsing Tumblr to getting food

Often gets disoriented by sensory overload in stores, schools, workplaces, restaurants and even just walking down the street

Often cannot maintain focus long enough to watch anything but simple cartoons or read anything but simple comics

This person will likely never function independently, complete college or have a job. They will likely always require support from family, friends or partners. They seem to be “low functioning”

Guess what?

They’re both me.

The point is that no matter how high functioning an autistic person appears in conversation with you, you’re only seeing part of the picture. I without fail am always told I must be “high functioning” when I say I’m autistic because all people are looking at are my social skills (and I received intervention when young that taught me many of the social skills I was lacking) but the reality is autism involves much more than that and by many other standards I am “low functioning”. Those just happen to be the aspects of it that are invisible to the people who don’t help to care for me.

Image: Scar laying on a rock holding a paw to his temple and grimacing as if he has a headache. This is the “I’m surrounded by idiots” moment in the movie.

Large text: “You don’t SEEM autistic”

Small text: that is because 1) you have a very limited narrow understanding of what autism is and 2) I spend so much energy on masking in my day to day life that I lose track of who I am in an effort to fit in to avoid social punishment.“

[Description under the cut.] 

I know we’re already halfway through the month so I’m late to the party (per the norm), BUT in my defense this comic has like a million details and a ton of characters and wheelchairs are really hard to draw. 🙈

To all of you in the LGBTQ+ community with a chronic illness and/or disability, always remember that we need to hear your voices, too! You have unique stories and perspectives to share with the world, and they are valuable.

Hey everyone, I just got back from an early screening of The Incredibles 2 and it was, well, incredible, but just so you all know, the main villain uses a flashing hypnosis screen throughout the entire film that’s deliberately meant to disorient you but could possibly do more damage, especially to people who are prone to seizures or other health problems.

There’s an especially dangerous moment about halfway through the film where one of the characters is in a room where all four walls have these flashing lights and for a solid minute or so, the screen just flashes intercut with fast-paced action scenes. As a heads up, this scene happens when a character breaks into an apartment. 

I’m honestly surprised they didn’t think of the actual damage they could cause (I mean they were clearly hoping to create some damage; the cinematography was very clearly set to disorient the viewer and put them in the characters’ shoes, I guess they just didn’t think it through?). 

I’m putting it out here in the universe so we actually do it, but @tarot-cards-and-tea and I are in the process of making a spoonie/disabled tarot deck!

It will take a long time considering work and life, but I’m hoping to sketch one or two cards a month. It will most likely be in the style of Rider Waite so that the imagery makes sense to most diviners - but are there any ways we can make it more accessible and inclusive? Maybe key words on the cards? Imagery that would help you understand specific cards better? 

What do you want to see in a deck so that you are represented? This includes mental illness, physical disability, chronic illness, etc..

Do you like the Rider Waite style? Would you prefer something more abstract?

Send me an ask or leave some feedback on this post!

Autism and the Burden of Social Reciprocity | Sparrow R. Jones unstrangemind.com

(via dickensign)

http://www.thinkingautismguide.com/2017/02/autism-and-burden-of-social-reciprocity.html