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My name is Kaitlyn, and I’m an 18 year old adult. My pronouns are she/her but I’m okay with they/them also. Either or.

I’m diagnosed autistic. Considered Extremely Low Functioning slash Significantly Impaired when it comes to adaptive skills or independent living by the provincial and federal governments. So that means that I am probably medium, but on the lower end of the medium support needs spectrum if there is one, autism specifically.

I was diagnosed with autism in 2012, a year before things like autistic disorder, pdd nos, aspergers etc were lumped all into one disorder and before autism levels were introduced. So I wasn’t diagnosed with a level, but I have my suspicions.

Combined with my autism, I also have diagnosed Combined Type (both hyperactive and inattentive) ADHD. That was diagnosed later after I got my autism diagnosis although I have my suspicions that if I were diagnosed later I would have been diagnosed with both autism and adhd at the same time.

I also have a cognitive impairment in the areas of processing speed and working memory. I have no exact clue what this means for me but it was a more recent diagnosis, as I have learnt about it just a couple of weeks ago. I think it’s linked somehow to my learning disability.

I have a learning disability in writing and in mathematics. Their quote unquote street names are dysgraphia for writing and dyscalculia when it comes to my math skills. This was diagnosed in 2020 because I had been falling behind in both areas and teachers were concerned enough to have me evaluated for another disability.

I am an AAC User who struggles with frequent verbal shutdowns. The AAC App that I use is called Proloquo2Go. Other than that I also have moderate articulation difficulties, such as having an lateral lisp where air escapes from my mouth while speaking, a problem with my voicebox or larynx, and another problem with how I move my mouth to make noises in order to make correct articulation but i don't know if there is a name for this, so I consider myself semiverbal as a result. I have gone to speech therapy a bit but it was often short lived so I couldn’t improve fast enough.

Now, before we dive into the fun stuff, as in the stuff that is about me that has almost nothing to do with my autism, it's time for me to create a DNI List, and boundaries (Which will be editted as time goes on):

Boundaries are; Please do not send me messages if we aren't mutuals but if we are, please do not send me direct messages on either social platforms that i have if you are a minor, meaning that you are under the age of 18. DMs are fine in between me and an adult, or someone 18 years of age as well.

My Dni list includes the usual meanies; Fakeclaimers, ableists, transphobes, racists, nazis, biphobes and people who just intend to be mean to me, to my followers and or to my mutuals. I use the block button pretty liberally too so you might not be on this list but i might block you anyway for another reason.

Personal stuff and fun facts below the cut:

Over the past week, i have been seeing endless reels of people responding to an announcement by two YouTubers that aborted their child with Down Syndrome. Now, i do not have Down Syndrome myself nor do i really care because that was the woman's own choice, but i am just so frustrated with the hypocrissy and the fussing that everyone is making regarding this, especially the people advocating to not abort children who potentially may have disabilities like Down Syndrome.

I am actually just so frustrated with how black and white that everyone is being regarding this. One side is "aborting a disabled baby = Eugenics", and that is frustrating because it's simply just not true. The woman made her choice to abort the baby with Down Syndrome, and there is nothing eugenics about it at all. I do understand the harm that comes with calling a person with Down Syndrome a "glitch", but the most important thing is that they mean that caring for someone with a disability that oftentimes comes with stuff like intellectual disabilities and physical/health problems can be very hard for parents. And they don't want themselves to deal with that, good, that's their view.

The other side is that "Disabled children are burdens" is also harmful to adults and older children with disabilities. Because their lives aren't all negative, but neither are they full of sunshine and rainbows for example. We need to have advanced thinking here, the issue is complex and of course it demands for a rightful load of nuance to be added. Because as i have said, both camps are very extreme and not willing to think of the middle ground at all, for example no one is willing to state that disabled peoples' lives are as complex and as nuanced as non disabled peoples' lives are. Both communities have their struggles, but so do they have their positives. Of course, people with disabilities may have more struggles with certain aspects of their lives than people without disabilities do, but that doesn't mean that disabled people can't have fun or anything positive else that non disabled people can easily have access to.

I will use myself as an example, as someone with autism which could and is severe for some other autistic people. Especially those who can't even speak using their mouths, for another example. My life has more struggles than my cousin does, and that's because of my autism. It is a disability that makes certain things such as social communication, living skills and repetitive behaviours more harder to cope with than these same areas are for anyone without autism. However, my autism does not make my life worthless, it is just a part of me. My life is still full of other aspects that are positive, such as the fact that i am very lovable and very gentle in personality. And if i were to have a kid, even one that does not have a prenatal diagnosis of Down Syndrome, i like to think i'd abort that pregnancy because i can barely care for my own needs, it is inspiration porn to think that i could care for another being's care and their own needs while caring for my own is a struggle most days.

On the matter of if abortions are moral, okay whatever, i respect the choices that people make regarding abortion. No matter if the abortion was because the child had a potentially severe disability such as Down Syndrome. That is what being pro choice means. To allow a person their choice on if they want to abort their pregnancy no matter their reason, and for those who said this yet turned around and is saying that they shouldn't abort a disabled baby you are selectively pro-choice. For the sake of fighting potential eugenics and ableism this way is contradictory, especially if you yourself have advocated for women to have choices regarding their bodies even if you are also a woman yourself.

I used to think that i barely masked at all, especially in high school, because the only thing that i was doing in terms of personally visible masking was that i'd self isolate myself and to prevent myself from conversing/interacting with my fellow classmates. However, as time goes on, i have begun to notice the other ways that i have been masking, especially the ways where it is subconscious and barely noticeable even from my perspective.

I like to think that doing all of this masking is reason why i entered autistic burnout, which resulted in increasing challenging behaviours and my inability to cope with a full courseload. This also led me to having a disastrous meltdown where i almost gave a staff member a concussion, because that day was my breaking point of what i can and can't cope with. Because after that, i was suspended for fifteen days which was way longer than my suspensions had been beforehand, even before those years. During those fifteen days where i couldn't go to school, they were discussing and having meetings about how they can help me cope and to especially re integrate into school.

After a final meeting, it was decided that i only go to school for only one hour before lunch, and that was only so i could go to this room and calm down. There was no work, however, i was sent the assignments that i had to via the program support teacher, or via online means such as looking at my school's canvas app to download and submit the assignments that i have completed. It was good, then this year, i do the same but only for one hour before lunch and i went to a class instead of just heading to that room and doing whatever activities that they had set up for me there.

I'm sure that you guys have read this before, and are well aware of it. But this is for context before anything else, especially before i dive into fully talking about my experience with low and unknowingly masking my autism beyond just simple self isolation. I especially like to think that i was masking a lot during those years of full courseloads, of four classes every school day, because i could cope and adapt, but just barely and not without external and significant support via my IEP and the educational assistant that is assigned to me for the whole day. And i was just doing the same thing that i am doing right now still, which is self isolating myself from others and just talking to adults only.

Because apparently, when i got my report back, the teachers have said that i apparently mask and that they were able to find my baseline just based off of how i naturally act. The ways they could figure that out was to ask my homeroom teacher and the rest of the teachers, as well as the educational assistant who they assigned to work with me for the time that i would be at school as says my school schedule. Now, i don't know if i am high masking, mid/med masking or low masking, but from what i can tell i like to guess that i was masking a lot and with tons of effort because at one point, it got too much for me and i had snapped after one small thing triggered me that fateful day. I am sure that i still mask, especially since it is unconsciously but without a full courseload it's easier for me to cope and to get through the day.

Now, for the possible ways that i think i am masking by. The only one way and method that i am sure i am using to mask my autism is self isolation, which basically means that i don't really interact with and converse with kids my age but only talk more so with adults, even then only when i need to and not really when i want to for my baseline. Another way is that sometimes, i force myself to talk to people even though i much prefer to be alone and to be silent and not needing to have to listen to someone because i hate when people suddenly want to talk to me out of the blue. Another way that i can guess as a method of masking for me personally is that i try not to stim a lot. I do stim already, but it's silent and invisible movements like jiggling my knee and pacing around the classroom.

However, beyond those points i have no idea how much else i am masking by. Because i have said at the start of this post that i never intend to mask, i just don't see the point in masking my autism. Because i did that when i first came here to my current high school, and still people noticed enough to bully me for my autism. I was even doing this kind of masking too even before high school as well, but people were aware simply because of the symptoms that i missed out on masking or on hiding well enough. The most important thing that i really struggle and struggled to hide was that i had struggles with self regulation and as a result, had many meltdowns that couldn't be excused as teenagers or children just arguing with authority figures.

I have had less meltdowns in high school, thankfully, but i still express my anger in very age appropriate ways. For example, when my computer frustrates me, i tend to smack on it or to hit on it while complaining loudly that it's so slow, and the same can be said for when i have some login issues regarding school log in. That is a frequent trigger, and by this time i'm sure that classmates and former classmates are used to it now. I used to have some issues with a former classmate in my first ever math classes, and he used to be another very frequent trigger. It seemed like he knew exactly how to unsettle me, at best, and how to make me have a meltdowns at worse, especially during worse days. So i have often had to slap or to have an otherwise frustrating argument with him which teachers have had to shut down because we weren't going to peacefully resolve both of our concerns or conflicts without teacher intervention.

It was so bad that some students assumed that i was a life skills student, when i'm just not going to school for the full day like they are. I only have two classes to go to and that's it, but i have a feeling that kids are thinking otherwise. I'm sure that some even thought i died or moved country, which is what usually happens when someone isn't seen at their school for a while. It's never something positive like they moved schools, for example. For me, though, it wasn't positive but it wasn't negative either as the reason for why i wouldn't be seen at school for a long time because the students probably had no real evidence or proof to suggest either a positive or negative reason. Some teachers did but that might only be for my classroom teachers, the people whos' classes i am enrolled in is what i mean to say.

I don't think that anyone has been concerned about what the support needs terms and the people behind these terms consider as support needs. Even though i am not a part of the group who invented these community terms, i still want to share my opinions and perhaps address some concerns about what support needs actually, and directly, considers to be a support need.

This issue was compounded last weekend, when a creator suggested that her job and her usage of the GPS systems on her car were considered support needs. The same creator suggested that hypersensory, amongst other things, be considered as support needs while ignoring that a majority of us consider our struggles with things like IADLs and BADLs too, if not with more importance than for things like whether or not we just fit better within a certain support needs label community or not. That person's opinions came from a lack of education, and a lack of awareness on the wider online autism community.

This person, through rather unintentionally, has caused direct harm to people with autism by sharing these thoughts. Her perception of her life and of her lived experiences are valid, but what should be valid are the experiences and the considerations of people who are autistic and also especially marginalized, even just by skin colour, sexuality and the presence of other disabilities as well. Because what she shared was basically misinformation, which indirectly invalidates the struggles of even those who are low support needs to medium support needs, never mind those with higher and the highest possible support needs as people with autism. Especially of people with higher support needs than what the general community has, importantly online where this creator shares her content and her life with.

For most autistic people, finding a job and keeping said job is harder. But that is double the time harder for people with medium, and triple times harder to nearly being impossible for autistic people with high support needs. I'm sure that everyone with autism has had a very difficult and stressful time being an adult, especially when they're focused on finding and obviously also keeping a job, especially in this current economy if you live in countries where the job market is struggling more than normal. I mean not even autistic people and other disabled people are the only people struggling to find jobs, people without disabilities and non allistics also struggle with finding jobs either and there is further importance placed on getting a job as prices increase with each year it seems like. What i am saying here is that you're not alone, and that saying that it is a support need is not true when it comes to disability related support needs.

The same goes for driving, with or without needing to use a GPS to help get around in car centered societies such as the one within the United States. Sure, autistic people do struggle with driving as direct results of them having autism, as autism is inherently a disability no matter your support needs label, but needing a GPS does not signal that someone is autistic, it is something that everyone has and uses. Including neurotypical people. There is a reason that every car has an ability for the driver to use GPS, and that there is another reason why i would be honestly surprised if any car has no ability for GPS to be used at all because the car itself doesn't support that software for a reason or another, of course if it is a newer car model. What i mean to clarify on is that in this modern age, every single new car has GPS and other technology installed, not that every single car dating from when we did not have GPS is included here.

If an autistic person has a car that doesn't have GPS, like old cars where people had to use physical maps to help themselves get around instead, that is still not a support need. As people have either used context clues on the roads that they're on to get around, or they have used a physical map like i have seen people talk about using. It's difficult from my perspective, yes, but i don't think that struggling with using a map while driving is atypical or anything to do with disability because there is a reason that we have developed GPSes to use. Because neurotypical and non allistic people have struggled as well, and they have asked their passengers to help them out or have found out other ways to get to where they need or want to be. I just wanted to clarify on the point of old cars, because i don't want anything situations to be left untouched in this topic.

I have been seeing people offline and online say that autism is an invisible disability. And while, for cases in which people are masking or if their struggles just aren't that severe enough to be noticed by an average person, autism can be rightfully considered an invisible disability, people have forgotten that not all autistic people are invisibly disabled as a result of their autism.

For example, they might have higher support needs, higher medical needs, and have comorbidities that could make their support needs more intensive and thus, more visible. Especially for those with high support needs, severe to profound autism, lower functioning, and/or level 3 autistics. I have heard of people within this community talking about people who don't mask their autism and stim, for example, when they used to mask and would hide their stimming. Of course, this is just one example out of perhaps dozens more that don't just touch on stimming as a sign that one is unmasking their autism. I am sure that there are people out there who surely unmask by stimming when they didn't or couldn't allow themselves to do so before when they were masking.

Anyway, as i have said in the first slide, people who have been unmasking their autism in various ways have been shone a spotlight on. Meanwhile, the autistic people who haven't gotten attention and proper representation are those who are in need of 24/7 supervision, with high/complex support needs, and those who can't do things like BADLs and IADLs by themselves. The people who are visible, in the terms of stimming loudly, having meltdowns, having a weird posture when they are walking or standing or both, et cetera. Those who need caregivers, and need an AAC app to communicate because they can't speak by mouth at all. These people are being left out of the conversation by people less affected and less unable to do things like talking, using the bathroom by themselves, feeding themselves and more, and as a result there is a debate going around that autism is an "invisible" disability.

Again, while that is true for the vast majority of level 1s, lower support needs, and higher functioning autistics, that doesn't mean that autism is a or will be an invisible disability. If anything, the people with lower needs are still spotted but not seen as disabled, but only seen as freaks and weirdos because of their mannerisms that aren't how neurotypicals typically move and go about their days. Now i am not saying that level 1s and level 3s are the same in terms of being spotted by neurotypicals, but that both levels still have something "off" or "freakish" about them regardless of if either is a high or a low masker. For people with lower needs, it's because of their social awkwardness as i've come to observe that tips NTs off in most cases, but it is oftentimes quite visible when an autistic person has a caregiver, AAC device, or is just stimming loudly for some examples.

I have been seeing so much physically disabled people advocate for ablebodied people (Which many neurodivergents interpret to also mean them as well) not using the handicap bathroom stall, especially if it's not needed. In response to this, many people who have invisible disabilities have been pushing back on this, saying that it is impossible to know if the people who used the stall have invisible disabilities, especially if they are fully ambulatory and able to walk without needing a wheelchair like some ambulatory wheelchair users do.

Some people with Neurodivergence has also advocated that the stall is also important for them, and one reason that they use to support this is that things like autism, anxiety and what not are disabilities. While they're right about that, in many cases, i think it would be obviously sensible to not have to use the disabled bathroom every time that you have to go use the washroom like people who need to use wheelchairs, and other mobility equipment to get around regardless of if they are also ambulatory mobility aid users or full time mobility aid users like wheelchairs for example.

But, of course, there is nuance to what i have said. It is available for people like me when they really need to go, and every other stall is occupied, and that the autistic or otherwise neurodivergent person is quick in using the stall. I have used the stall once before, and that was because there was no other disabled person waiting for it, nor did i take as long as ablebodied teenagers do when they're on their phones and having fun with their friends. Even then, that was the first and last time that i have used the disabled bathroom stall out in public, i am well aware that i can easily make do in a smaller stall that ablebodied people use. I struggle with not bumping on things, but that alone doesn't equal my entry into the disabled bathroom stall every single time i need to go.

I saw a post where someone was advocating for ablebodied people to not use the disabled/handicap bathroom stall/room and the comment sections were losing their minds as one. People misinterpretted it, with some disabled people asking if they would be allowed to use the DISABLED/handicap bathroom.

Like, one dude asked, saying that he couldn't use the normal ones because he has an mobility aid. While not a wheelchair, that aid that he is using would not make his experience in a regular stall easy, so the OP rightfully told them that he was allowed because it was a need. Like, you would have a damn wheelchair and still would be asking if you were allowed to use it, and mind you the person would not be able to be ambulatory full time without a wheelchair.

This person who asked is almost the same however he doesn't or didn't use a wheelchair those times. Like if you need help, via grab bars for example, and a regular stall is not enough to help, you're for sure welcome to use the fucking DISABLED/handicap stall!! I am just annoyed because why are some of those people gatekeeping themselves from having an easier time using the washroom when they would really need and would benefit from using it?? Like i can get it with fears of judgment, but i am sure that if i saw you i would not mind you using the disabled stall, not one bit.

But what pissed me off more was those with neurodivergencies saying that they need the washroom too. Like, girl, you don't use a wheelchair or another mobility aid, nor would you benefit from that extra space in reality!! Things like ADHD doesn't mean you would NEED the disabled stall every day, just that you would benefit from it. Please let those who do need it more than you, with just ADHD, use the wheelchair.

Like i get the concern, ADHD is a disability and that those with ADHD do struggle with stuff that requires them to need extra room or something like that for example, but for some other disabled people it is harder and near impossible for them. And yeah, i think that having two disabled stalls, one for neurodivergents/mental health/other invisible disabilities and the other being for those with wheelchairs and other mobility aids are a good idea. I wish something like that could exist, and not just in one place but mainstream like how most buildings have a disabled slash handicap stall.