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We all matter. We all have the same diagnosis. We all deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

But we are not the same.

I can mask and might be seen as 'odd' or 'weird' in public. The students I work with are seen as 'dangerous' and 'practically little kids'.

I can go to university and work with accommodations. The students I work with likely will never live independently and a few might find jobs that support them but still pay them less than an abled worker.

I have full control of my finances. The students I work with aren't allowed to make independent financial decisions, even if capable.

If I say 'no,' I'm making a choice. The students I work with can't say 'no' without being labeled as defiant and difficult.

I can feed myself, bathe myself, and take care of myself with extreme challenges. The students I work with are unable to take care of themselves without high levels of support/one on one support.

I had an IEP in high school but was mainstreamed in classes. The students I work with take separate classes and some rarely get to interact with their abled peers.

Our experiences are fundamentally different. Higher support needs autistics will experience a specific type of ableism I never will, and can never fully understand.

Lower support needs autistics need to stop saying we understand what higher support needs autistics are going through and then present autism as only being disabling because of society/lack of acceptance because that is dangerous. We need to stop saying every autistic person is capable of everything if given the right support because that leaves out huge parts of our community who will never be able to do certain things, regardless of support.

We are worthy of existence regardless of our abilities.

I hate this world.

fuck the USA. fuck Israel

death to all colonizers

GENOCIDE ISN'T A TREND

SHOWING YOUR SUPPORT TO A POPULATION ISN'T A TREND

addicts in active addiction with no intention of quitting

phys disabled people who deny medical treatment

neurodivergent people who deny psychiatric treatment (yes, including schizophrenic people and people with personality disorders)

trans people who want or don't want to medically transition (yes, including trans masc lesbians with top surgery and trans women without bottom surgery, yall are so weird to them wtf)

where in it do you see "my body my choice means im exempt from consequences"? NOWHERE, because that's obviously not the case

yes, people with PDs can be abusive without their meds

yes, being raised in an addictive household can be bad for a child

yes, refusing treatment for medical conditions can make you a "burden" for your family (im actually way more mad at this one than the rest, im just choosing my battles)

as much as it is my choice whether or not to medicate my personality disorder, it is also yours to be involved with me or not

i have gone AWOL for months due to this, i've canceled plans last minute, i've hurt people's feelings

some of these people accept that that's the way i am and are still my friends and some don't and we don't talk anymore. i broke up with my ex over this because i was a very bad romantic partner. we're still friends, but they usually lean on others for emotional support cause i can't understand it. i am mad about none of these things, because i know them to be true. i also know strong meds make me want to kill myself. they make me not feel like a person. i refuse to take meds to be more palatable to you.

ALL OF THESE THINGS CAN COEXIST

people can do shit that is harmful to you, but that doesn't give you the right to deprive them of their basic human rights

(shoutout to the person who called me a white american liberal, i'm latine and an agressive socialist but it did make me take the rest of their post less seriously, otherwise i would've cried)

also also, just because this is the last time i'm speaking on this:

every one of you who starts your post with "i agree with the transition part but" is a hypocrite

not too long ago - not to mention to this day - transmasc lesbians and trans men who didn't medically transition were kicked out of every single queer circle, trans spaces, lesbian spaces, gay spaces. because of closed mentality

Please do not exclude them!

Selective Mutism: an anxiety disorder. The inability to talk is caused by social anxiety due to the people and/or situation around the selectively mute individual. Often starts in childhood.

Speech Loss: a term for being unable to speak for a certain period of time, usually due to autism-related reasons (e.g. being overwhelmed or burnt out). Can overlap with Selective Mutism, the disorder, but it is not the same thing. (For one, SL is a trait; SM is a whole disorder.)

Nonverbal/Nonspeaking: a term for people who are always or almost always unable to talk. If you're unable to talk for an hour/day/week, you're not "going nonverbal"; you're "losing speech". If you've never been able to talk more than a few utterances, that's nonverbal.

Semiverbal/Semispeaking: a term for people who struggle greatly to speak to communicate. This might include taking awhile to form sentences, speaking with very few words, relying on echolalia, using gestures to communicate, and not always making sense to others.

Hyperverbal: people who speak more than what's typical, though we can still experience speech loss. This can include things like having a large vocabulary, using more words than necessary/usual to say something, talking to ourselves, talking for the sake of talking, using a lot of non-communicative echolalia, not realizing we're talking, or rambling often.