I don't think you understand.

Diagnosed Autistics can be denied entry to certain countries and even deported from them.

Diagnosed Autistics can have their children taken from them.

Diagnosed Autistics can be denied life saving organ transplants.

Diagnosed Autistics can be forcibly institutionalized and subject to torture in the name of "treatment".

Historically, the Nazis would sort Autistic children into groups to be either "re-educated" or murdered.

Now, RFK Jr wants to create a "national autism registry".

@calugaritsa I wanted to make an addition to your post, but feared it would get lost in the reblogs, so I've created a new post. But I wanted to credit you with the original post. I'll transcribe the image first, for anyone who needs a screen reader.

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calugaritsa

If you're a disabled young person, you've most likely been hit with the "pfft you think you're in pain now? Just wait til you're my age" bullshit from older people at least once. Everyone talks about how invalidating it is

But I haven't seen anybody mention how it's terrifying, too. Yes, I know health deteriorates with age. I know that old age is a disability unto itself. I know that the healthiest person alive will start getting aches and pains past the age of 40 and may even need mobility aids

I know all this stuff. And it always makes me think "yeah, if I can't walk without joint pain even while using mobility aids AT AGE 21, how painful will life be for me at the age where it gets painful for everyone?"

And it's hard not to feel like I'm doomed, y'know? Where most people get a period of health that they wish they appreciated more when they start to lose it, my starting point was a body that doesn't work properly and it's only gonna get worse from there. It's worse every fucking year.

TLDR stop telling disabled young people that their pain will only get worse to the point of being unimaginable as they age, WE FUCKING KNOW

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SO... all of this! ^^^^^

TW: This post will discuss suicidal ideation, but not in any explicit manner. The purpose of this post is to provide hope and context. Please take care of yourself before all else, but if you can, stay with me here - I'll do my best to avoid being triggering about it.

Learning how to hold that fear and let myself take it one day at a time is a long, long process, and I am not done learning it. But I've come a long way from where I once was.

I have been disabled since I was a young child. I am in my thirties now. It has gotten progressively worse, and more and more conditions have accumulated. The list of what's wrong with me is comically long. But living with it all is anything but funny.

Living with all the symptoms, all the pain, all the bad days (which greatly outnumber the "good" days, which are not the good days abled individuals get by a long shot) and all the fear that seeps in, not only of the future but of the present moment, too... Well. Suffice to say it's FUCKING HARD. And I'm really tired of hearing how strong I am.

I know. I'm incredibly resilient because my choice is to deal or die, and thus far I have continued to choose "deal" again and again and again.

But don't ever believe that I've persevered because this just isn't bloody hard.

Do you know why people believe that disabled people who are very disabled are so strong and so "inspirational"?

It's survivorship bias. It's because the people who can't find a way to deal with their lot are fucking dead. And I've been breaths away from joining them more times than I can count or remember.

When you deal with loads of health problems, which also seem to come prepackaged with bonus mental health problems a lot of the time... I'm just going to say that suicidal ideation is incredibly common.

You cannot understand unless you have been affected by it -- even the people closest to me, my family, who watched me go through every inch of it, often don't understand the scope and depth of this particular hell.

So I cope with a lot of humor. I also cope with a lot of therapy, and not everyone has that privilege. I have access to treatments which vastly improve my life, but none of them will ever render me no longer disabled.

When I look ahead to my future, it is very hard to see anything but decline. It is hard not to view the future as a terrifying, yawning maw, a portal to a hell shaped specifically for me and me alone. It is hard to not believe "No one and nothing will ever be able to spare me that fate." And it is hard to take the next breath, and the next, and the next after that.

Disability from a young age is incredibly formative. In ways I cannot begin to articulate, I am unlike my able-bodied peers, my mentally-well peers. But please, PLEASE attempt to understand that waking up and choosing to live out each day, every day, is an actively-made choice.

It is a choice I make in spite of my fears, and because I have painfully clawed my way free, inch by excruciatingly difficult inch, from each and every dark pit I have ever sunken, fallen, or been thrown into.

It's the hardest thing I have ever done; choosing to stay. It's the hardest thing I'll ever do.

I make the choice over and over because there is enough good in my life to serve as a lighthouse, to blast a beacon of hope far and wide within me every time I find myself lost in the fog of despair.

And the fact that there is enough good in my life is due to a lot of factors that just happened to work out for me. Part of it is simple luck, part of it is privilege deliberately built into the systems I rely on: plenty of people are not fortunate enough to be able to access things like consistent healthcare and proper treatment. Plenty of people do not have any kind of safety net. I am white; that means I face fewer barriers in getting help than disabled people of color. I also happen to be disabled in ways that mean I am not discriminated against because others perceive me to be of low intelligence. (Don't talk down to disabled people. ANY disabled people. Always assume competence. Stop fucking infantilizing us, period.)

Also part of those factors of survival are things like my own plain stubbornness, my curiosity to see what happens next, my ability to laugh at so many things that would crush someone else. They also include things like my support network: my loving friends and family, and my cat Gemma. Sometimes I have survived only because of a deep understanding of how much I matter to the people around me. And not everyone is blessed to be able to say that.

But if you are reading this, and you are young and disabled and have grappled with despair, allow me to give you a tiny ray of hope.

Consider that medical advances are being made with lightning speed these days. Even if no treatment exists at present for your condition, even if you have not yet been able to obtain a correct diagnosis, that could change practically overnight. But it can only change for you if you stay.

Consider that not only could treatments change, but your present circumstances as well. The thing is, we can't know what's coming next. How many times have you been convinced something bad was about to happen, and then been surprised by something good instead? There are good things coming down the pipe for you right now that you cannot begin to anticipate. But you have to be here for good things to happen.

And no, it won't always be sunshine and roses... But those are the times when you must cling most fiercely to hope. If you cannot find hope, then exist out of spite. I am begging you, one disabled sad person to another, find any reason at all to keep going. Outlast the politicians who want to see you dead. Outlast the people who said you'd never make it. My father used to tell me that he thought I would "self-terminate" (his words) before the age of 30. I passed that milestone a few years ago. His words fucking hurt, but the thought of him being right hurt more.

Pain is not easy to tolerate. Find anything that allows you to endure it more easily and hold tight to it. Whether it's love, curiosity, or spite, or the burning need to find out what happens on next week's episode, or any of a million little reasons, a million little things that can distract you from your misery, find it and do not let go. ANY reason to stay is valid. Allow yourself to be invested in this world, even if you are not that invested in your own existence.

This world needs you. I don't know you, but I need you to be here, because they want to make a world that is bland and excruciatingly homogenous, devoid of the brilliance and natural variety of life. I do not want that world to come to pass. This world needs you precisely because you are unlike anyone else. Your uniqueness is a gift. And you are not a burden, even if you carry great burdens.

Your disability(/ies) gives you a kind of perspective that no one else is able to offer. Your voice, as someone who has fucking suffered relentlessly, is inherently valuable. Because you're human. Because everyone is human, but not everyone goes through the same things. Even among disabled people, your perspective may be unique. You can speak to the needs of those like you, and those like you who will come after.

As a human who gives a shit about other people, I beg you to find a reason to stay. Because not only can you make life better for other people in ways you would never have imagined, your life can get better too, and I want that for you.

Sometimes "it gets better" is not about passively waiting for things to change, but about making up your mind to magnify every positive, and telling every negative to fuck directly off.

Sometimes it also gets harder, yes. But I beg you not to count the future you out. You are not alone in this world, however isolated you may feel and be. There is beauty, there is joy, there is love. There is peace, and there is hope, and it is waiting for you.

and one of the signs she shared was not being able to drive. and i cant drive. i cant. i cant even use one of those motorized shopping carts. each time i've tried i've had meltdowns/anxiety attacks because i can't feel where i am in space. but for some reason i was great at riding my bike and roller blading. i loved the way it felt sensory wise.

anyway um. in the video she says it's okay to be an adult and not be able to drive; it doesn't make you less of an adult. which is absolutely true and very comforting to hear.

but then she said you need to make sure not to isolate yourself or put yourself in a position where you're alone or dependent on someone else to go anywhere

and that. is the situation i am in. i can't control it. there is no reliable, affordable, accessible transportation for me. anywhere i go on my own has to be done on foot. and i also struggle immensely going places on my own. it is a very overwhelming and confusing experiencing if i am going somewhere i have never been before.

i didn't do this to myself. i didn't choose to become severely disabled and need a wheelchair. i didn't choose to be unable to drive. i didn't choose to be without friends.

i understand the sentiment behind it is not wanting someone to be alone and isolated, but it completely misses the point.

not being able to drive is a real barrier to participation in society for disabled people. it's a barrier even for abled people who don't have a car or can't afford to learn.