A Completely Non-Obvious and Often Overly Long Blog Title by FOB

My disability doesn’t need to be hidden

Panel 1: A figure is turned away from the viewer and text around them says "Sometimes, I think I'm hard to love. My body doesn't work like it's supposed to"

Panel 2: Three sections. In the first the figure is looking at a chart confused and upset, labelled "I forget things". In the second they are walking using the cane and looking tired, labelled "I move slow". In the third, they are bending down with back pain to pick up a pencil and it is labelled "It hurts to do things most people do easily".

Panel 3: The cat is looking at the viewer, labelled "My cat's body also doesn't work like it's supposed to"

Panel 4: A similar 3-section layout. The cat is looking away from its food bowl, confused, labelled "He doesn't remember things". The cat then jumps and lands face-first, labelled "He's clumsy". Finally, he is stretching up to a window but can't reach it and it says "He can't do things that other cats can do".

Panel 5: The figure is holding the cat with their foreheads together and a heart above them, labelled "And I love him so much"

Panel 6: The cat is asleep on the figure's lap as they pet him, looking down at him considering and unsure. It is labelled "So maybe it's not too hard to love me".

Ling and May will learn to love each other sO MUCH OKAY they had to grow up too fast let them be silly siblings (they will support each other through everything I just know that okay they make me cry)

so many autistic people (likely most) are diagnosed in early childhood. I was diagnosed at the age of three. I could not tell you what I struggled with and where. I was diagnosed based on external predictors rather than internal experiences (though that diagnosis did consider how those external predictors related to my internal experiences!)

the criteria should be expanded to include the experiences of older autistic people with the ability to self reflect but you can't eliminate the criteria that are externally visible.

great many cases gonna be noticed in early developmental period (childhood)!!

great many cases also going affect someone communication ability tell you what they struggle with & where & why!

n by that mean. nonverbal ppl especially those without functional communication. people w language disorders & complex communication needs in general. some people w comorbid intellectual and or cognitive disabilities. n like. in general people w inherent symptoms of autism that lead them be diagnosed w level 3 autism / equivalent.

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A very tiny percentage of creators go on to be famous, but that doesn’t mean that people don’t remember little things you did for years and years. Who came up with most of the world’s most famous jump rope rhymes? Who coined some of the famous idioms we use in daily speech? Who made up ‘Jingle Bells, Batman Smells?” Somehow, all of these things stuck and spread around.

When I was a small child, I saw a high school put on a production of the musical HONK. In one song, the mother duck describes various dangers that her baby should avoid in the water, including fishing line, which could strangle him. A member of the ensemble played the role of fishing line, doing a maniacal laugh and over-the-top strangling motions, and I found it hilarious– and to this day, that’s an example I often think of when talking about how ensemble members can still stand out in theatre. The guy who played the role might not even remember that he did that, but I do.

I took Suzuki violin lessons as a kid. The teacher made up lyrics to some of the songs, and she let her students make some up, too. Now whenever I hear the instrumental of one of those pieces, I always remember these ridiculous lyrics about a skunk that we sang in violin class. I don’t even know which student invented them!

In middle school, I found a video about atoms parodying Bill Nye made by some kids for a school product. It probably had less than 1,000 views, but I think of quotes from that video all the time. They had a parody of “We Will Rock You” with the chorus, “Protons, neutrons, electrons” that I think about a lot.

Panel 2. The cat tree now has cats in it, and the front door no longer has a dog door. The narration continues: 'Lately, it's been filling up with cats I don't recognize. I don't know how they keep getting in. We don't have a dog door or anything.'

Panel 3. The cat tree looks slightly different, the cats are gone, and other small details around the room have changed. The narration continues: 'So, we have this cat tree at our house. I don't know how it keeps getting in. We've never had a cat or anything.'

Panel 4. Instead of the room, we see an illustration of several cats walking single-file in a void, weaving around the text of the page and several heaps of pills. The narration continues: 'When I was a kid, I used to be on this medication. Long after I'd stopped taking it, it was revealed to me that one of the potential side-effects was memory issues. For the longest time, I couldn't recall a single thing that had happened to me during the years I was on it.'

Panel 5. We're back in the room from before, only the design of the front door has changed, a table has become a cupboard, the window now has blinds, and the cat tree is gone. Three cats levitate in the air, occupying the positions they were previously in while the cat tree was present. The narration continues: 'So, we've got these cats in our apartment. I don't know why they're arranged like that.'

Panel 6. Several cats gather around a giant human brain in a void. The narration continues: 'Some things came back to me eventually, and I wasn't sure whether I was still missing pieces, whether I'd totally recovered, or whether there was never anything wrong with me in the first place.'

Panel 7. Illustration showing the inside of the cat tree, looking outward, as if we're seeing from a cat's perspective. The narration continues: 'So, there's this room in my house. I don't know how I keep getting in.'

Panel 8. We're back in the room, but the window has moved to a different wall, the cat tree has grown, and a portrait that used to hang on the wall is now gone, among other changes. The narration continues: 'So, I have these trust issues. If I forgot something important, would I even notice?'

Panel 9. The room continues to change, and the cat tree continues to grow. The narration continues: 'I think a lot about how little the human brain is actually understood. So, there's this cat tree in my house.'

Panel 10. The cat tree grows. The narration continues: 'Did you know that the diagnoses for a lot of mental health conditions are practically baseless? There's this cat tree in my house.'

Panel 11. Illustration of a pencil next to several mental health assessment worksheets. The narration continues: 'The doctor essentially gives you a 'What Simpsons Character Are You?' facebook personality quiz, full of statements like 'I often feel bad', and you're expected to rate how relatable these statements are on a scale of one to ten, with no frame of reference for what these numbers actually mean.'

Panel 12 is mostly text, but we see the carpeted insides of a cat tree slowly encroaching in on the words. The narration continues: 'There's no real metric for any of this. What's the 'normal' amount of anxious? What's the 'normal' amount of autistic? What amount of feeling bad is the 'normal' amount of feeling bad? How much of that is my body, and how much of it is my circumstances? Which number do I circle to get them to take me seriously? Which number communicates that something is wrong, but that others probably have it a lot worse? Six? Eight? If I answer nine or ten, will they assume I'm exaggerating? Will I be immediately hospitalized against my will?'

Panel 13. The carpet encroaches further, and the page grows darker. In the light at the end of the tunnel, the narration continues: 'What percentage of my life is a normal percentage to forget? If my mind can't be trusted, how can my answers be trusted?'

Panel 14 shows several posters on the walls of the doctors office, demanding patience to turn off the phone, asking patients to use their phone to scan a qr code to leave a review, advertising services to patience, and demanding that patients 'only have one problem per appointment'. The narration continues: 'When the quiz is over, the doctor decides which Simpsons character you are based on vibes and their own personal biases, and if they think you're a Marge they won't help you. 'Thanks for taking my quiz! You seem totally normal. That'll be one thousand dollars. You can leave it in the trash next to the four hundred forms that I made you fill out and then didn't read. Yeah, the ones that already asked you all the same questions I did.'

Panel 15. We're back in the room. All windows and furniture are gone, and all that remains is the ever-expanding cat tree, and its ever-expanding population of cats. Even the door has begun to disappear, and the walls and ceiling are slowly turning into carpet. The narration continues: 'So, there's this cat tree in my house. I've spent my entire life pretending to be normal in order to survive, and now I don't know how to turn it off, so now no one believes me when I say there's something wrong with me.'

Panel 16 shows an extremely close-up illustration of a cat's eye, accompanied by a single sentence: 'Did you know that cats tend to hide their symptoms when they're sick?'

Panel 17. We're back in the room, which has completely transformed into carpeting, and the cat tree has expanded to fill the entire room. Cats climb and sit and loaf about all over the room. The narration continues: 'There's a cat tree in my house. I've taken a lot of different medications in my life, for a lot of different reasons. Most of them either did nothing, or made things worse. At least, I think they did. If I was getting better, would I even notice?'

Panel 18 is completely blank, except for a single sentence: 'What are you supposed to do when neither the doctor, nor the patient, nor the treatment can be trusted?'

"Oh hey these people have their own style of [language A's word for thing. Say, what do you call it?"

"Oh it's [language B's word for thing]."

[item] the way [culture] makes it. 

If you don’t want sliced bread, you want bread the way Eastern Indians make it you ask for Roti, not bread. Because Roti is bread THE WAY [EASTERN] INDIANS MAKE IT. Like fuck, it’s not that complicated a concept. 

They also look like this