cici

Tone tags like “/j” “/srs” etc are accessibility tools. They help neurodivergent people understand the explicit tone of written text that would otherwise be only implicit and therefore difficult for us to understand. If you use tone tags in a joking or disingenuous manner, you’re not only going to end up confusing a lot of people, but it’s also just plain ableist to make a joke out of an accessibility tool, something that a lot of us rely on to understand and communicate with people online.

Especially considering the whole point of tone tags is for them to be used in the most genuine, accurate manner possible, someone knowingly misusing them just means they’re doubling down on their ableist disregard for neurodivergent people who might read it.

If you post something somewhere as a joke but end it with a “/srs,” fix it. Delete it. Don’t do it again. Tone tags are not your punchline.

if you use them please like or reblog

You say that until you see me so happy, that I can’t mask. Meowing and squealing, flapping or clapping my hands, an awkward grin on my face. I bounce and lick my lips. I talk endlessly about what I have now, whether it’s a figure, or a VHS.

You say that until I’m overstimulated. I’m irritable when I’m out of my house too long, when I get interrupted, my plans are changed, my ideas are turned away. I don’t want to interact anymore, I want my headphones and my music. I shake my head, I groan, I hit my legs. I get snappy and don’t look at you when you speak. Not that I really did before.

You say that until my senses are TOO sensitive for you, maybe even too dramatic. I can’t touch the dishes, I’ll gag. I cover my ears and shake my head during the concert. ’Please turn down the radio,’ I say. And yet, I’ll stare at the bubble tube at the dentists office, or lay in bed, staring at my prized jellyfish lamp.

You say it until I suddenly won’t shut up. ’Jellyfish don’t sting,’ I say. ’They have cells on their tentacles called nematocysts and-‘ I go on and on. Or maybe I’ll talk to you all about censorship laws, and how it led to the production of ’Faces of Death,’ and ’Banned from TV.’ Or perhaps I’ll tell you all about Botulism of all things!

You say that. But you don't see how it factors into every little detail of my life. You undermine me and my autism with a comment that seems meaningless. What does Autism even look like to you? It is the minimal representation you see on TV? Is it Rain Man? Is it Music, from Sing? Sheldon Cooper?

By telling me I have ''Mild autism''

You're dismissing my struggles,

my everyday's sensory overloads, how I need accommodations, how I do actually act like your autism stereotype, I just don't show it, how difficult is for me to socialize, how everyday I'm tired because of masking. That some days I am ''low functioning'', the time I couldn't even leave my house for years because of the sounds and people.

I'm autistic.

No ''high functioning''.

I do not have ''mild autism''.

spoons: the amount of energy something takes is a spoon. disabled people use more spoons each day and also have less in the first place

forks: every hurdle you face is a fork getting stuck into you. a disabled person will finish the day covered in forks, which means they take longer to recover from a day than an abled person