My dream autism world
Imagine a world where autism advocates raise awareness of not just the advantages but the struggles too of being on the spectrum, ceasing their attacks on the parents who just do the best they can.
Imagine a world where autism advocates fight for more funding for therapies and access to early intervention programs — not threatening to call CPS on those who express a morsel of negativity about their child’s disability.
Imagine a world where autism advocates spread awareness, recognizing the simple reality that severe autism is a thing and it does exist — that autism isn’t a gift for everyone who has it — instead of shouting “abuse”, “ableist” at parents who put their kids in therapy.
Imagine a world where so-called advocates understand that each autistic person is an expert only on their own autism, where they realize that there isn’t a single autistic voice.
Imagine if autism advocates spent more of their energy actually advocating. What if they shared the wide variety of others’ autism-experiences rather than trying to prescribe what we can and can’t say (i.e person with autism vs autistic; color blue or red; puzzle piece symbol or infinity loop).
Imagine a world where they recognize that their autism is their own, not anyone else’s. A world where we can agree that there’s a wide range of autism experiences, from articulate self-advocates to those who’ll never have that luxury, even with a lifetime of effort.
I dream of a world where people see this. Because there is a distinction between level-1 and level-3 autism. As someone with level-1, I relate to some of Charlie’s struggles, but most of it is foreign to my experience. Anyone who claims that severity levels don’t or shouldn’t exist has never met someone who is severely autistic.
I dream of a world where we all come together and accept that we’re only experts on our own autism, and honestly, most of us aren’t even that. There is no “we autistics” outside the idea that “we autistics” each represent a distinct experience and unique perspective of autism, and we shall not use this position to denigrate others’ views.
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