By Lillian Gren
Let me tell you guys something.
I.
HATE.
When people talk about autism like it’s a superpower.
Like, I don’t know, but it just seems tacky. It has the same energy as a man calling himself a “sigma” or a woman calling herself “quirky”. It’s fine in a vacuum (I mean, who wouldn’t want to be revered as a shining pillar of light and an example to whom we should look up to as a society?), but when you stack on things like context and the general social norms we follow (a massive “f-you” to those on behalf of all my fellow ‘tistics) it feels like a massive bucket of “ick” just got dumped down my shirt.
I see autism as more like rolling for initiation in D&D with loaded dice continually stacked against you. Or a bartering game where the best thing you can get out of it no matter what you give is mildly comfortable socks. For example: If I trade my ability to put away my laundry for two weeks, I can hyperfixate on a video game long enough to pump out a novel-sized fanfiction in a month or so.
And it’s not like autism gives me innate abilities nobody else has. Everybody these days has social anxiety and refuses to change their sheets for months. We’re not special. I’m tired and gay and so what if I cry every time a tag I don’t spot when buying clothes feels like it’s reenacting the opening scene of Frozen on my skin?
I don’t “see the world differently”, I psychoanalyze everything people say so I don’t get caught up in a double entendre. (By the way, that phrase is stupid). My filters have permanently gone out on a milk run with my dad, not fundamentally changed. I’m not looking through a kaleidoscope, here, but sometimes it seems like the rest of humanity is.
A conversation with a neurotypical is like taking a goddamn Rorschach test with nausea glasses on. They start talking about how it symbolizes my deep distrust for humanity and I’m just here like “I thought I was trying to find the butterfly!”. Like, PEOPLE. STOP. SAYING. THINGS. YOU. DON’T. MEAN! It’d save everybody else a lot of time and effort. Thank you!
And another thing! Forget years of flawed research on a select group, let’s start using fourth graders as a diagnostic tool because LET ME TELL YOU. Those little shits can sniff out a neurodivergent like bloodhounds on a murder case. I think it would honestly benefit everybody involved; forget universal healthcare, just watch an elementary school recess for more than twenty minutes. Go ahead. See how fast everybody spots the autistic one. Maybe that’s what it’ll take to diagnose more people and we can finally normalize it among our children instead of bullying others for how our brains developed. I know that I’d much rather not spend thousands of dollars on therapy so I don’t become even more psychologically damaged and end up playing in cat shit for the rest of my days, so to all the medical professionals up there; just set up camp in a playground. I guarantee that you will find results.
The teachers don’t do much either; unless you’re flapping nonstop and the sound of the air around your ears causes you to have a meltdown, they’ll either assume you’re being dramatic, OR (and here’s the real icing on this shitsicle cake) they’ll take your quietness and ability to work quickly and label you a little child prodigy that leaves you starved for validation for the rest of your life, and it puts a target on your back for everybody else (not like it wasn’t there before).
“Hey, I know we emotionally traumatized you in the formative years of your life and you’ll never truly recover from it, but HEY! You can read well and say big words!” Thanks, Susan. My reading level is really gonna help when your kids start making fun of me for not understanding a metaphor. Yeah, that Chuck E. Cheese prize card will really stick it to them. (Please note, we don’t have a Chuck E. Cheese anywhere near my city).
At the end of the day, it’s a nice enough gesture. I guess.
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