But lately, I am resisting passing. When I teach, I talk through and about my stims. I fire my rubber bands across the room, trip over classroom furniture, flap and wrench my fingers, rock back and forth as my elbows grate against the whiteboard. This is me, I say. My body is narrating.

When I first read about The Loud Hands Project, I flashbacked to kindergarten and flashforwarded to my future as a teacher. I imagine a world where my hands roam free, where stimming is simply a part of being — and I created the video below as part of that imagining. I hesitate to call this video a poem (because a poet I ain’t). So, I’ll simply call it a stimfest. A captioned stimfest.

From the Loud Hands website:

The Loud Hands Project is a transmedia publishing and creative effort by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, spearheaded by Julia Bascom. Currently, we are raising money towards the creation of our first and foundational anthology (Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking) and accompanying website.

Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking features submissions by Autistic authors speaking about neurodiversity, Autistic pride and culture, disability rights and resistance, and resilience (known collectively by the community as having loud hands)

I’m excited about this project, to say the least, and encourage you to read through the project’s website [preferably while hand-flapping]! Stim hard, people. Let your bodies be lively.

One of the things I love about the newly vamped change.org is its actions feature: there’s a growing community of neurodiversity advocates there, mostly due to the blogging efforts of Kristina Chew and Dora Raymaker, and the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network has been able to create form letters/petitions via the change.org interface. In short, it is now incredibly easy to send protest letters to various organizations and companies. ASAN provides you with a stock letter for the controversy du jour, which you can edit, and ASAN sends the letter as an email to the desired parties. It’s pretty cool. You can view the Lindt action here.

Back to Lindt…

Apparently, their support of of Autism Speaks has been going on for a while now. And, I’ve just learned that Toys R Us has additionally been partnering with Autism Speaks. Starbucks began printing blurbs about Autism Speaks on its coffee cups two years ago, and Hulu receives some of its sponsorship from Autism Speaks.The list of Autism Speaks’ BFFs seems never-ending.

Autism Speaks has a tremendous amount of corporate and media support. It’s little wonder that the autism controversy isn’t even rendered as a controversy in popular discourse. When I try to explain the concept of neurodiversity, for instance, to someone new to the autism fold, a typical remark resembles the following: “That’s stupid. Why wouldn’t someone want a cure?”

Autism Speaks’ toehold on autism discourse in popular media de-de-de-controversializes autism, de-de-de-ideologizes autism, re-re-re-pathologizes autism, and re-re-re-silences autistics. (And yes, I tripled the prefixes on purpose — something, anything, to effectively represent my emphatic tone here.)

Additionally, because of cure-minded groups like Autism Speaks (they aren’t the only one with media clout), neurodiversity comes across as some sort of fringe group of fame-seekers. Last year’s New York Magazine feature on the movement sported the following byline: “A new wave of activists wants to celebrate atypical brain function as a positive identity, not a disability. Opponents call them dangerously deluded [emphasis mine].” Moreover, a fairly recent Good Morning America segment on neurodiversity — which featured wonderful spots with Ari Ne’eman and Kristina Chew — ended with an incredulous Diane Sawyer showcasing both her doubt and her journalistic ethos.

I think the frustrating thing here is that, to the public masses, neurodiversity seems so new, so “out there,” so contained and so rare. Neurodiverse advocates are either painted as too disabled or too autistic to understand how badly they’re “suffering,” or as too high-functioning to know what “real” autism is. It’s a frustrating catch-22, to cite the novel that my book club recently finished.

I’ve noticed a common cover design in recent autism books: that of a child, usually a boy, hovering near a body of water. In fact, the more memoirs I read, the more I tend to notice this autie-water depiction. These representations appear on books I love, books I despise, and books I feel luke-warm about. It isn’t as though the autie-water portrait appears solely on curebie diatribes or solely on neurodiverse musings. And so I wonder about these aquatically-oriented representations of autism.

Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet

The RDOS Aspie Quiz asks whether or not I have a fascination with flowing water. I’m not entirely sure how this relates to autism, but perhaps it has to do with perseveration, or attention to detail, or the fact that flowing water is very entrancing and makes really cool whooshing sounds?

Reasonable People by Ralph Savarese

Other than the quiz-question theory, my only other thought behind autism on the beach involves metaphor. Does the water symbolically represent autism somehow? Why all the blue? Are we supposed to feel a certain way, think a certain way, assume a certain way before we read these books? An old, overused adage tells us that we should not judge books by their covers — an adage perhaps devised by a cantankerous, ne’er-do-well book salesman? But we do judge books by their covers. And I wonder what we’re supposed to judge about autism on the beach.

Weather Reports from the Autism Front by James C. Wilson

I know that Wilson’s cover photo is an actual photo of his son, a happy moment from a vacation. The cover makes somewhat more sense with this tidbit of knowledge. Yet, I’m very surprised by the puzzle-piece motif on Wilson’s particularly beachy cover: despite being a parent narrative of an autistic son, I consider his work largely neurodiverse in scope. In fact, one thing I most appreciated about Wilson’s work was his frequent reference to autistic bloggers. His (positive) mention of Autism Hub blogs far exceeded references to medical manuals and statistics. He did not portray his son, nor autistic individuals generally, as a medical mystery in need of research and neurobiological scrutiny. Though Wilson claims that he cannot fully understand his son and that his son cannot fully understand him, he portrays NT-autie communication in a way that speaks to a social, neurodiverse model of autism rather than a model that seeks to eradicate autistic difference in favor of a wholly NT understanding.

Thus, the puzzle motif here is quite puzzling.

Making Peace with Autism by Susan Senator

Of course, there are many people and protocols involved in producing, editing, and publishing a manuscript, discussions and decisions that readers simply aren’t aware of, aren’t privy to. How much influence did Wilson hold in the design of his cover? His photo made the cut — but was this the photo he was originally hoping to use? Did he vie for the (ab)use of the color blue in his cover? Did he hold any sway in the puzzle configuration? Was this his cover or his publisher’s cover?

The cover of Daniel Tammet’s Born on a Blue Day makes sense: the blueness of the cover directly relates to the title and perhaps the synaesthetic topic of the memoir. Moreover, more so than the other images offered here, Tammet’s cover focuses intently on sky. Ralph Savarese’s Reasonable People also shows more sky than water, with the child’s face being framed by the expanse of sky. With Senator’s cover, it’s hard to discern whether the water ends — and, interestingly, in all of these covers (with perhaps the exception of Wilson’s), expanse or limitlessness seems to be a rather large theme.

Women from Another Planet? by Jean Kearns Miller
[omg, women can have autism?] </sarcasm>
[ETA: my sarcasm isn't directed toward the book -- which is awesome -- but toward the statement before the sarcasm brackets.]

DJ Savarese, Ralph’s Savarese’s teenage son, wrote the last chapter of Reasonable People. DJ uses FC to communicate, and a large focus of the book is dedicated to legitimizing FC as a potential channel of communication for non-verbal auties. In the context of the book cover, I find this particular passage from DJ’s chapter to be quite illuminating:

“I dream of being a political freedom fighter. I read that pure real people in especially just free waters insist my real decisions really wasted. They think well respected, tested as normal kids are the okay to teach ones. They forget those lost kids. They’re the ones like me who poke or look like they’re not paying attention” (432).

The mention of “free waters” following “being a political freedom fighter” really strikes me here. This is an image I can digest, can embrace when considering autism on the beach. There is something freeing about water, calm about blue — peaceful, to borrow an idea from Senator’s book cover.

Yet, I don’t think that the audiences for these books — or other books that sport autism-on-the-beach covers — will immediately recognize or infer the freedom element of these cover illustrations. As calming and peaceful as blue is, as free as it is, I think blue also runs the danger of being melancholy, solitary, bluesy. I also wonder what stereotypes are reinforced by these images: in each, the (presumably) autistic individuals stand alone by the water as if they are locked into their “own little world.”

This isn’t to say that autistics never go off into their own little worlds, that autistics never stand alone, that autistics never love water and beaches. But I daresay that the frequency of this alone-on-the-beach-and-deep-in-thought imagery constitutes its own weird little genre. And any time a metaphor becomes popularized in autism discourse, I think we need to examine it, to rhetorically analyze it and question it.

Enter Luke McKinney’s The 5 Most Retarded Causes People Are Actually Fighting For on cracked.com. The title itself cues readers into the sort of rhetoric that McKinney abides by. Item #1 on his list is the Asperger’s Pride Movement:

Asperger’s is a real disorder for some, but has turned into a kind of “get out of self-improvement free” card for legions of socially awkward Pokemon fans. This latter group doesn’t care about your “medical credentials,” “basic common sense” or even “knowing people who actually do have Aspergers.” This syndrome they read about on Wikipedia once is their winning lottery ticket to a life of never having to learn how to interact with other humans. Welcome to the Aspergian Pride movement.

I’m really at a loss as to where this attitude toward Asperger’s comes from. It’s an attitude I encounter quite a bit online. In aspie forums, we often discuss the difference between using Asperger’s as an explanation versus using Asperger’s as an excuse – but the dominant NT perception online seems to be that Asperger’s is an excuse about 90% of the time, or that Asperger’s is a largely mythical disorder.

Per my own understanding, Asperger’s as explanation involves disclosing in such a way that communication and understanding are more easily achieved for all parties, regardless of neurological wiring. Conversely, Asperger’s as excuse occurs when the goal involves getting out of or getting away with something, e.g., Mom, I can’t clean my room because I have Asperger’s and am resistant to change.

I don’t think that the latter example, Asperger’s as excuse, is as problematic of a phenomenon as people on the net make it out to be. Who hasn’t used something as an excuse to get out of something? Moreover, there is a fine line between explanation and excuse, I think. While there is very little I “cannot” do, there are many, many things that I have extremely great difficulty doing, just as there are many, many things that I “can” do, but can only do very poorly. (For example, I can physically make eye contact. However, in forcing myself to do so, I stop paying attention to other things, and I also maintain eye contact in a very obviously forced, unrealistic fashion.) The aspies I’ve met generally don’t use Asperger’s as a way of excusing themselves for being manipulative jerks, as cracked.com would have people believe.

This whole debate — the excuse versus the explanation — goes back to the ADA, I think, especially to issues of accommodation. If we judge PWDs based on “retarded causes” and fakery claims postulated by internet sources, then accommodations for largely “invisible” disabilities like ASD or LDs become unsubstantiated complaints made by a pack of faking whiners.

As an example, I think to my own documentation that sits in my university’s office for disability services. One of the suggested accommodations involves class participation, a request that I be entirely absolved from verbally participating in class. Now, I know how to speak, and do speak, despite having difficulties. Does this make my accommodation an excuse made by a lazy whiner?

I should also mention that I’ve rarely asked disability services to contact my professors. I am fearful of being perceived as lazy, even though, legally, I shouldn’t experience such backlash. However, I’ve generally found that telling my professors of my difficulties — without invoking the disability/autism label — has worked as well as (and sometimes better than) asking disability services to intervene. One negative experience with disclosure comes to mind: my ODS counselor contacted a professor of mine, mid-quarter, and informed them (I’m being gender-neutral on purpose) that I was registered with their office and had communication issues. My professor, in response, said, “Melanie has a disability? But she’s smart!” My professor treated me differently after this point, and tended to be very patronizing.

I wonder how it is that we identify these so-called fakers who take excessive pride in their fraudulent disorders, disorders which, when real, supposedly cause “extreme suffering.” Because that’s the point, isn’t it? Unless we hate ourselves, we don’t have a real disability.

I’m not entirely sure where to start here, PETA. First of all, though I realize that ads meant for billboards and quick web visits are meant to be image-heavy and textually sparse, you’ve provided a whole lot of misinformation in your few measly independent clauses. In asking the lovely “Got autism?” question, are you trying to be sardonic and rhetorical, or are you in fact addressing the 20 million autistics who currently occupy planet earth? Because, sure, I’ve got autism, and no, I had no idea that studies linked cow’s milk to autism. But perhaps your “study” is actually synonymous with what I would call “total crap.” Just a thought. Although, since I’m autistic, it might be that my inner thesaurus is operating on some totally whacked out, casein-induced frenzy. Or how about not?

Anecdotally, some autistics note amelioration of their “symptoms” — e.g., isolation, meltdowns, sensory overload — when they’ve removed dairy and wheat from their diet. (Of course, PETA, you would never crusade against wheat.) However, this “improvement” is anecdotal and not scientific. It could be that some autistics experience food intolerances or digestive problems. But, see, there’s a big problem with this “link” word, PETA, because any protective parent who reads this will assume that milk has been shown to have a causative impact on autism, which it simply doesn’t. There are plenty of vegan autistics who are just as autie or aspie as ever. I suppose, on the positive side, if people were to assume that milk does cause autism, then maybe they’d get their kids vaccinated and stop with the mercury-poisoning mantras.

And then there’s that frowny face, PETA. The Cheerios are a nice touch, really. I’m glad you didn’t use Fruit Loops, because then that might play into the assumption that only autistic children are worth giving a crap about.  But the frown — oh, the frown. I may have difficulty with nonverbals and facial expressions, but I think I’m accurate in concluding that Mr. Cheerio Face is quite weepy and pathetic. Basically, PETA, you and Mr. Cheerio Face are making the assumption that autism is a sad, sad thing. And, quite honestly, it’s not. Autism is a way of life, much like veganism, minus the liking of food-with-freaky-textures thing.

On another page, you write:

Autism is a brain disorder that causes sufferers to have extreme difficulty communicating and relating to others. It is often marked by anti-social behavior like screaming and obsessive repetition of actions, which takes an enormous emotional toll on sufferers and their families. PETA has created a billboard to alert the public to the connection between this devastating disease and dairy-product consumption. …

Anyone who wants to alleviate or avoid the devastating effects of autism should give cow’s milk the boot and switch to healthy vegan alternatives instead.

Again, PETA, you’ve mixed up some pretty important facts. Autism isn’t a disease.  It isn’t something that you wake up with one morning; it isn’t something that you catch on the subway; it isn’t something that goes away. Autism is a neurological condition, a condition that affects how one’s brain is wired. Autistic brains and autistic existence aren’t devastatingly anything, unless you’re claiming that they’re devastatingly awesome.

You ask, “Got autism?” I say, “Yes, I do.” Somehow, though, I don’t think you were ever asking me anything in the first place.

Consequently, in my state of upset-ness, I attempted to parody an Autism Speaks YouTube video: I took an interview with Suzanne Wright (founder of Autism Speaks) and replaced a CNN dude’s questions with my own. It’s not great quality or anything, but producing this has kept me from fulfilling my head-banging desires, so it’s served at least one fruitful purpose. Using Vixy, I captured video of the CNN interview. I then extracted the sound using iMovie and recorded my own voice using Audacity. (I interspersed my “interview” questions with Suzanne’s Wright’s answers from the original video.) I also took a screen shot of the original video and modified it in GIMP to fit the neurotypicality disorder parody.

Original video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GuyTJ…

[cross-posted to the Asperger Syndrome Livejournal Community]

Also from the article:

In a script written by newcomer Marvin Easter, the two socially-prominent Trump-Hilton sisters and their mildly autistic brother, a toy store proprietor, attempt to reinvent a centuries-old love potion and launch a designer clothing line based on insomnia and prescription pharmaceuticals to save their “Grey Gardens”-style penthouse from foreclosure.

I’m not sure how “true” this article is, but it’s been plastered on a lot of ELO sites and listservs. Apparently, they’re looking to cast Steve Carell, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Amy Sedaris as the lead roles. I take this to mean that, if Steve Carell were cast, he would play the “mildly autistic brother.” A mildly autistic guy who sings ELO songs? All I can think of is his performance in Bruce Almighty.

I hope that this musical doesn’t make ELO look ridiculous, and I’m also curious to see how autism will be performed. I keep imagining a faux-autistic Steve Carell trying to sing something like Evil Woman or Ticket to the Moon. And that kind of scares me.

As an example of ELO gone bad, take the recent Broadway remaking of Xanadu, the 1980 bomb starring Olivia Newton-John. The plot was pointless, but the soundtrack, half of it being written and performed by ELO, rocked. The 2007 remake of the music is quite horrific, and the singers have even added a couple ELO songs to their show that were not in the original movie.

Here is a comparison of the original “Do Ya” with its recent bastardization:

1. The 1976 studio version of Do Ya by ELO
2. The sucky new version

Additionally, being that ELO has been my nearly lifelong perseveration of choice, I writhe over any cheesy commercialization of them that might occur. As an AS child of the eighties and nineties, I suffered for my love of ELO. Kids tortured me over my obsession with Jeff Lynne. And while one of my largest hopes in life is to talk intelligibly with people about ELO, I don’t think that this musical will accomplish that for me. Rather, I think that a bunch of fourteen-year-old girls will become engrossed with tin-can, screechy sounding ELO makeovers and the actors and actresses who sing them. They’d be clueless as to the context and history surrounding the real ELO. And I highly doubt that this wannabe musical would have cellists running around on stage with instruments over their heads, or dudes in sequins playing their violins with oranges. And the setting doesn’t sound amenable to giant spaceships either, unless the HFA toy-store guy happens to perseverate on them.

I always imagined that an ELO movie would revolve around time travel or outer space and aliens, something cultishly classic. Not this pop-culturish rich people stuff.

I think I did a decent job during my 15-second debut. As for my hat: a woman from church made it. It’s white with little prunes taped on, the prunes being rolled-up garbage bags. My teacher asked if she could keep my hat, and I gave it to her.

Several autism advocacy organizations have combined their energies and submitted a letter to Savage’s sponsors. I keep mulling over his follow-up show, how he treated his guests, how he decided which experts to pick for the discussion. It all reminded me of how much I loathe politicians and political discourse. I suppose that, being entrenched in the study of feminist rhetorical practices (among other things), it’d be fairly ridiculous for me to coin myself apolitical. I also suppose that apolitical is a sort of paradoxical parlance, especially since refusing politics is, in and of itself, its own political alignment.

I’m entirely gullible, I’ve realized. Or perhaps “indecisive” is the better word. That, and I rely too much on other’s perceptions, reactions, and ideas about social propriety since I tend to lack awareness of what is socially appropriate and acceptable. I’m never quick enough to realize when I should be saying “stupid flaming liberals” or “stupid staunch conservatives.” I’ve also come to realize that saying the wrong phrase in the wrong venue has the potential to result in personal injury. More often than not, I opt to say nothing at all, if only because I can’t process nuance fast enough.

Back to Savage. I’m often hesitant to label Asperger’s as a disability, if only because I don’t see my cognitive perceptions as negative constructs, as something horribly, terribly wrong with me. I prefer to think of Asperger’s as a difference, and some of the accommodations that I need aren’t fixes for my supposedly “wretched medical problems” — just alternative methods for me, as a particular individual, to get by. Moreover, so much of Asperger’s is wrapped up in social matters that I’d be committing a form of self-suicide to merely think that every failed situation is the fault of my “miswired” brain: social issues are social issues, issues wrapped up in a one-size-fits-all, more-often-than-not universally designed (or desired) society, a society obsessed with bell curves and misplaced chitchat about the weather. (Yes, I can see the sun, read the temperature on the bank’s LCD display, and feel the humidity against my skin. But thanks for bringing the current environmental condition to my attention.)

After listening to Savage and his claims that the autism spectrum is a bogus way for drug companies and doctors to reap in extra purse change, I feel as though any attempts I have at rebuttal are compromised. On the one hand, I defend my diagnosis of Asperger’s fervently: based on current scientific evidence, academic and medical communities at large define Asperger’s as high-functioning autism. I am autistic. And defensively so. I have a disability.

On the other hand, I’m not disabled in Savage’s sense of the word — there’s a huge linguistic gap emerging here. Sure, I have “problems,” and sure, I need “accommodations” sometimes, and sure, I have trouble “functioning socially” on many an occasion. I do not, however, need pity, and I am not tragic — neither tragically sad nor tragically cool nor tragically trendy nor tragically misdiagnosed. Tragic and I only fit in the same semantic unit when referring to my fashion sense, which is sadly and grossly lacking. According to Savage, “true autism is devastating.” Devastating for who? Devastating for what? His ratings?

Generally, I assume that when parents learn that their child has autism, they rarely jump for joy. Their lives change considerably, and often they lack the support services that they and their child truly need. But these challenges do not mean that their child is necessarily suffering in perpetuity, that their child is somehow lacking as a human being. Savage’s first guest, Wendy Fournier, president of the National Autism Association, unfortunately bolstered this idea, even though she claimed to be defending the interests of autistic children and their families. We have, she claimed, “a generation of impaired children.” Fournier also believes that vaccinations and heavy metal toxicity are in part responsible for autism, which made her seem all the less credible. Despite my many points of contention with Fournier’s beliefs, I was glad to find a letter she wrote in response to her spot on Savage’s show. When I listened to the show, it often seemed as though she was agreeing with a lot of Savage’s claims concerning overdiagnosis and misdiagnosis. As it turns out, she was placed on MUTE for much of the show, in order for Savage to soliloquize. She further maintains that she disbelieves Savage’s out-of-context/pharma defense, especially since most families do not receive governmental support, cannot sue anybody for causing their child’s autism, and are often placed on years-long waiting lists for necessary support services.

Rhetorically and editorially, this is all very interesting. The more I read about the Savage debacle, the more I realize why pathos is so de-legitimized (and demonized) as a persuasion tool within academic circles.

“I’ll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. That’s what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’ … [I]f I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, ‘Don’t behave like a fool.’ The worst thing he said — ‘Don’t behave like a fool. Don’t be anybody’s dummy. Don’t sound like an idiot. Don’t act like a girl. Don’t cry.’ That’s what I was raised with. That’s what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You’re turning your son into a girl, and you’re turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That’s why we have the politicians we have.”

I’ve been trying to be as objective as possible about all of this — I was really, truly hoping that somewhere, somehow, something was taken out of context. I listened to the first two hours of Savage’s follow-up show (recorded on July 21), and I couldn’t bear to listen for the third hour. First, he refused to apologize. Essentially, even though Savage is claiming the out-of-context defense, his claims for “original intent” sound just as foul, to me, as the original comments pasted above. Savage denies that there is an autistic spectrum. He also believes that, quite literally, somewhere upwards of 60% of autistic people are not really, in fact, autistic.

Savage continually reiterated that the “truly autistic” were not, and never have been, the subjects of his attack. He maintained that his claims were about overdiagnosis and misdiagnosis, that he was merely trying to defend defenseless children, to help helpless children.

Nevertheless, not once has Savage offered a definition of what he feels “true autism” is. After listening, I’ve determined that he supposes true autistics cannot speak (or, at most, cannot speak intelligibly). One of his two expert guests spent quite a while discussing otherwise “normal” late-talkers versus autistic children, using Einstein as an example. While I loathe the tendency to retro-diagnose dead geniuses with autistic spectrum disorders, Savage’s show perpetuates the myth that true autistics must, of necessity, not only be nonverbal, but must also possess a low IQ. Moreover, several callers, in support of Savage, maintained that they had (or knew of) children who’d received diagnoses of autism as toddlers, yet eventually began speaking, so, lo and behold, those kids certainly weren’t autistic!

I don’t deny that overdiagnosis and or misdiagnosis occurs. Just because I’ve never met anyone in those two categories doesn’t mean that the possibility doesn’t exist. Yet, I also think that the children in those examples still might very well be autistic — talking and intelligence (or, intelligence as we arbitrarily measure it) do not preclude autism. Moreover, I’ve read more scientific literature pertaining to underdiagnosis than I have about any sort of overdiagnosis. Call it the “epidemic” or better medicine.

In reality, I feel hurt. I realize that it’s silly for me to have missed a Law & Order marathon for a shock jock’s twisted ideas, but I was curious. And with each passing minute of listening to his rants, I felt personally attacked. I’m pretty certain that he thinks Asperger’s and HFA are bunk, and what’s more disturbing are the throngs of people who wholeheartedly agree with him.

Savage and his supporters say that it’s all the fault of drug companies, that they meant to attack pharma and welfare-leaching parents. While many people with autism are medicated on something or another, there is no drug treatment for autism. Autistics may be medicated for aggression or anxiety or depression — but not for autism. (Unless their mother is Jenny McCarthy, that is, and happens to believe in unscientifically proven diets and/or chelation.) This argument seemed pretty nonsensical to me. I’m autistic and I’m not medicated. I’m in different sorts of therapy, for sure, but my aim isn’t to get a hand-out from the government. My aim is to manage my sensory dysfunction, to be able to hold an everyday conversation, to reduce my anxiety, to live a decent life with a decent job and with decent relationships, and so forth. And I don’t think that AS/HFA individuals are draining funds from some amorphous giant pot of money, as if anything we seek somehow steals from a child with classic autism, who, as Savage has so poignantly noted, needs our pity. (groan)

Savage’s conception of true autism as profound suffering and incapacity goes to the heart of a very important disability/advocacy issue: an extremely medicalized and pitiful view of disability. It is dangerous, and downright discriminatory, to assume that those with disabilities are only defined by their inabilities, by their dependencies. Per Savage, autism is wholly a trial, a tribulation, an extreme form of suffering, something to be pitied and dreaded. Assuming that nothing good or amazing comes from those with autism is extremely damaging. By this definition, those who can talk have no form of autism; those who are mainstreamed have no form of autism; those who are involved in romantic relations have no form of autism; those who blog or take pride in themselves have no form of autism. It’s as though any societal “feat” (for lack of a better word) precludes autism entirely, as though “good” and “autistic” cannot be uttered in the same sentence, as though autistic, to quote an Autism Speaks promo video, is “death.” The only hope is hope for a cure — and if anyone is able to speak, is able to write, is able to reproduce, is able to find stimming enjoyable, then they suddenly were misdiagnosed as being autistic, and they no longer need or deserve educational, medicinal, or therapeutic support.

I’ll come back to this all later, I’m sure. But for now, I need to somehow lower my blood pressure before something pops.