Accept Your Autisticness!

What makes someone autistic? A diagnosis is a very specific kind of explanation and measurement for a much broader experience. A picture of a canyon is not the same as walking in it; representations which are not the thing itself can't encapsulate everything. Autism is an internal divergence from "normal" but it's also a difference in expression. Undiagnosed autistics will give off an energy of their disposition independently of any psychological self-awareness. So diagnosis has limitations like all representations.

Every day when we interact with others, responses to our being influence how we see ourselves and the world. It is a good time for autistics to accept our energy as it is. We may suffer from discrimination, ostracization, and having to explain ourselves more than we would ideally prefer by not repressing autistic instincts; but the price of downright docility is a perpetual expectation to display non-autisticness which leads to burnout. Politically like all movements unless a shift manifests in the oppressed population, we cannot expect change to come from elsewhere (including other liberation movements). Each person who accepts their own autisticness fully, increases the likelihood others will collectively honor our expressive differences.

We do not need to rely on representations from the outside as our only knowledge. When you go to a canyon do you bring a picture or map to remind you: what I see is real? If you're burned out and barely able to function when the environment rejects your neurodivergence: that is true. If people respond to your energy in a particular way, it explains itself. Whether these particulars can be classified this way or that is secondary. The DSM (diagnosis dictionary) changes through time. Homosexuality, moral insanity, and hysteria not too long ago were clinical norms. Such labels are fashions.

Do you trust yourself or not? You are the whole canyon and more!

My fellow abnormalists, even if you're somewhat wrong attempting to categorize yourself; can you smell a prejudice when it reeks? Aversion and absurdity speak more than words: both inside and out. These patterns are also guides. We are not specimens in a lab to analyze but honorable variations regardless of how the tyranny of the majority sways. Some people will always disrespect our being as a community and as individuals, despite how we insist we are to be labeled (accommodations are important so labels can be useful). How one chooses to define oneself is a personal choice and I respect that. It's mostly out of our control how those who treat our natural rhythms as defective respond. Nonetheless there are limits to what should be accepted as ethical conduct even though it's natural; but to change anything that is hurtful we must do our best to accept people's whole minds and what has been done to and by them.

Neurodivergent oppression over time hopefully will shift to be more in tune so on average we can pursue happiness with less frictional suffering. A society where each neurodivergent's authentic expressions ring true with maximal flow, where our differences aren't required to be excessively classified nor dissected by institutions for permission to be in personal harmony. That is my great hope for the future. Like tides, opinions of the masses ebb and flow so are unpredictable to a large extent. The question is: how will we learn to accept the parts of ourselves which definers of normal may prefer to be repressed at our expense?