Respect Before Gratitude

I have a concern....

Autistic people have a lot to offer. The internet shows too few people describing that they feel this way.

People that are diagnosed as autistic and desire to learn how that can be respected as they learn to respect autistic others and their autistic selves....I consider them to be autistic.

We are human whether we respect who we are or not. Every other valuable label we earn by learning to respect it. To do otherwise is to associate yourself with a label that creates pity, self loathing, disrespect, and disgust.

If you self diagnose yourself as autistic, or just identify yourself with autistics, then you, like the rest of us, are learning to respect what is good about it....and more power to you. If there are parts of being autistic that you need accomodations for, such as education, vocational aid, and healthcare.... then hold the people who are providing that to you, or who you want to provide that to you, responsible for treating the label of autistic with respect.

No one can expect you to do that alone but you don't have to.

If you are receiving services from an autism agency, autism organization, or autism service provider, find out how they define autism and work to make their view a more respectable one. Find out where their funds come from and where they go to. Find out who,besides their clients, that they are responsible to. If they or their money are being used to hurt and show disrespect for autistic people, work to change how they do things and find others who will help you with your efforts.

If you are seeking help for you autistic kid, along with whatever else you do to aid your child, seek out autistic adults who are working to teach society how to respect autistic people. If you hope for your kid to become an adult (which I'm sure you do) , they may have many of the same characteristics as we do and you need to be working to help us all to start creating more respect for autistic people so that your kid grows up in an environment that respects their differences.

If you don't like the word neurodiversity, use another word that shows acceptance for peoples' uniqueness and even what others see as weakness....because whether you like it or not, you ain't that normal or that strong by normal standards either, and if the world can't tolerate difference and/ or what they see as weak, then the world won't be tolerable for any of us.

And another thing:

1)Start placing a higher standard on where you show your gratitude. Make sure that people understand what it means to show respect for autistic and disabled people and that they follow the standards they understand. Especially if they are inofficial positions where it is very important for them to do so.

No one deserves gratitude for being willing to tolerate us, and diplomacy only works with people who won't abuse diplomacy as being what they see as an opportunity to continue with their inappropriate behavior.

2) Either fix the "autism awareness" campaign or help get rid of it before it does any more harm.

3) Quit telling people that the decisions that are made about autistic people are decided by some kind of democracy, when the few who are voting on these issues are uninformed about who we as autistics are, and how their decisions impact our lives.

4) Quit treating issues where people are being severely abused, and sometimes even killed, as an issue like one that might be discussed in a civil manner as some topic for a T.V. talk show.

This minimizes the severity of the issue, and worst of all it minimizes the value that people are placing on the lives of those who are being abused. They can't afford for people who care to handle this so dispassionately, or for it to be described to others in such a way.

happy new year.