#actuallydd

[defectivegembrain]

I love you people who don't understand metaphors I love you people who don't understand jokes I love you people who take sarcasm seriously I love you people who take satire seriously I love you people who get told to just google it and don't know what to google I love you people who make post additions deemed "pointless" I love you literal-minded people I love you socially impaired people I wish I could love you so hard it undid the hate you get

#disability #actuallyautistic #actuallydd

[frail-and-freakish]

today, april 11th, is the anniversary of Mel Baggs' death. Mel Baggs was one of the early founders of the neurodiversity movement and believed that no one was too disabled for human rights, something that modern nd movements fail to understand to this day. sie was so instrumental to my understanding of literally everything. sie died from medical ableism and neglect during the beginning of the pandemic. we would be nowhere fucking near where we are now without hir. i've decided to make a masterlist of some of my favorite posts of hirs, organized into different categories.

(some of these are listed in more than one category because they overlap so much)

here are some of the "essentials" (what you might have already read by hir/should read first):

hir memorial site hosted by ASAN:

In My Language

the oak manifesto

There is ableism at the heart of your oppression, no matter what your oppression might be

Getting The Truth Out (many pages, parody of bad autism awareness campaign called "getting the word out")

the meaning of self-advocacy

what makes institutions bad

aspie supremacy can kill

here are some of hir beautiful writings on perceiving/communicating with hir environment as an autistic person, and on communication in general:

up in the clouds and down in the valley: my richness and yours

distance underthought

the naked mechanisms of echolalia

empty mirrors and redwoods

the fireworks are interesting

hir tumblr tag #sensing (@withasmoothroundstone)

on personhood and who has the authority to take it away:

being an unperson

what it means to be real

empty mirrors and redwoods

on institutions and the I/DD service system:

caregiver abuse takes many forms

"i don't know that person's program"

what my home means to me

dd service system tag

god help the critic of the dawn: glamour and its fallout

what makes institutions bad

post on the JRC

outposts in our heads

on online social justice communities/their inaccessibility:

Your politics have a problem when they contradict the real-life experiences of the people they're supposed to be about.

politics, ethics and mental widgets

hir tumblr tags #outside the wall and #little packages (@withasmoothroundstone)

misc:

The Bones My Family Gave Me

Please violate only one stereotype at a time

My sort of people, just as real as theirs.

Reviving the concept of cousins

gender tag

this is hir poems and creative works:

this is hir writing on autistics.org:

may hir memory be a blessing/revolution.

#mel baggs #z”l #autism #actually autistic #autism acceptance month #autism awareness #disability #disability rights #disability justice #mushroom.txt #actuallydd #autism acceptance #actuallyautistic #tagging this in All The Tags so people see it #autism awareness month #autistic #autistic spectrum #autistic things #asd #neurodivergent #neurodiversity #i/dd

[raccooninapartyhat]

hey fellow neurodivergent people, however you respond to grief is okay. even if it's not the "normal" way. even if it's not what's expected of you. even if you feel "too much". even if you feel nothing at all. your reactions to grief aren't bad or wrong, as long as you aren't hurting yourself or others by lashing out or self destructing

and if you are lashing out or self destructing, that just means you need a little extra help and some better coping mechanisms. it doesn't mean you as a person or your emotions are bad. it just means you need a little extra help to be able to grieve safely

#actuallyautistic #actuallyadhd #actuallydd #actually tourettic #those are the main ones I'm thinking about here #that affect how i grieve #not an exclusive list

[autisticarchive]

Who made the hashtag actuallyautistic? I can’t trace it down

This is a great question. Alyssa Hillary Zisk gives an account of it here.

"The short version is that the autism tag was and is an unsafe place for many autistic people because folks didn't get that autistic people were following and reading and might be capable of having opinions on what we were reading, the actuallyautistic/ actually autistic tags are safer for some autistic people, and thus they exist."

It seems like #acutallyDD (developmentally disabled) originated around the same time, possibly predating it. There's also a Dreamwidth community started in 2012 called Actually Autistic. Not sure if there's any relation, but it's worth noting.

#ActuallyAutistic #ActuallyDD #Yes that too #Alyssa Hillary #Dreamwidth

[cozy-clown]

There’s a big problem in the autistic community we need to address

I am a semi speaking autistic with high support needs, when strangers see me, they know I’m autistic.

I’ve often seen fully speaking autistics refer to me and other autistics like me as “just stereotypes”

But I’m not just a stereotype, and neither are other autistics like me.

We deserve to be seen too, we deserve to be seen as people with our own personalities.

Please don’t forget us

(Absolutely ok to rb, please spread this around)

#actuallydd #actually autistic #actuallyautistic #actually autism #high support needs #semi speaking #nonspeaking #intellectual disability

[iamthethunder]

North Carolina has decided to de-prioritize a lot of the people who would have gotten vaccinated early before our plan changed. This is dangerous for neurodivergent people who have caregivers coming into their homes and can’t necessarily control what their caregivers do outside of work. It’s also dangerous for essential workers who have chronic conditions that make COVID more risky for them. They have to keep showing up for work, and they can’t necessarily control the public they work with. It’s the same for disabled and chronically ill people who live with essential workers.

We’re trying to get these two groups, people who are higher-risk and can’t really control their exposures, vaccinated soon. We could use some help, especially from anyone with an NC connection who is on Twitter. The hashtag is #HighRiskNC.

#disability #neurodiversity #neurodivergent #intersectionality #actuallyneurodivergent #autism #ableism #accessibility #nobodyisdisposable #medical care #public health #healthcare #support needed #disabled #actually disabled #actuallydd #covid_19 #covid #highrisknc

[autisticallyfeisty]

Did anyone else use to read books about child development when they were kids and become deeply upset over how “behind” they were? 

You know, those books that tell parents when their kids are supposed to meet certain milestones? I used to read those when I was a kid and wonder what the hell was wrong with me.

Then I met other kids who were developmentally disabled and became friends with them. And even though it took a while for me to realize I was autistic, getting to know them made me feel better about being “behind” developmentally. Because they weren’t meeting those milestones either, and they were great. Which meant maybe I was ok too.

#actuallyautistic #actuallydd #disability pride

[ivanov94]

This a drawing I did in soidarity with the #stoptheshocks movement happening right now! in the state of messchuttes their a institutional school called judge Rottenburg center JRC and they use these Shock devises called GED on students with intellectual and developmental disabilities has form of behavior mortification which just fancy word for punishment! Anyway it evil practice. Image able is drawing of a student being shocked and other students being forced to watch please look at the testimony of those who lived it like Jennifer Msumble who survived being shocked at #JRC here tiktok of her experence. Please share and please try get those out to non disabled community spaces we need to be ended yesturday!

https://www.tiktok.com/@auteach/video/6985209217405684997

#stop the shock #actuallyautistic #actuallydd #stop torture

[awn-network]

“We have to know. That we will be okay no matter what skills we learn, what skills we lose, and what skills we end up with by the time we grow up. That the world will still have a place for us.” --Mel Baggs

Yesterday [April 11, 2020], the autistic community, the self-advocacy movement, and humanity at large lost a titan, a leader, a visionary, a public intellectual, and an artist whose work has influenced, inspired, and forged paths forward for thousands of autistic activists and advocates for decades.

Amelia Evelyn Voicy Baggs, known to friends as Mel, died in Vermont, where sie had lived for many years after migrating from hir home among the California redwoods, crocheting tapestries and shawls, loving cats, and spending time with nature. Sie was a powerful advocate and writer who consistently named injustice and constantly demanded better, while also creating and curating some of the earliest and most essential writings on autistic culture, neurodiversity, and autistic experiences that many of us still turn to today.

Our movement exists in large part due to hir work, much of it catalogued on hir blogs Ballastexistenz and Cussin’ and Discussin’, and in the original autistics.org archive.... Mel’s death came after years of documenting gross human rights violations and medical ableism that repeatedly endangered hir life – the very issues that sie consistently advocated against throughout hir life, as they impacted hirself and innumerable other disabled people.

AWN’s board, staff, and volunteers are deeply saddened by hir passing, and also enraged by the repeated failures of so many systems and organizations to do anything to prevent Mel’s early – and avoidable – death. Our hearts go out to Mel’s family (both hir family of origin and hir family of choosing) for their indescribable loss.

We hope fervently that the work we do will continue to honor the values and principles that Mel upheld in hir life – of communication access as a human right, of human rights for all without exception or condition, of self-advocacy that cares about people first and builds community around supporting and caring for one another’s access needs regardless of specific disability, of the importance of kindling and sustaining our connection to the natural world around us. May Mel’s wisdom and convictions guide us, and may hir memory be an eternal blessing.

--Lydia Brown, AWN Network blog

#Mel Baggs #Amelia Evelyn Voicy Baggs #actuallyautistic #actuallydd #actuallydisabled #actuallynd #disability #disability rights #community #disability community #autistic community #neurodiversity #disability history #neurodiversity history #autistic history #ableism #death #medical ableism #medical abuse #death cw #ableism cw #abuse cw #may hir memory be an eternal blessing

[feralismyheart]

Rest In Peace, Mel Baggs <3

I didn’t know Mel Baggs well, just through tumblr posts, and then hir contributing to the first issue of my Autistic compilation zine (started on tumblr in #actuallyautistic), No Missing Pieces Zine. Partly since I love hir poem, and partly because sie wrote a great, fairly extensive contributor bio to go along with it, I thought I would share the poem sie contributed in hopes y’all will love it as much as I do.

Rest in peace, Mel. You are so very missed. Thank you so much for everything. <3 <3 <3

If you reblog this, please leave this post in tact out of respect for Mel and to credit the zine sie was a part of.

(Note - I’ve added periods to break up hir contribution a bit on here & break it away from the rest of the post for accessibility & to have it stand out more. Otherwise, no edits.)

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Contributor Bio: Mel Baggs is 34 years old.  Sie was born in the redwoods of California, grew up in San Jose, lived in the redwoods again as an adult, and moved to Vermont in 2005, where sie currently lives.  Hir biggest hobby is crocheting, and sie always has several projects going on at once. Sie has been involved with the autistic community since sie was almost 18 years old, and has seen a lot of history and changes even over that short period of time.  Sie has also been involved in other aspects of the disability rights movement:  The psychiatric survivor/consumer/ex-patient movement, the mainstream (mostly physical) disability rights movement, and the developmental disability self-advocacy movement.  Sie is not one of those people who is always finding a movement or community and feeling as if sie has come home for the first time.  But if sie had to pick one of these movements, sie would pick the developmental disability self-advocacy movement.  Sie has been in the developmental disability service system hir entire adult life, due to severe problems with daily living skills.  This may make hir more emotionally connected to the experiences of people in general with developmental disabilities, rather than autism in particular.  Sie has a number of disabilities and chronic health issues that make hir more aware of autism as it fits into a broader concept of the landscape of disability, rather than being a unique condition that is different from disability somehow.  Sie also loves cats, and lives with an elderly and amazing cat named Fey.  Hir experiences as an autistic person, particularly hir perceptual differences from the norm, are highly meaningful to hir and sie would not change them even if it meant sie would be more ‘independent’.

Sie has a poetry blog at:   http://ameliabaggs.wordpress.com/ Sie also has a blog at:  http://ballastexistenz.wordpress.com/ Hir tumblr is: http://withasmoothroundstone.tumblr.com/

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In 2000, a group of autism parents decided to hold a rally in Washington D.C. to “raise awareness” for an autism cure.  They did not consult with autistic adults anytime during the process.  They did collect as many pictures of autistic children as they could, to show how many of us existed.  And worst of all, they called the rally “Hear Their Silence,” the message being that only parents could talk about autism, autistic people were silent and only fit to be present as silent faces on posters.  The following poem is my response to the title of their rally:

You Can’t Hear My Silence

They told the world to hear our silence Hear the silence of the mute autistic people Who will never have a voice of any kind Presumed, by them, to be all of us Or all of us who matter And they, of course, would speak for us All of us At all

I wish they could hear silence I wish they could listen to silence until they heard it

Silence is The gap between your words Silence is The void between you and me Silence is The place where everything begins Silence is The place where the universe hides Silence is Everything there is, and nothing Silence is Where I’d rather be Silence is Where you’ll find all of me that matters

But you’ll never hear my silence Because you don’t know how to listen To things you can’t hear

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#mel baggs #rest in peace #actuallyautistic #actually autistic #actuallydd

[defectivegembrain]

Actually your teens are for learning to brush your hair and read analogue clocks is that hashtag relatable enough for you

#shitpost #MINE were tho #actuallyautistic #actuallydd

[rjfjfkekrifiwkefkv]

i just came across a thread on the bird app talking about diss*ciative dis*rders not being a real thing and it hit me so hard. im fvcked up

#actuallydd #actuallydid #actually osdd #actuallyptsd #actuallycptsd #actuallymentallyill

[raccooninapartyhat]

after my burnout when i was 12 (and even before, when it came to skills like tying shoelaces or doing basic math or reading maps or even learning what different concepts like similes and metaphors meant) i started to have a lot of problems learning new things. i'd try and try and try but i just couldn't. i couldn't keep the information in my head. i couldn't learn new words without struggling a lot, unless i heard them being used and used them a lot myself. i couldn't learn new concepts like democratic backsliding or the violinist analogy without relearning it over and over and over again. i took so long to understand stuff unless it was a simple english version because i just couldn't keep it all in my head. i learned things by turning them into rhythm games in my head because otherwise it gave me a headache.

i've never been good at learning new stuff, really, unless it's something i do with my hands. i can type and write and tie shoelaces so long as people don't confuse me by talking about rabbits and warrens, and i can knit and crochet and sew and cook. but i can't learn new thought things and concepts and words easily

i think that really confuses a lot of people

#actuallyautistic #actuallydd #i think it got worse after burnout #maybe it has something to do with me not thinking in words? #idk #im gonna forget the term uneven cognitive profile at least ten more times before i learn it

[thetigerisariver]

Further thoughts on wrestling with my brain's inability to Can

I have definitely fucked myself over a little - so words to the wise, methods for dealing with executive dysfunction should not be abused to force yourself through fatigue

Also an important note about anxiety - you know when you are so anxious you literally can't think? Because you are either 100% in coping behaviors or your brain is filled with an endless blood-curling scream? Yeah that. So what I'm trying to do is not only structure a spacetime where I can work, but a space where I can *think*

#Anyway I'm very crazy lately #Mostly from the stress #Tiger tries to life #Actuallydd

[apolloendymion]

The following contains mentions of child abuse, extreme ableism, and child death. The content of this post may be upsetting to some readers. Proceed with caution.

Hello, readers. Today’s topic is something that is difficult for me to talk about, but it’s important that you are informed. Due to a lack of understanding of autism, many parents are devastated upon receiving their child’s diagnosis. They fear that they and their child have been sentenced to a living hell. Some of them are so terrified that they are willing to try anything to “cure” their child, and there is a plethora of scams designed to prey on these desperate people. If sucking away the parents’ money and giving them false hope wasn’t enough, the majority of these “cures” are extremely dangerous to the individual forced to undergo “treatment”. There are cases of children dying from these procedures. Even relatively benign treatments can cause damage to a child in the long run, and while some of the safer options may alleviate stress in some autistic people, none of them have been scientifically proven to treat or cure ASD. Here are some common autism treatments that are not supported by the scientific community:

Chelation

Lupron Therapy

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

Gluten-Free, Casein-Free Diets (except in the case of a gluten/casein allergy)

Stem Cell Therapy

Secretin Injections

Antifungal Agent Therapy

Vitamin Supplements

Raw Camel Milk

Marijuana Therapy (except in some anxiety & depression cases)

Nicotine Patch Therapy (except in some ADHD, anxiety, & depression cases)

CD/MMS/Bleach Therapy

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Therapeutic Horseback Riding (except in some anxiety & depression cases)

Dolphin-Assisted Therapy

Prism Glasses

Holding Therapy

Unfortunately, some of these “cures” are too disturbing for me to write about here. If you would like more information, the following links go into detail on which of these treatments may reduce stress, which do nothing at all, and which are downright poison.

Autism Science Foundation’s list of pseudo-treatments and why they’re not credible (the most comprehensive resource)

FDA official statement on bogus autism treatments

Forbes article “The 5 Scariest Autism Treatments”

Ask An Autistic’s video on Biomedical Interventions for Autism

Ask An Autistic’s “A Few Words on Dangerous Autism Treatments”

Thank you for reading. Tomorrow, I’ll be addressing a much lighter topic: identity-first language vs. person-first language. See you then.

-Kit

#allistics can reblog #actuallyautistic #autism acceptance #autism awareness #neurodiversity #autism acceptance month #autism awareness month #actuallydd #child abuse #filicide #child death #mms treatment #ableism #pseudoscience #pseudo medicine

[cozy-clown]

Neurodiverse boys who love boys are awesome!

#mlm sfw #sfw mlm #mlm #autistic mlm #adhd mlm #neurodiverse mlm #neurodiverse #actuallyautistic #actually autistic #actually adhd #actually tourettic #actuallydd