Asperger's syndrome is a huge part of my life. It is the window through which I watch the world and through which my daughter see's too. In this blog I'll be writing about both of our difficulties, talents and perceptions. I'm kind of hoping to let people know, we are not crazy people, we are not maladjusted genius', we are not freaks. We're just different. And just as I fight for my right to be accepted as a gay woman I will fight to be accepted as an Aspie woman. I will fight for a world that I feel safe letting my daughter go out into without having to worry that she will not cope.
There are so many Mom's, Dad's and Aspies I've come across who see it as something 'wrong'. Who want to cure or fix autism. I want to tell them now to forget it. What you end up with is an NT translator. That is what I became. I understand the neurotypical world and I can translate from Aspie to NT, I learned your language but I have never learned to be NT. I still get sensory overloads, I still perceive far more than the average person, I still prefer a routine and to know what is what with my environment. Just like teaching a left handed person to write right handed, you do not end up with someone becoming left brained. You simply strengthen the weaker connections and end up with someone ambidextrous. You can train the brain's weaker areas but you can not change it's neurology.
I'll be honest I always get kind of offended when someone says how do I fix my kid. They don't need fixing they are fine, they have some amazing talents that an NT child simply wouldn't have, do you know many average children that can construct and envision like ours do? I don't want to be fixed and I don't want my daughter fixed. What I do want is for us to be able to live our lives in a relative amount of psychological comfort.
For an Aspie the world in itself is the biggest issue. Why do I HAVE to go to school when I can learn out of school.. You want me to socialise with people i share no interests with and who tolerate me as I do them because we HAVE to be there... All because we were born within the same academic year? (Yep my face is a picture of befuddlement right now) Why do I HAVE to wear clothes that are uncomfortable because they are fashionable? Why do I HAVE to take into account your thoughts and feelings when mine are never met? Why do I get accused of being controlling when this thing called culture and society is constantly trying to control me when I am not harming me or others?
Now there are a great deal of behaviours in an Aspie child that are dysfunctional, that hurt them and others. But there are things like that in NT kids too. In fact I have seen the nastiest behaviours exhibited not in SN children, but NT. Bullies tend to be NT. My personal belief is that we wouldn't have so many 'special' needs if the world around us were just a little more accommodating to 'individual' needs. We still need help to learn how to manage and react to our emotions. But then, we could all probably use help with that, SN and NT alike. We still need help learning to cope with the sensory bombardment we get. We still need help with the processing differences we have and basically learning how to talk NT (If you sit two aspies together they actually have no issues reading each other's body language, just as our brains differ so does our communication, that's why we don't understand you) But with a little more appreciation and understanding that we can with our fantastic brains, help you too. I think we could get along a lot better than we have been doing.
It's that word you NT's love so much but seem not to understand yourselves.. Empathy.. Put yourself in my shoes, even for a minute.. Wear the tight pinchy annoying shoes that I live in.. And please understand. I am not crazy just different
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