I’ve started avoiding social justice type discussions lately. I don’t know how to say all the right things and how to avoid all the wrong implications. I take things literally, like I might say that “all lives matter” is a true statement, because they do matter; and then people think I’m a racist and don't care that black people get killed for no ( Read more... )

"Neurodiverse" and "Neurotypical" are words we had to invent because there were no words for "People who have brains that work in a way that's close enough to average to be called average by the general observer," and, "People whose brains are demonstrably not average." You can't say "cognitively disabled", because some atypical conditions like ( Read more... )

If I say, "I'm not feeling well," and it's disability-related, I feel like I'm lying. Somewhere along the way, I got convinced that only "normal" illness is real ( Read more... )

Communication is a lot like music; and like music, communication has multiple dimensions.
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It has been my firm opinion for some time that the fundamental issue facing the disabled today is the problem of access to communication.
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Not being able to talk doesn't mean being unable to advocate for yourself. And being able to talk doesn't automatically mean you can.

Being non-verbal does mean a heck of a lot of vulnerability, though, because communicating precise concepts is difficult if you aren't good with language; and many human beings (me included) are very language-focused ( Read more... )

When I was in the sixth grade, my teacher played a piece of classical music for us. I don't remember exactly which one it was; but it was big, crashing, a whole orchestra going at forte. I liked it. At that age, I liked dramatic music the best, though I do remember being introduced to the concept of a fugue that year, and enjoying the repetition of ( Read more... )

When people say, "Life isn't fair," they're implying that you should expect things to be unfair--i.e., that expecting them to be fair is not logical because they usually aren't. Basically, it's an encouragement to either pessimism or realism ( Read more... )

I am autistic. I would prefer to be called "autistic", rather than "a person with autism ( Read more... )

I'm 24 years old, and I just cussed someone out for the first time ( Read more... )