Just to make it clear, I am not the model pictured here. The shirts do fit me as well as they fit her, however. I bought the shirts in the midst of a rare night of impulse shopping. On another day, I will explain why impulse shopping is rare for me. Let’s just say that I’m frugal when it comes to myself.
Anyway, the shirts read
AUTISM DIVA
You gotta love a diva who tells it like it is!
The shirts were purchased in autumn of 2010. I’ve yet to experience any truly negative reactions to them. The worst I’ve gotten was some bug eyed stares. Most reactions have been what I’d classify as “friendly neutral” or simply friendly. Why, then, do I flip between days that I wear the shirts as I wear any other shirts and days that I try hiding the text behind other clothes? Why? I feel like a gutless coward on the days that I want to wear one of those shirts and end up purposely hiding the text before going out.
Part of me feels like I don’t have the right to wear those. I’ve been told I do have the right. I know I have the right, but I can get nervous nonetheless. Another part of me simply does not want to be misjudged, even though the whole point of those shirts is so people will misjudge me less. If I am stereotyped by people who think I must be mathematically-minded or introverted or whatever they automatically think that isn’t correct for me as an individual, I can debunk stereotypes assigned to me simply by being myself. Yes, yes, yes — so is there something else that I fear? Do I fear discrimination or even persecution? Maybe. I don’t know. I do have PTSD as a result of being a child abuse survivor, so it is possible that I do fear those sort of things on a deeper subconscious level.
Hi. I’m a mother, wife, charity volunteer, teaching assistant, and – I guess – a disability advocate by default. I have five children. None are the world’s definition of normal. Two are diagnosed as on the autism spectrum, and I suspect that three are on it. My children are aged 16 years (female, suspected on spectrum), 6 years (female), 21 months (male), 21 months (female, on spectrum and sensory-seeking), and 21 months (female, noticeably on spectrum and sensory-avoiding). Yes, triplets. Triplets do funny things, like scream in stereo. It must be an interesting sight to see in places like a grocery store, the triplets wailing in stereo, me ignoring the wailing and bopping to whatever music the store is playing, my teenager trailing behind with her nose in a book, and my first grader laughing and squealing about life itself.
I’m at a rather blissful moment of life, in my opinion. Time will change things, but I love my life very much and feel like I am living exactly the life I was meant to live. My husband is also on the autism spectrum. He functions in terms of money-making and passing for normal better than I, whereas I am more outgoing – and that’s about it. I’m more social, but he’s more socially savvy. Are we even? Damned if I know.
The title of this blog is a play on the phrase “diamond in the rough”. I am a rhodolite, that is to say a redhead, who has most of what she considers “the rough” in her past and is indeed as rare as a diamond in the rough. This is not a boast. I was born with very contradictory traits in my brain itself. For example, I have an extra female chromosome and I believe that refutes the theory that autism is a so-called extreme maleness. All chromosome abnormalities increase the chances of autism. Against pretty much all odds in respect to all my disabilities except perhaps not in respect to a form of bipolar disorder, I was born extroverted and remain extroverted. I don’t have a stance one way or the other on most any political issues, because they go over my head. I just want everyone to be kind to everyone else. Admittedly, this makes me swing more to the left than the right. I am most certainly pro-life, however, because we simply cannot prove where life begins and all life is precious.
I don’t really know what I want this blog to be. It will probably be a chronicle of life and opinions, as many blogs are. As far as opinions go, I have many. As far as controversial opinions go, I often shy away from those and ask that we all just get along. That said, I do believe and have been told that I have a gift with helping disabled people. Well, I’m not sure it’s a gift so much as it’s me experiencing enough of what others experience to know how to help them in a way that looks like freak instinct to the world. I would not say that I experience “minimum” everything, because people fluctuate more than that and I have symptoms of disorders that many others do not. For example, I need to flap my arms and hands and fingers on a daily basis. If I do not have opportunities to privately do so, I become agitative and depressed. The only person I allow myself to flap around is my husband. While he doesn’t flap himself, we share a bedroom!
It was age twelve that I stopped flapping in public and age thirteen that I became afraid of seeing my own shadow flap. My parents tried to beat me into normalcy. Imagine a young child whose parents are sitting on her hands and smacking her in order to shame her, though the young child does not understand what is going on. I am sensory-seeking, so I have always stimmed for enjoyment’s sake. This often happens when I see anything I like. My parents thus took away books and didn’t want me looking at toys. Social faux pas? Physical abuse resulted. I didn’t know what on earth I was doing wrong and simply believed what my parents told me – that I was bad and stupid, the worst thing that ever happened to them. That I deserved endless pain was something I didn’t question until my high school years. At sixteen, I developed psychogenic non-epileptic seizures as a result of abuse. I still live with those seizures.
My parents simply should not have been parents. My mother never wanted children, and I was by far the least favorite of both parents. I have dedicated my life to social services, especially those involving young people. No one should suffer. Simple as that.
By the way, my husband and oldest daughter do not stim. My two youngest daughters do. My middle daughter who is not on the spectrum has stimmed out of imitating autistic children. Oops. Well, she stopped on her own terms of getting bored with imitation.
Welcome to an adventurous thing known as my life.
I shouldn’t wear jackets over those shirts.
