Comments on: I Am So Sick Of Autism

By: Michael Forbes Wilcox

Michael Forbes Wilcox — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:20:31 +0000

Right on, my friend!

By: Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:27:49 +0000

Nice to meet you, Rachel the writer.

That was a beautiful piece of writing which honored your Aunt Sarah – you gave her a voice, made her memorable to the rest of us.

I have been reading Dave Hingsburger’s blog, daily, for inspiration and wisdom.

I’m looking forward to reading a lot more of your writing.

By: kristen

kristen — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:59:46 +0000

Thank you. Just thank you. Finally someone has the nerve to just say it. Nobody should be boxed in. And the entire conversation is getting very tiring. I’m sick of it too. So thank you.

By: Bec

Bec — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 04:29:07 +0000

This is wonderful.

By: Paula C. Durbin-Westby

Paula C. Durbin-Westby — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 03:42:36 +0000

“Like.” I am going to show this post and the comments to my son. He is going to be SO happy!

By: bob rottenberg

bob rottenberg — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 02:00:09 +0000

This strikes right at the heart of what I now realize has been a life-long struggle for me: the struggle to avoid the label — any label.

Isn’t this what you’re talking about?

I had a friend long ago who was a dancer, and a very good one. But she wouldn’t claim the label. “I dance a lot” was as afar as she would go.

Labels are the box. And boxes serve both to protect us and to isolate us. Once the label is applied, once the box is created, it’s hard to be anything other than the label.

That’s probably why I’ve never accepted the various “career” titles that were available for me over the years — titles that went along with jobs that I was doing very well but, like my dancer friend, weren’t “me.” And it’s probably why I have such a hard time answering the question, “what did you do before you retired?” I now realize that I simply don’t want to be labeled in anyone’s mind — including my own.

I didn’t marry an autistic woman: I married a beautiful, warm, loving, giving, caring, generous, and incredibly capable woman who, it turns out, happened to also be autistic. Would the awareness of the label have made any difference to me? All I can say is, it sure doesn’t make any difference now.

But I sure understand the box that the label creates!

The good thing about most boxes is that they can be recycled into something else — but they have to be destroyed first…

By: Jesse the K

Jesse the K — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 01:44:43 +0000

I’m glad you’re the Rachel we’re privileged to read.

By: chavisory

chavisory — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 01:37:29 +0000

Yes! That’s what I want. That the fact that there are autistic people and non-autistic people is as simple, obvious, non-controversial, and accepted as the fact that there are, like, introverts and extroverts, artists and scientists, blond people and brunette people–and those things don’t mean that somebody isn’t still an individual in every way just because there is some kind of category that helps people to understand some aspect of themselves or the way they work.

By: Paula C. Durbin-Westby

Paula C. Durbin-Westby — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:34:14 +0000

Great! My son says “Why can’t autism just be a *thing?* Like, birds are a thing. Blue eyes are a thing. Why can’t autism just be a thing?” The whole thing is here: http://paulacdurbinwestbyautisticblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/if-youre-trying-to-cure-something-its.html

By: chavisory

chavisory — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:15:41 +0000

This sort of dovetails with something I realized earlier this week, when I was having a conversation with someone I’m working with about autism, and some of the particulars of what I think, and he echoed the “if you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism” line…and I realized why that saying has always sort of rubbed me the wrong way.

If you say “If you’ve met one person, you’ve met one person…” or “If you’ve met one person without autism, you’ve met one person without autism,” that’s so totally obvious that it’s comical.

And we ARE just people. But the way that autism is conceptualized right now, as soon as that’s in the equation, the obviousness that we are really just people goes out the window..yes, because autism is this THING. And not just that a person has features of neural configuration more suited to picking up detail than generalities, and some kinds of patterns instead of other kinds of patterns.

But how totally not scary/inspiring/whatever we’re supposed to be today does that sound?