My 2018 in Review

My year's highlights: starting my new job, finishing one of my stories, starting working as a resident advisor for the 2018-2019 school year and having my own place for the time, donating some of my old stuff to Scraps KC, my mom's and stepdad's now home that they moved into, continuing to work on my graphic novel illustration, finishing several of my books, and a few other things that I will save mention of for later. My resolution for the new year: bring my lunches to work more often, maybe try selling my crafts on-line, and find a magazine to publish two of the stories I wrote. Happy New Year.

The Country of Autistic People

Imagine for a moment

A country for just autistic people,

NT and allistics citizens through marriage or birthright,

But still a place all to ourselves.

 

Imagine people being allowed to walk around freely at gatherings, meetings, and events,

No stimming repression or forced eye contact.

Imagine no alarms or bells that hurt our ears,

Bookstores, television shows, and movies all with accurate and positive representation of autistic characters.

 

Imagine less than ten percent autistic unemployment,

No one forcing you to wear the tags on clothing,

Your food sensitivities are respected everywhere you go,

No forcing you to socialize when you are so low on energy.

 

Imagine that “special interests” were not suppressed,

Where autistics do not have six times the national average suicide rate,

Domestic violence is not a disproportional issue,

No person wearing a puzzle piece, lighting blue lights, comparing having an autistic child to being a combat veteran.

 

Universities are packed with students using fidget spinners, chewy necklaces, etc.

No college professors spreading lies and disinformation about autistics,

Maybe the rate of autistics with epilepsy, social anxiety, depression, and PTSD is less than it is in the world we know,

Health care is what socially hegemonic neurotypicals have come to know.

 

Picture a world where it was not unusual for a child to go to an autistic in a divorce proceeding,

Therapy is not eight hours a day inside being taught to hate and repress yourself for external reward.

Picture a place like the on-line groups we know and love,

But offline, with houses, cafes, schools, hospitals, banks, post offices, and government buildings.

 

Maybe an observatory like the Space Needle, Fernsehturn Berlin, Oriental Pearl Tower,

Sovereign building like the White House or Buckingham Palace,

Business and communication centers like Sears and Willis Tower, the Empire State Building, the Hancock Center,

Bridges, theaters, architectural monuments.

 

Ok, not really a possibility.

Not a place where nothing ever goes wrong.

No injustice ever happening the way it does when society is mostly NTs.

But I would like to see all races, faiths, sexual orientations with business and government done in dozens and dozens of languages.

 

Maybe it is not a really possibility,

But sometimes, when times are tough, it is nice to have a place to escape to,

If only in your mind.

7 Television Show Ideas About Autism the Television Industry Should Consider Making

Let’s face it: Atypical, The Good Doctor, and Sesame Street have peaked in terms of autistic representation. Most of these have become face-value stereotypes and draw a lot of controversy from the autistic community for making autism the butt of a joke in addition to failing to cast autistic actors to play autistic characters. While some of them did make some effort to reach out to autistic people for consultation (Sesame Street did contact the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, an autistic-approved, autistic-run organization) these shows portrayals of autistic individuals are informed mostly by groups like Autism Speaks—whose message about autism is toxic on every level—and groups like Talk About Curing Autism, the National Autism Association, the Autism Research Institute, and the Autism Society of America—whose views are similarly problematic. Besides that, these shows reached out to parents, siblings and family members of autistic people (whose views can be extremely myopic)—not autistic people themselves. If these shows were to do that with any other minority, they would certainly draw criticism from the public.

                So, instead of shows that are vaguely and inconsistently informed by non-autistics, what about shows derived from sources that are shaped by autistics at every level? I’m talking about comic books, autobiographies, books and other media by autistic people, about autistic people. They could have moments that make us laugh and cry, as well as shed light on autistic relationships (including LGBTQIA people). Some would be fiction, semi-fiction, and some could be real-life as well, similar to FX making The Assassination of Gianni Versaci and Trust: a Getty’s Family Saga. Assuming said owners of this sources would be willing to have a show adaptation (or movie) I had these few ideas in mind:

 

The Life of an Aspie

 

Not to be confused with The Life of an Aspie blog by activist Alyssa Marie Huber (which is fantastic, and Alyssa has a novel Vael that would make a fantastic TV show as well), this is an on-line comic done by autistic Twitter personality Aspi3Gam3r about a sixteen-year old orphaned autistic teenage girl who sent to a Japanese boarding school run by her grandmother. The comic includes the grandmother trying to be a good guardian to the girl (named Susan Graham) while stopping her granddaughter’s behavior from damaging her career. It also includes Susan taking lessons in Manga comic drawing, her relationship with her sixteen year-old roommate and learning to resolve her issues with the school’s counselor. Unlike Aspi3Gam3r’s Twitter page (which often shows heated political opinions), The Life of an Aspie is very non-political and is something many autistics could relate to. Here’s one show that could have a female character, and possibly challenge the stereotype in the media that autistic individuals are always plain-looking or unattractive.

 

Born on a Blue Day

 

Based on the autobiography Born on a Blue Day by British autistic savant Daniel Tammot, this show could show the existence of autistic savants without making the same mistakes that Rain Man did. As a main character, Tammot could also give a voice to living with epilepsy. Falling more under the category of drama, the show could depict the feelings of Daniel’s family as he goes off to Lithuania, since all parents, regardless of their nationality worry about their children going off to foreign countries. Daniel’s character would also be a break from the portrayal of autism in the media, which seems to mostly show heterosexual characters too.

 

Conspiracy of Birds

 

Written by autistic Trevor McKee, Conspiracy of Birds is a comic series about the adventures of a character very much like the author that demonstrate the bizarreness of social rules and expectations. This could be an opportunity for a show with light-hearted hi-jinx that also forces neurotypical audience members to be more open-minded and respectful of autistic traits.

 

Look Me in the Eye, by John Elder Robison

 

While Robison is the center of controversy among some autistics for a few of his viewpoints (most recently his support of TMS Therapy for autism), this show could give light to older autistics who are severely ignored by the media (Robison did not get diagnosed until he was thirty-nine years old, twenty-one years ago), and could have anecdotes about living with autism relatable to most autistics. This TV series could also include stories from one of Robison’s other memoirs Raising Cubby about fathering his son with an autistic woman, and serve to dispel the myth that autistics can’t be good parents. A compelling episode that might be a possibility for this series could focus on Robison’s resignation from Autism Speaks in 2013 to protest their continued backwards ways, which attracted a lot of publicity, and delivered a serious blow to AS’s reputation.

 

Growing Up Aspie-A Comic by Nathan McConnell

A widely popular published hit in the autistic community, Growing Up Aspie is a series of comic strips the author dealing with his childhood and young adulthood as an autistic. In addition to sometimes making you laugh, these strips have an amazing ability to make you feel the pain the McConnell feels due to being discriminated for being autistic. Whoever makes this idea into a show might also consider portraying the NTs in McConnell’s life the way he draws them: as phantom-like creatures in reference to how they force on him a social standard that he can never life up to, however hard he tries. This series could also show the love story between McConnell and his wife, Candace, and their first child born as the book was being published. Some story lines about interactions with in-laws could be good too.

 

The Rosie Project

 

Though this source (a novel) is written by a non-autistic—Australian author Graeme Simsion—its portrayals of autism bare some merit. The novel follows Don Tillman, an autistic professor (something I can relate to, since I work at a university) and his experience in love with a bipolar woman, Rosie. There is a sequel to this book that the movie could cover—not to give too much about the story away, although it has been out for several years. Originally, it was set to be a movie starring Ryan Reynolds and Jennifer Lawrence, though Lawrence, angered that she was being discriminated against in pay due to her gender, quit the project and wrote an article about it to Lena Dunham’s “Lenny Letter.” Due to her experiences, JLaw may not wish to have a role in a television adaptation of the novel, but that does not mean this sort of series couldn’t be made.

 

Michael McCreary-Aspie Comic comedy-based sitcom

 

Michael McCreary is a twenty year-old autistic comedian with a huge social media following who has long been disproving the stereotype that autistics don’t have a sense of humor. In the same way Seinfeld made a show based off his comedy antics, it might be funny to see McCreary be the center of a show based around his own comedy routine.

 

Plus+…an Extended Universe TV Series about Harry Potter’s Hermione Granger

 

While Hermione has never been verified to be an autistic character, I have heard from several autistics who say that she demonstrates many characteristics of Asperger syndrome herself. A series could follow Hermione before Hogwarts, where she is a doubly-marked girl in a British muggle school both for her autism and the fact that, like all young witches and wizards, she makes things happen that she can’t explain, particularly when she is angry or scared. Fast-forward to her time at Hogwarts showing the events of the books from Hermione’s perspective, the wizarding view of neurodiverse people (surely there are autistic and non-neurotypical witches and wizards in the Harry Potter universe—no jokes about Ron, please), and her shifting back-and-forth between wizard and muggle cultures as a muggle-born witch. Fast-forward to her adult years. Can you get a diagnosis from wizarding professionals? Imagine how hard it could be for Hermione to get a diagnosis from a muggle doctor without letting slip that she is a witch and exposing the wizarding world, on top of trying to get a diagnosis as a woman and an adult (and possibly a black British woman, as seen in the fan-made show Hermione Granger and the Quarter Life Crisis). The show could also deal with Hermione’s revelations of how she is (why she kissed Harry in public, was stubborn about rules despite frequently breaking them, and why she was always willing to do Harry’s and Ron’s homework) and her regrets from her life during the Wizarding War, her life as a politician, wife, and mother, and her struggle to say the right thing to survivors of the Wizarding War as Minister of Magic, in comforting her husband Ron and other in-laws over the death of his brother Fred, and in trying to explain to her children the tragedies of the Wizarding War. In addition, the show could provide story lines about quack wizards who hawk fake magical cures for autism, in the same way doctors peddle fake cures for autism in the “muggle” world, leading to attempts to capture them and subsequent wizard duels with aurors Harry and Ron. And being autistic, a woman, and muggle-born, Hermione is a triple+-minority, and that could add a good angle to Hermione’s post-war story as she campaigns for the rights of house elves. Also, does Hogwarts provide accommodations for learning-disabled students? This could be another subplot in the story of fulfilling the post-Wizarding War promise of accepting all wizards.

Autism Acceptance Month 2018

For some this is coming April is Autism Acceptance Month where people wear gold (whose chemical symbol is Au the first two letters of Autism), red, taupe, orange, and green, donate to autistic-led non-profit organizations such as the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, the Autism Women's Network, the Autistic Union, and so on; hold stim sessions to educate people on the meaning of repetitive behaviors in autistics; and read, write, and share poetry, blog posts, art, articles, and personal stories from Autistics, their allies, educators, parents, family, and specialists in celebration of autistics and the unique strengths they have and gifts they bring to the world without denying their challenges they and their loved ones experience as a result of social pressures and internalized biases.
To others this Autism Awareness Month, spear-headed by neurotypical, high executive-paying groups such as Autism Speaks whose focus is on genetic research, compare autistics to car wrecks, cancer, and being struck by lightning; and of their executives, only two are autistic in the thirteen years of AS's existence. This is celebrated by wearing blue and lighting blue lights in reference to Autism Speaks' blue puzzle piece logo that is blue in reference to males who AS and similarly medical-modeled autism organizations cite at face value make up eighty percent of autism diagnoses, with females only twenty, despite increasing evidence that autistic traits manifest differently in males and females with diagnostic criteria on autism possessing far more understanding of male's traits than females.

Furthermore, many autistic people reject the puzzle piece for a number of reasons. Not only are puzzles usually made in primary colors-suggesting autism is only a childhood thing or that all autistics need to be judged on their supposed mental age-but refers to finding a "missing piece" both a cure, and the "normal" child inside an autistic person that the cure will free from the cage of our autistic behavior and shell.


But despite what Autism Speaks says I am not a person plus Autism. Autism is not an addition to my personhood or me. It is a valid way of being a person that no one has a right to make me hide or get rid before I can be truly accepted. If I were truly accepted I would not have to change my neurological wiring just as I would not have to change my race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or nationality first.


Society deemed that autistic people had some "normal" (neurotypical) child hidden beneath the surface, autistics ended up spending hours in therapy each week to try and teach us to be neurotypical, which only ended up hindering autistic's development of self-esteem and self-awareness, and merely increased the feelings of isolation therapy was meant to alleviate. We spent our lives, childhood to adulthood, trying to get tone of voice, eye contact, body language, and facial expressions right when interacting with NTs, who judged us as different before we even spoke to or communicated with them. We get old to be ourselves, but rebuffed the instant a crack shows up in our mask. No matter how much therapy we got or how early we received it, autistic people always faced higher suicide rates, higher rates of depression, and greater instances of addiction than the general population. Our peers and our families failed to recognize that the responsibility of stress of ourselves and our loved ones lay in in us being they way we are, but the larger world's bias against it and being engrained in thinking that actively prevented them from accommodating it.
When my autistic kin, allies, and I celebrate Autism Acceptance Month this year it is more than a celebration whitewashing autism. It is a rebellion. I, together with millions of autists across the globe, posit that social progress does not move in the same direction as societies ills. As I have done for the previous two Aprils and the last twenty-four days of the April before them, plan to wear no blue for the entire month from 12:00 AM on April 1 to 11:59 PM on April 30, with the exception of my rainbow-colored Autism Acceptance Month shirt, which I will hit places all over Kansas City on both sides of the Kansas City border, Lee's Summit, and UMKC in my hours off the clock. But besides that anything that has blue I will not don. I have planned out my clothes for work to do so already and made plans to get new clothes to help me do so.


If you choose not to go this far, that is fine. I am just saying this so you all will know what I am doing and why I am doing it. I am not litmus-testing. If you do choose to do this, great! Do whatever you can do to avoid wearing blue. Let's make Autism Acceptance Month 8 a month worth remembering.