Wow, I never would have guessed, you don’t look autistic. Are you high functioning? You must be, my little brother is high functioning… I couldn’t believe that I was being asked that in the middle of a party. Language surrounding autism and other ‘disorders’ is so, and i cannot emphasize this enough, important to learn, especially when you interact with people from that community on a daily basis. Language surrounding autism in particular has changed a lot over the past decade as people with autism have stepped more into the spotlight of entertainment media and social conversations.

This idea of “looking” autistic is absurd to me, and the idea of not looking disabled stems from related disability to intellectual or physical disability. It’s so interesting to me that people feel the need to comment on my ability to blend in due, in part, to pretty privilege. My attractiveness helps me further mask my autism, and although that is in part a privilege, it also assists in further disabling me in many social situations. By not looking autistic people assume that I view and function the same as them within social situations, specifically when it comes to communication. I am so tired of having to put every ounce of effort into deciphering the hidden meanings of the actions of neurotypical people. Unless something is clearly communicated to me, I will misinterpret what you want and are expecting of me. Being autistic, I am prone to being manipulated, and I find that happening to myself over and over again. People take advantage of the fact that I am autistic without even meaning to, and I end up anxious due to not understanding the social expectations of me.

This post was honestly going to be more positive, and was going to be an attempt at educating non autistic people about my autism, but to be honest, I am tired of having to be the bigger person and practice patience when it comes to people being ignorant about the existence of my autism as well as basic terminology surrounding it. As a person who is the part of a marginalized community, such as the disabled community, it should not be our job to educate people on our condition. Unfortunately, that task does usually fall to the marginalized community. As someone who doesn’t look disabled, whatever that may mean, I am able to blend in if I want, I don’t always have to be clocked as disabled by others. This makes me feel as though I owe something to the wider disabled community and should be the one educating others, which I have to remind myself is not true. I wish the abled community took a bigger interest in educating themselves on how to interact with people with disabilities, whether they may be physical, intellectual or mental.