A tale as old as time
Mauro C. Martinez (American, 1986) - Trust (2022)
Tumblr: Only neurotypical people do X. Neurodivergent people never do X. It's literally never necessary to do X, and if you do, you are by definition acting out of malice.
Neurodivergent person whose neurodivergence primarily expresses itself as X:
Example –
Person A: Why don't people just tell you when they want you to do something?
Person B: Well, very direct requests are likely to be misinterpreted as orders, and it's often not appropriate to give a person orders, so couching the request in indirect language avoids that possibility.
Person A: Why would anyone interpret a request as an order? Only neurotypical people do that. That's crazy. Neurotypical people are crazy.
Every single autistic person who needs the phrasing of requests to thread the needle like Luke Skywalker blowing up the fucking Death Star because if it's too indirect they'll take it as an observational statement, but if it's too direct their brain immediately goes into "fuck you, don't order me around" mode and refuses to do anything at all:
shirt that says I VIOLATE ASIMOV'S THREE LAWS OF ROBOTICS SAFELY, OFTEN, AND EXTREMELY WELL
The thing that abled people who advocate for the disabled community don’t get is that there are times when disabilities/accommodations clash. Horribly.
Like I spent years having to come up with a solution to get therapy dogs into a series of residence halls. Why years? Because we had to decide who got to stay and who got to leave: the people who needed therapy dogs or the people with severe allergies to animals. Who got the alternative housing?
Things like fidget toys might seem great for some disabled people but having them in the room could be distracting/overstimulating for others. The same goes with stimming. It can’t be helped but neither can the anxiety that another person in the room feels as they watch/hear it. Additionally, something like a weighted blanket might immediately calm one kid down and send the other one into a panic attack due to the claustrophobia it causes. (*Points to myself*)
Every Metro bus in New York City has a series of seats at the front that can be lifted up to accommodate people in wheelchairs but if I’m in one of those spots then someone with a cane/walker has to journey even further to sit down.
The flashing lights of a fire alarm are there to help deaf/hearing impaired but if they’re not properly timed, they can also cause a person to have a seizure.
The worst part about all of these is that there is rarely a concrete solution that makes everyone happy/safe. And I’m not here to offer any because I don’t know them. I’m just here to remind you all that as you’re taking your education/health classes, as you’re reading your textbooks, as you’re preparing to go be an advocate, just remember that there is rarely ever such a thing as a one-size-fits-all solution to advocacy and that something you do that can help one disabled person might actually hinder another.
Food for thought.
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