For whom is autism awareness month really?

For whom is autism awareness month really? This is the question I have been asking myself a lot lately.

Certainly it can’t be for autistics. We, autistics, are hardly ever asked for our opinion on how our brain works.

To give you an example, when I do get asked (which frankly happens far to little) I give them an information overload, because I feel that I won’t get a second chance in explaining myself. My autism councelor asks me questions quite regularly and is really interested in hearing my responses, and really wants to learn.

Autism can’t be for autistics, because this is the month that a lot of snake-oil salesmen have their best sales and come out with their newest products. What also happens is that a service geared towards autistics is in a discount, going from a previously unknown price to the very affordable price of 499 dollars. Really cheap, if  you take into account that most autistics (me included) are poor as fuck. So poor in fact that we can’t even pay up the 499 dollar for something we really need.

For whom is autism awareness month? It mus be for those organisations that stand to profit from using our identity for their gain. It must be. Blue and puzzle pieces are everywhere. Nonsense is strewn around the internet about autism. The only real information about autism, is shared by autistics themselves, but we are crowded out by those blue-puzzle-piece preachers.

For whom is autism awareness month really? It must be for those autism-mommy-therapists. Those that really, really hate autism and the child that they got. it must be for those that kill their autistic and get sympathy points for it, probably completeing their bingo-card with the last open square “Kill my autistic”.

It must be for those ableist authors that release books to get sympathy points when they write a book on “how to abuse your kid in 2 easy steps” (drag him into a theater and keep him there against his will).

It must be for them, not for us. We really need to claim our month back. Autism acceptance is what we need. Everybody knows autism (at least by name, not how it shows itself, not how we show it). We need to lead the narrative. We need more advocates, more that show the message. More like us.

We need our voices to be heard.

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