Breaking My Silence

 Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsLnhbWRjrU

more recent update: http://ssabucommunity.blogspot.ca/2014/02/breaking-my-silence-update-1.html

The actual report from "Breaking My Silence" (minus names) 
http://ssabucommunity.blogspot.ca/2013/10/the-actual-report-from-breaking-my.html

Dear Friends:
I am copying and editing a comment in response to a question which prompted me to break my silence about the painful event that occurred a couple months ago now. I have been trying for a few days now to find the right words, and this is the best I can come up with. I did not, and could not, process it properly. It has nearly broken me apart and threatened to shut down what I have, and was/am working towards. However, I have chosen to not allow it to destroy me any further. I now realize that is actually a classic example of an Aspergirl in a not so ideal state, getting misinterpreted and judged very harshly. I was too ashamed and hurting to see it before.
It was a hard hit to take, when I was and am (more than ever since this setback) admittedly still not through my inner conflicts/traumas as it is. Outside The Box is and always will be part of my mission to heal, make reasonable sense of things; the fact that I'm autistic and that many of us are (and what this means) and to ultimately find peace. For others, our Au community; to help others, and in turn help others...

I was having a hard time mentally dealing with my health and chronic pain issues, and not coping all the best. I was falling back into medicating. I was frustrated. I felt so held back... helpless by a lack of finances for alternative healthcare that I need and isn't covered, no support in the public system, and scared by it..albeit trying to put on a good face. On top of that my extend family members were getting to my head and being toxic, which is complicated and in which at the time I didn't quite see. I went for help and received the most extreme harshness one could ever imagine. I was not doing so good in my presentation there, and this was (rather than understood) judged and misinterpreted in the worst way possible. I think I am ready to share this. I feel I need to get this out, in hopes of getting some support from Au community/friends. It's not just support for me, but support for taking a stance against this kind of thing. I am (maybe naively?) trusting that people, especially those who know and love me well enough, will get my true drift. My brain lacks that theory of mind, but basically I think I'm just being a kid looking for a hug or something...some support, as well as eventual justice *sighs*.

In the mean time, peace has to be made with myself and the universe. I don't feel I'm trying to victimize myself really..I'm just trying to share what's not okay. Like the communal blog, It's Not Okay; which I started because of this. It's for aspies to share stories of how they have been misunderstood too. I get that I sorta got myself into this; but I was pushed from lack of support even before this attack. I just don't understand why, when somebody sees somebody struggling, they don't offer understanding and compassion. This is the way I operate, but I guess many don't. *sigh* Anyways, Here what the comment spurred, containing what happened in march:

I have a lawyer on board to help me at this time, and he's my dad. Although he is retired he can still advise and support me; it's for a very serious issue regarding a brutal, defamatory and incredibly untrue misdiagnosis. It was made by a psychiatrist, whom I had only agreed to see because I was told she might be "helpful" to me ie. how my health and situational stressors have been affecting me. Instead, she basically shot me in the f*cking leg which, in the position I am in, seems pretty sadistic.
I'm having a hard time with the fact that someone could do that to someone else who is asking for help and already weakened/reaching out. I feel it is lacking empathy to the point of cruelty... (and they say aspies lack empathy??) It's the pot calling the kettle black really. It's actually mind blowing. There's a battle before me; that I have to fight without fighting in a way that'll paralyze or destroy me first.

I need removed something very serious, untrue, and safety compromising from my file. I have to share it now. Observe the horrific "report"(minus the actual name of the "professional" responsible) which I guarantee you'll be disgusted by (if you know anything about ASC especially) here:  http://itisnotokaywithus.blogspot.ca/2013/10/the-actual-report-from-breaking-my.html)

So this woman implied, on my public file, that I am a sick in the head; a narcissist, pathological, borderline who has "factitious disorder; of both the physical and psychological type." It means I am "fake"; I am not real in any way. I make up all my health issues (umm..i have actual proof of them, including X-rays that show injury hence chronic pain) and may go as far as to do thing to make myself sick on purpose. It is described that I "enjoy talking about decontexualized medical information on which "she believes to be expertise" (because I talk about holistic health and the autoimmune autism connection.) Yes, I was branded a fraud and a fake; I have "created my own fantasy life of now and the past, of being "A girl outside the box; with late diagnosed aspergers' (in which i have convinced myself that i have).
Even worse; I have faux PTSD...it's implied that I've made in my "sick head" a fake past of having been through "hardships" including sexual assault. It's written that "she says she is 'suffering from the Triple Ms in which she deems Misunderstood, Misinterpreted, Misdiagnosed"...the term that I had coined (not to "think I'm so smart") to describe what aspies like me go through. It, and I, am completely ridiculed. Basically, it's written that everything I really did go through and have been earnestly trying to heal from is a lie and never f*cking happened. Everthing that I shared from the heart to this woman, in trust and naiveté, has been perverted in words. Words that went into my heart like a dagger.

Anyways I won't repeat them all, or I might throw up. It's actually caused me to have a month long meltdown in which my self care has been extremely challenged. I'm only human. I'm a pretty strong person but this thing has driven me (almost) over the edge. I created a blog called It's Not Okay, because of this. It's for aspies to tell their horror stories. But, if I break apart, I have nowhere to go because the psych facilities have this right on their file, hence you can imagine how I'd be treated. It's the same if I had an actual medical emergency. Just to top it off, she went on to say something horrific, because i talked about gluten/dairy free diet, and the kids' maybe having Ehlers-Danlos (in which the paediatrician told me; they are referred to genetics by him.) She wrote
she is "concerned about how I extend my need to be sick onto my children and could be developing munchausens' by proxy." This then extends her defamation to my innocent kids, because if something were to happen to them, and I needed to take them to the hospital for real; this is how the situation would be erroneously treated.

I'm finally breaking my silence because this is outrageous and I am preparing an addendum file package which includes actual medical proof that I actually do have fibro, athritis, and EDS; and hopefully too, a support letter from my paediatrician (gosh the info i told her came from him not me!) after we see him again in June.
I have not one, but 3 reports diagnosing and confirming my Aspergers. I have acceptance into a support program which is hard to get into, and only if they confirm you truly are eligible. Honestly...this person went way too far and I believe justice has to prevail somehow. I am actually going to my fathers' this coming week for 5 days.
He lives by the beach, and I need the powers of nature at this time, to recover enough to try and regain some composure and process this hellish ordeal in quiet. This is so I can be in a better shape for my family.

We are putting the file together then because I got very close to a serious breaking point. It'll help me feel like things are moving towards righting this wrong, and be calming for that reason. I'm a pretty strong person but I think most people would agree that the way I feel is a bit understandable?
I have to remember that I know the truth in my heart, and that if I the let the anger, extreme hurt, and grief which I have get turned onto myself take me down any longer; I will not make it. So I have to get up and continue on what I was doing, and what I love doing; being an Au self advocate, a mama, a writer/poet, and sharing my true story of experience, and help others.

I have to TRY and PRAY to do it in love and peace, and without "fighting fire with fire." The only way for me to get through this is to basically be Ghandi or something. I have to have faith that I'll make it, and that this will get turned around. I also feel I should use this as a horrific example of just how badly an Aspergirl can get misunderstood and mistreated by the system. I know I made some mistakes myself. First of all, I naively overshared with her thinking she would be helpful to me for real. I was also in a slump and an over obsessive depression regarding my health. I was feeling that I was getting nowhere with my Dr; support from him, or rather the healthcare system (which i need to accept will never be an option for healing, it's just about pills.) I was perseverating. Worst of all, I have sensory processing issues that i'm only beginning to understand. This makes it difficult, sometimes, to determine more specifically where my pain is coming from; leaving me to try and guess. It's complicated but I come by that honestly...this is not pathological! It at least partially based in reality; though sometimes things may feel worse than they are. In retrospect, some things may feel less severe than they may end up being; and this has happened before (and, it's traumatized me into hyper vigilance).) Honestly, I really was expecting her to offer me actual help and guidance; not a dagger wound in which has, over the past month, become infected. I have to survive this. It's time to take a few days at my dads', by the beach..to meditate, pray, be healthy again, and trust in the universe. I have no option if I choose life, and I do. My kids need me, and I need to keep doing what I was doing; because it's the TRUTH. I can't lose what I had. So there it is. This is the first time i've found words for it. Words for this absolute nightmare which I felt like I could never wake up from. The first time since it happened...and I needed to get it out.
-Rosie www.agirloutsidethebox.com

FYI: check out the reviews of the woman who wrote this callous "report" (the notes of the actual report
*Unfortunately, I have removed the link to the RateMyMD website, where there are many complaints/stories from other people whom this woman has terrorized. As much as I am tempted to share that I am not the only one whose been abused by this "professional," I have decided that I have to refrain from mentioning the name for my own safety.

What I taped a few days after reading
(what I taped 5 weeks after reading, when I decided to go back home as I had to go to my fathers for a week) "Ready To Heal" (well, I wasn't..but I tried) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsLnhbWRjrU

So Alone- by Chelsea Bradham

The final 3 years of elementary school: so alone The last 3 years of elementary school, ages 9 ½ to 12 ½ were by far when I was the most alone and depressed. I didn’t know at the time that I was an aspie, all I knew was that I was different than other girls my age. I never made friends easily and looking back I misinterpreted a lot, over reacted a lot, and at that point I didn’t really have much of a concept of tact. Those years were basically hell for me on the relationships front for a few reasons. First of all many of my friends left our school for the gifted program, which my dyslexia, dyscalculia, and ADD (which I think now the ADD is actually part of the Asperger’s but they've diagnosed a few symptoms not the whole picture with that one) kept my grades less than stellar despite my above average intelligence and therefore kept me out of the program and stuck as a lonely left behind. Second reason is that the girls who relentlessly ostracized and tortured me verbally, emotionally, and psychologically were the queen Bee of my year and her court. Which meant that since they didn't like me nobody else would except for those kids a year younger who didn't have to put up with them and a few brave weird kids who to this day I am grateful for. The third reason is that at the end of the summer before fourth grade, a dear friend died suddenly. He was like my little brother and even though he had moved away a year and a half before that happened it was still incredibly hard. He had been the person who understood me on this incredibly deep level and accepted me for me. He had a lot of medical problems but he had always been so brave, and so kind, not just to me but to literally everybody. He was my rock, even though we didn’t get to really play together much anymore just knowing that he was out there was like a security blanket because as long as he was alive somewhere in the world I knew without any doubts that I was understood and loved by somebody and that no matter how many people rejected my friendship, no matter how many people thought I was strange, nothing was going to take that away from me. But when he got sick and died it was like someone pulled the solid ground out from under me and I was just trying to keep my head above water. Also the fact is that my NT parents were not a huge help in that whole situation. They kind of seemed to really not understand the full depth and closeness of my relationship with my friend and instead of helping me cope they basically acted as if I was totally fine, nothing really worth any real concern or special support. This is exemplified by the fact that I was not even allowed to attend his funeral. I’m not sure whether or not my communication difficulty had anything to do with that or not. But I tend to think so because my mom even stated once that she didn’t really see the grief and pain that I was in. And then combine that whole thing with all the rest of my friends transferring schools and the bullying getting ridiculously worse… it was a bad place for me… In the coming months I was lonely, I was depressed by the bullying intensifying among other things and I began to lash out because everyone seemed to either want nothing to do with me at all or go out of their way to humiliate me publically and I had lost the one person outside my family that I trusted unconditionally, I felt like I was being attacked on all sides and I was no-longer sure that I wanted to try to make friends with new people… -Chelsea Bradham

We all feel the shut downs at time, especially when our families don't understand...

My mother just hurt me another time. We come from different planets. No; different Whens and Wheres. We just... can't. We can't EVERYTHING. I'm in shutdown at this moment. I ain't able to open my mouth. I only exist through this keyboard, now. I just don't have any body. I don't have nerves, muscles, bones, blood. This reminds my of a novel by Bradbury. Oh, well. Never mind. I'm sorry she's sad now. But I can't speak. I'm not Alice and I'm not there. Bye.

-Alice Bassi

Instruction booklet: heart, body & soul of an Aspie girl-by Alice Bassi

How can the males think to seduce me with their constant, officious and intrusive sexual hints? How could they ever think those hints could ever interest me? If other girls act like bitches, it doesn't mean I'm the same.
Talk to me about stars.
Astrophysics.
Videogames. Comic strips. Animated cartoons.
You can talk to me about books, films, music. Poetry. Foreign languages. Oh, please, talk with me IN foreign languages. It's so liberating.
You can talk to me about politics. History. Paintings, museums, science, prehistory, animals, biology, chemistry, philosopy, religions (no prejudices, thank you), literature, restaurants, theatres, Russian ballets, even pubs (the decent ones).
Please, teach me something and oh, please, learn something in return.
Don't talk to me about discos, drunks, misleading friends, misleading music, misleading idols. Don't talk to me about misleading politics, misleading values. Instead of speaking with me the language of ignorance, don't talk to me at all! We can be quiet together.
Don't touch me. You have to find the mental hook, the one which is set somewhere between us. That hook will open up my mind and my body. Don't touch me lightly, not even with your thoughts.
Seek me.
If you can't find me, let Ka work on its own. If you don't know what Ka is, read "The Dark Tower" series by Stephen King. You'll understand so much about me.
We can talk together about other worlds, the multiverse, the chances after death (supposing that there are some). Let's discover the world and ourselves in each word.
Please, don't touch me.
Not yet.
Don't make me feel that pain.
An Asperger body is a body without skin.

-Alice Bassi

An Undiagnosed Autistic Teenage Girl Fell Through The Cracks... and Survived it.

*Warning: This is a bit heavy* (but it doesn't go into too much nitty gritty compared to actual events.)

I'd ordered my old mental health files, to have them on record. I wanted to study the responses to my teenage (for me that'd be 13-21) reactive behaviours. It's hard to read. It's hard to reflect. It's infuriating. It's agonizing. In fact, it's fucking tragic. I don't have any better words than this, without opening a Pandora's box of cuttingly sharp emotional flooding, here.

It's so true, that if you look between the lines, these are autistic meltdowns. "They" seemed to express some degree of superficial "sympathy" for people hurting and abusing me; including sexually for ..but Gods' sake.. they didn't bother to try and protect me whatsoever. and I was very vulnerable. To look deeper into why this was chronically occurring. No, they didn't. What the hell?? Wake up people! So baffling...

They seem to admit that "this girl cannot help poor judgement, relationship problems" and all this other, imbecilic, seemingly with pity based, or just insulting misdiagnoses.. they just didn't see it. There are hints that they could have, and should have, picked  the reports, things like "seems younger than her age", "childlike demeanor at times", "limited insight", "odd gait", ...but it goes on to say "oh but she has good eye contact" etc..

I had a disability. I was suffering and being abused by others who knew I was easy to abuse. They could have actually been helpful and compassionate to me, but no. They had to make me into some pathalogical criminal, or to-be-pitied stupid little sub-human, instead of a disabled person not fully aware of her actions and going through a really, really rough time. Oh if they were only NOT so blinded by the stereotypical precedents, and they looked a little closer. Just a little closer would have been enough for me. The axis 1 diagnosis was "Adjustment Disorder" because of the pattern of reactions to situations of change...this is highly co occurrs with autism.. but Axis 2 read "Borderline PD"..which is not quite correct, but not surprising.

To a good autism expert, this poor girls' behaviour and recurring challenges would've been obvious, as it would have in childhood. Sure, there were co-morbid mental health conditions that she developed features of, because she didn't get the help she needed, had PTSD, and was constantly being re-triggered. She could've have gotten the help she needed had it been recognized. Instead, she survives by the grace of what must be guardian angels; looking over whispering "we know it's not your fault." I didn't realize (because i'd forgotten) just how bad it was. Shit, it was bad. I haven't wanted to remember. There are flashbacks..a few key details...but much of it is a haze.

I was 19 during the year of the most major crises. They deemed me an adult. I was easily upset, little impulse control, precociously self medicating my (then unrecognized as) sensory issues, adjustment anxieties, social and many other confusions. I had read Rx books...it was well controlled unless I was very upset. By 19 I had already developed bad PTSD from childhood traumas (including immense schoolyard bullying and family hardships) and early adolescent occurrences including a mother with cancer, an abusive partner, poverty, constant changes and a few pretty serious sexual assaults. I couldn't process it I guess..so I bottled it up and worked at minimum wage jobs in desperation to earn money. I did as told always but still often failed; my auditory processing re: language input was particularly slowed. I felt stupid, I had to hide it. I got no help. It was up to me. I learned to cope whether it be faking that I understood, being as nice to people a possible (including letting them push me around; but then internalizing anger after, and taking it out on myself) pills for anxiety at times, constant stim walks where nobody could see me, etc..

I began to fall apart at 18. Then 19; a BAD time to get ID. I didn't EVEN know what I was doing if I'd reach that point.. especially due to the bad influences of others practically feeding me booze, and drugs, or Drs feeding me the wrong medications. I would've been much less impulsive starting with an initially clearer mind..because I know myself enough to put the breaks on. but add the anti depressant. I'm not normally, at the baseline, anything but concerned with maintaining control, though the impulse tinkered underneath. But bipolar spectrum disorders are in my family too, and I was pumped full of SSRIs. I lacked impulse control then. Grossly. At times I was full on manic and thus pretty out of control, especially when using substances. It was a dangerous game and I was not driving with a clear, calculated mind, but an impulsive one, in spite of being seen as and accused of the former. They attributed my emotional over-control and flat affect to that, as opposed to being terrified to have a full on autistic meltdown in front of them.

They accused me of attention seeking for abusing medications like DXM cough syrup; I was in extreme pain to the point of wanting to snap, and I was after the DXMs affect of emotional disassociation  - so that I wouldn't melt down. Then sometimes, I'd lose it and OD. They called it Borderline personality, and even worse things, instead of realizing I was a very disturbed and agonized young girl with a genuine development disability, a cut up self esteem from abusers (and actively being abused by people in her life, including sexual exploitation), with severe PTSD, melting down over lack of the right help.

Today, my organs are like a grannies'. Although they're still testing within ranges, they just dont work right, and I feel it. Although they keep telling me that it's EDS related stuff, and maybe autoimmune stuff, I know that although I do have Ehlers-danlos syndrome, I'm this sick also because I am damaged. I am scarred inside. Badly. and the biggest insult of all is this: They accused me of doing it to myself, when in actually; THEY FAILED ME. 

One would not believe the things they wrote about me, when I was suffering. I've read my files, and it is disgusting. When I was hungry and anxious and not in my right mind I begged for food and ativan in the psych ward, they said I was "irritable with a flair of entitlement"... when I begged them, and chanted "I just need help, I just need help" and I was confused, and out of control, and being abused, and not fully understanding how one gets better or how to access resources that might be available to me, they called me "histrionic." Instead of helping me get away from sexual exploitation, they ridiculed me in disgust over it. I will not elaborate further. 

A lot of suppression, disassociation, even self medicating at times..it worked for awhile, and then it went dangerously haywire. I was a trainwreck. I was a Lindsay Lohan, except undiagnosed autistic and poor, with almost no one to really watch my back. By the way, when I was 19, I was mentally 12. Tests prove it, I'm about 7 years behind developmentally. Believe it or now, they pathologized that too! When I tried to access addictions help later, for fear of becoming addicted to opiate pain meds due to my history, and to try to get help and advocacy for a proper evaluation for Ehlers-danlos syndrome- that's when they pelted me with the ultimate character assassination (see here:)

Some of it was to do with them noting me as "very bright and verbally locquascious" in their words, but as if this were an evil thing. Earlier they had said "presents with average intelligence, younger than her age, and childlike demeanor at times" I guess they forgot about the "pervasive development" part here, that when one goes from being mentally 12 (when they saw me the first time) to mentally 19 (the second time) intellectuality might be, oh, just a bit different and one might have more words later??.. Nor did they take into account delayed intellectual development which "spurted" due to getting out of a bad, abusive environment that, once I got away from (abusive family members etc) married and started a life of my own, I was able to develop my character at least better. That's also when the aspergers' started coming out more, when I was away from the acutely traumatic situation. The way I behaved with my new baby was very aspermommy, down to taking advice literally and worrying over it, all with the best intentions.

Furthermore, you would think I would be commended for the strides I made to get better on my own, (and with the help of my husband too) in spite of there anti-help/gross negligence... but instead they somehow pathalogized my delayed maturation, too. They made it out to be like "oooh she was pretending to be dumb, but actually, she's veeeeery intellgent and thus evil!"and, they seemed to do the same thing about my inconsistencies in terms of things I say ie. context and general functioning in terms of language. Though overall I'm precocious with language, it fluctuates; some days I might be really strong, other days I struggle to properly articulate what I need to, and may say things in the wrong context, repeat myself, or ramble. It's a frustrating struggle, and it's cruel to criticize thus piss on it. The latter is often when I'm stressed either emotionally, or physically (sick.)

It just amazes me how these people can even work in psychiatry when they seem to have zero understanding of developmental disabilities, and insultingly lump it in with character disorders. It's abusive. It's dehumanizing... albeit possibly at least partly inadvertent. Regardless, I feel like I want justice. I want these people to first of all take back and realize that the disgusting lense that they've viewed me through is tainted by their own ignorant, un-empathetic, in fact callous, cynicism - and to realize how horrifically they injured me. This is both literally and figuratively. I want justice. But back to the story ..

It wasn't until the introduction of an anti depressant, Effexor XR, that my impulses became so dangerously diminished. Again, I believe and admit that it's also do to with the bipolar diathesis which a psychiatrist diagnosed me with in Vancouver. She said under major stress, SSRI antidepressants, or substance misuse, I can become bipolar (and this is a lot to do, also, what masked my underlying autism.) I cannot, I mean cannot, believe that every one of those doctors who saw me in that ward continued to endorse my use of Effexor XR, a very powerful antidepressant that pretty much ended up making me insane in the end.

It was me, and me alone, who finally figured out I needed to taper off of it. This was partly because I found out I was pregnant. This was a godsend, because I finally "sobered up" after tapering off that mind poisoning garbage drug, and realized "oh my god, what happened for the past year to me - what happened .." On Effexor XR, I had acted dangerously manically, on my autistic-related difficulties with adjusting to adult life. Work, school, dyfunctional family, trying to be independant, in semi autistic meltdown state, with a bipolar diathesis, there is NO place for SSRI's in that. None... and, it's gross negligence, to give it a place.

I have to separate from that girl back then. I only go by my middle name (Rose) now. I have to. I can't be called "Natalie", after all that. I have a hard time hearing my birth name..I need to legally change it, actually. It is almost a miracle that I'm here. That I didn't perish any one of those nights or days....Any one of those being completely inebriated on the back of a motorbike, or any one of those OD and charcoal drinking ER emerg crisis visits.

They branded me with a personality disorder, and superficial pity intertwined with dehumanization, to push me out the door and and intp arms of actually personality disordered, sometimes psychopathic, abusers - when I was a very, very vulnerable person with a developmental disability. When I was just a kid. In "Aspie Time"...I WAS A KID. A child of 12....

and, in February of 2013, when I went back to them for help (stupid idea actually) they had the GALL to suggest that I am one of those people who abused me. That I am a sociopathic personality disordered freak, instead of a divergent human being, who is highly sensitive but traumatized and physically health compromised, thus very emotionally guarded.

I was a kid, with a precociously-too-adult mind compared, and they ignorantly lumped me in with the goony waters of the sociopaths and narcissists. Though there are very surface, and very superficial similarities to this, anyone with even a few ounces of astuteness could see past that, and into what's really wrong. I guess they are shamefully incompetent at their jobs. Well, not all of them, but many of them ..

It was a dangerous paradox in the wrong environments, without any support, with constant changes, constant performance. I just couldn't handle it. I was drowning in a deep, dark, black sea and instead of throwing me a life raft, they pelted me with driftwood.

I didn't cry enough, in front of them. Partly, it was the DXM, and, in my mind then especially, and based on experiences in my childhood (ie. my video "these crocodile tears are real") if you showed who you really are, people demean you and treat you like shit...then if you perform, they demean you passive aggressively and want to you perform more. That's why I'm myself today; regardless of the cons..the pros still outweigh. I have no energy to perform anymore...and hey...It just gets you accused of being some kind of con artist anyway ..

Anyway, this is only the tip of the iceberg. I don't want to cause anyone nausea, and I'm sorry if I already have. I'll save the rest for a book. One day I should write it, but right now, it'd be way too triggering. All I'll say is; I'm lucky and grateful to still be here, though I'm really sick now,  and don't know what the future exactly has in store for me anymore. I don't think about it. I have goals and dreams, and back then I used to dream about the years ahead, and my plans especially to do my music (and once acting, but I don't really care for that anymore for obvious reasons.) Today, I take it week by week. I am an advocate and a survivor.

I'll fight for this to not happen to another girl, or boy for that matter; nor will I stop trying to confirm justice for this one. Gradual justice by my real words, real speech, real writing and real music. Justice. Awareness. Future prevention. This should not happen to anyone else, again.

Everything is real about me, although some people may still refuse to believe that. Oh well. I am real. My situation is real. My trials are real. My feelings are real. I have witnesses. Those who know me will vouch, and God is my witness too. As for the other ignorant, cognitive dissonant toads, let their filthy lense of viewing be their problem. They're the ones who are sick with closed-mindedness. Most will eventually see that I'm most definitely real.

Insidiously autistic women exist. Insidiously autistic people exist. We're real. We're honest and we come by honestly. We're differently wired in bright and unique ways. We will continue to live on; working towards and in fact insisting on accurate acknowledgement, awareness, acceptance, understanding and fair treatment.


... Phewph. This felt so good to finally "get out." Blessed be, so mote it be....


-Scarlit-Rose Ashcraft 

www.scarlitrose.org

Alice, on her relationship with NT parents.

I just ended a veeery long discussion with my parents. I find it very difficult to talk with them. They're both NT and they just... don't reach me. I love them. Really. But sometimes (most of the times) living on this planet is like being among the apes. They're intelligent, yes, but they... oh, it's difficult to say it in English (I'm Italian, unfortunately). They just... don't get it. They ALMOST get it. But not COMPLETELY. It's like talking to someone who's numb, or still asleep. They can go from A to B, but they can't reach C. And I'm... all alone. And the worst part is that they are sure I'M THE ONE who's a step back. It's very hard and frustrating. I can't make them believe the truth. They regret it. This reminds me about a quotation: "For them, I was the one who was insane; for me, they were the ones which were insane. But they - damn it - were a lot more (nd. more people, not more insane)." And now, music. "Make believe, I'm everywhere, leaving in your life, written on the pages - is the answer to a Neverending Story...". -Alice Bassi

"This Is Why We Exist" by Brian Melton

My response to Rose Guedes' latest update and to the hateful commentary that some have posted on a video featuring her child as part of Autism Awareness Day:

When someone asks something ignorant like "Why do people like you exist?," the question is rhetorical. They don't really want an answer. They merely want to harass, humiliate, and terrorize you into submission and silence. They are the most blatant example of the neurotypical compulsion for conformity, and they will say or do anything to make anyone different comply with the NT herd. The mere fact that someone would post such a foul comment on a video that featured a child shows just how low and mean and pathetic and powerless some people are in their own useless lives. Aspies have given this world most of the arts and sciences that it has. We are the reason why, at least in industrialized countries, the life span is around 80, instead of 47 or so as it is in many impoverished countries. Nature didn't care: for most of human history, humans typically died in their twenties. It took geniuses who could think outside of the box (because there never was a damn box) in order to create all of the progress that the Neurotypical dullards enjoy today. Aspies are generally highly sensitive, empathic, creative, loving people who simply want equal rights and justice; as well as a chance to participate in this world without having to hide who they are; but apparently some of the NT's are frightened of our gentleness. It threatens their world and their society with all of its economic injustice, endless war, and environmental devastation. They are terrified of anyone who represents a different way to live as a human being on this planet. Others of the more parasitical variety of NT see our gentleness as weakness, and make the mistake of thinking us easy prey. And some rare few of the NT's may have begun to realize what I recently discovered: the diagnostic tests are getting better, but they still miss more of us than not. There are more of us than any of us realize. We have significant numbers. If we identify and work to establish Aspie culture, much as the Deaf community has a strong, vibrant Deaf culture, then we can organize: we can demand better access to education, employment, and health. We can turn the tide against important issues such as the tar sands and the Keystone XL pipeline. We can stop our continent being flooded with GMO poison. And, we can demand an end to wars that kill thousands more women and children than actual enemies. We could be a blessing way to this world, because we always have been a blessing way to this world. We just have to guide the course of our destiny.

So, what happens when stupid people say stupid things? Great movements sometimes happen, that's what.
-Brian Melton