The Paper Bracelet Project

Last year, some of my friends who knew I was autistic asked me what it was like. I found it extremely hard to verbalize, so I came up with an alternative.

I gave them paper bracelets.

They're not just flat pieces of paper. They're twisted strips of paper, two inches by eleven inches, with little kinks and rips. You tape it together around your wrist.

It's a tiny little thing, but they started to understand what a slight sensitivity to touch was. My teachers described it as "noticeable," and could not ignore the way it poked them every time they moved their wrist. Most people wore it on their non-dominant hand so it wouldn't rip further, but I aim to change that this year. The participants will just have to use more tape each time it comes off.

I spent ten minutes at the beginning of my writing class yesterday explaining about the Autism Speaks situation. My teacher needed a good deal of clarification, but I'm slowly converting NTs to the side of the autistic community. Everyone in school is supposed to "light it up blue," as they have done in years past. I'm asking my friends if they can do this little thing for me instead.

One day.

One bracelet.

One more person I've educated about the actual situation.

My work is never complete, however. I will probably request that I be allowed to speak in front of the school next year, using quotes from the many autistics who support the boycott. I will hopefully be able to make enough paper bracelets for everyone in my school, about five hundred people including teachers. If I can use two notebooks each year for this, my money will be well spent. (Besides, my mom is the one who'll be paying for the notebooks, most likely.)

Go ahead and share this post. Just say an autistic girl from New England figured out how to show touch sensitivity to her friends.

My brain makes light seem blinding.

My brain makes me feel deaf.

My brain has never filtered,

So my senses get an F.

#StopCombatingMe: A Trekkie's View

Some people say Star Trek can't happen. I say otherwise.

Khan.

Trekkies know that name. I love that name. It proves that yes, there is an eternal eugenics war. We just haven't started genetically engineering human beings yet.

Or have we?

Because of Congress, eugenics are a prominent topic in modern times. Why would you want to stop the people who go to MIT or work at NASA? Oh, that's right. You are like me. You've followed my train of thought. Those people working at NASA have the best chance to steal a spacecraft.

We're rebelling.

The superhuman Augments of Khan's time: NTs who want to get rid of the Autistics. Autistics who were raised to think that they were no good unless they blended in also fit in that category. The Augments who led the nations into war against one another: Autistics when the speechless among us learned to communicate in their own way. The NTs refused to believe. So now, Autistics who were taught to fit in aren't fitting in anymore in protest. We know our kind, and they are just as incredible as those of us at MIT and NASA.

Too bad, Congress. We don't want a cure. You either accept us as we are, or you realize that we won't hesitate to steal the SS Botany Bay when the Mars missions start.

Stop combating us, and the horrible wars of Star Trek won't have to happen.

I must ask you--spread the good news.

I must beg you--go and tell.

I must admit I'm special,

But that could be you as well.

(My first flashblog @ wordsofautism.blogspot.com!)

Twice Gifted (yet they said I was normal)

There's one thing I wish I could change about my younger years. My teachers saw something. They stayed silent.

Why?

Why not tell my mom outright that the other kids are teasing me, instead of saying that I smile too much?

Why not question my obsession with everything about pandas and literature, when no one else in the class shares my passion?

Why not mention these things, especially when you're going to college to be a special education teacher?

(And that's just one of them.)

I am autistic. Too bad for you, since I was never a good enough student to make you extraordinarily happy. That was my best friend, a boy who had taught himself molecular chemistry and was hardly socially struggling.

I was averaging myself out. My deficits in social interaction were no more prominent than my academic skills. My teachers felt that I was fitting in good enough.

Then came middle school.

All my fellow classmates cared about was appearance, be it socially or physically. I still haven't caught on to that. So while I began to struggle an incredible amount, my abilities morphed. A previously amazing memory became eidetic. My teachers understood that I worked socially. But I still balanced out to the extent that the only special classes I was offered only discussed boys and fashion.

No thank you.

Add to that the fact that I was denied an IEP. My mom had no internet access, and she couldn't look up the laws. That is not her fault. Neither is the fact that I have only now begun to get any support something which should weigh on her shoulders.

But within the next two weeks, I'll be signing up for AP Physics a year before my peers. I will have adjusted passing times, and I will be given the notes so my hand doesn't hurt from writing.

My life has been twice gifted. It is no more.

I know the Russian alphabet.

I know a lot of pi.

I know a lot of random things,

That I can't deny.

P.S. You know the drill about the sporadic updates. Sorry. But two of my more recent fanfictions now feature autistic character...though one is more secret until August, so please don't make an obvious mention in the reviews. They will both be updated within a week. They are:

A December to Remember (Doctor Who)

and

Il Mutor (Phantom of the Opera) [and yes, the misspelling is purposeful.]