“Being autistic has always given me a strong sense of justice and fairness, and a burning drive to do the right thing and to fight for it, even when it seems like struggling against the weight of the world. This seems very related to my extreme empathy, which is also tied to my experience of being autistic.”
“Knowing that injustice or violence exist anywhere is deeply painful for me, whether it directly targets me or not, and I believe that I must do anything within my capacity to work for a world where none of us have to be afraid anymore. If I were not autistic, I am certain I would not have the same drive as I do now.”
7 activists tell us the best thing about living with autism
This is a hyper empathic autistic’s heart under the stress of injustice. My resting heart rate rises for days and weeks at a time, contributing to meltdown and autistic burnout. I started trending higher the day I knew I had to confront injustice and start writing and organizing against it. This is constant adrenaline poisoning that goes for long periods. I feel it all through me from the moment I wake to the moment I finally pass out from exhaustion and into my stress dreams while sleeping. It’s a hell.
“A state of pervasive exhaustion, loss of function, increase in autistic traits, and withdrawal from life that results from continuously expending more resources than one has coping with activities and environments ill-suited to one’s abilities and needs.” In other words, autistic burnout is the result of being asked to continuously do more than one is capable of without sufficient means for recovery.
THINKING PERSON’S GUIDE TO AUTISM: Autistic Burnout: An Interview With Researcher Dora Raymaker
Justice, equality, fairness, mercy, longsuffering, Work, Passion, knowledge, and above all else, Truth. Those are my primary emotions.
Very Grand Emotions: How Autistics and Neurotypicals Experience Emotions Differently » NeuroClastic
Further reading,
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