I believe all persons with Autism need the opportunity to become friends with other Autistic people. Without this contact we feel alien to this world. We feel lonely. Feeling like an alien is a slow death. It’s sadness, self-hate, it’s continuously striving to be someone we’re not. It’s waking up each day and functioning in falsehood (French, 1993).
Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking
How can we cultivate spaces where everyone has that soaring sense of inclusion, where we can have difficult and meaningful conversations?
Because everyone deserves the shelter and embrace of crip space, to find their people and set down roots in a place they can call home.
“The Beauty of Spaces Created for and by Disabled People” by s.e. smith in “Disability Visibility: First Person Stories from the 21st Century“
Are you awake or are you sleeping? Are you afraid? We've been waiting for this meeting We have come here for you, and we're coming in peace Mothership will take you on higher, higher This world you live in is not a place for someone like you Come on, let us take you home It's time to go, you are infected Come as you are, don't be scared of us, you'll be protected (Protected, protected) I guess you are a different kind of human I guess you are a different kind of human Omega hai foleet, Omega hai foleet There is a flaw in man-made matters But you are pure, and we have to get you out of here --A Different Kind of Human by AURORA
Don’t be scared; you’re okay. You can come with us, and you’ll be safe.
AURORA on Twitter: “Track number 8: A Different Kind Of Human.”
All our lives we’ve been alone in a world of alien men. To find kindred at last is a special joy.
A. E. VAN VOGT, SLAN
“It’s a new place I created […] what if those people came to a different planet, like a safe place, and they were collected by these aliens that came to the world and kind of took them with them, and they said:
“Don’t be scared, you’re okay, you can come with us and you’ll be safe. You’ve spent time on this planet but it’s not the place for you. You have a better place where you will feel more at home, we will take you there.”
And then, they’ll go up to this different place where all those people can live together”.
AURORA on Twitter
For people on the autism spectrum before it had a name, he explains, the alternate universes of science fiction may have felt less alien than the baffling sea of mundania in which they found themselves marooned.
Picked on by a sadistic teacher, he took refuge in reading “gobs of science-fiction . . . finding myself more at home on impossibly remote, imaginary worlds than the alien world I was strapped to.”
NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity
Autism, clearly, is a condition that has always existed, affecting occasional individuals in every period and culture. It has always attracted in the popular mind an amazed, fearful, or bewildered attention (and perhaps engendered mythical or archetypal figures—the alien, the changeling, the child bewitched).
She said that she could understand “simple, strong, universal” emotions but was stumped by more complex emotions and the games people play. “Much of the time,” she said, “I feel like an anthropologist on Mars.”
An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales
Find Your People
When I found the autistic community, it was like finally coming home after 23 long years at sea. Often you don’t realize how lonely and frightened you’ve been the whole time, until you find your people.
Community As Home – Portraits – Disability Visibility Project
Image Credit: Swamburger
Until one day… you find a whole world of people who understand.
We were no longer alone.
7 Cool Aspects of Autistic Culture » NeuroClastic
Further reading,
Further reading,
