Thread by @shindoverse

Autistic Pride 🧵

This was never, ever supposed to happen. Here it is:

First photo: BA, English, 2001, San Diego State University
Second Photo: MFA Creative Writing (Fiction), 2005, San Diego State University

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I mentioned this before, even a week ago: I wasn’t even supposed to had had to had the chance to graduate from high school, let alone ever get through first grade. Psychiatrist wrote a disabled child as should be institutionalized

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Here, I am thankful for a parent’s judgment against an expert, as my mother only completed school up to the 8th grade, was learning English at the time, and was an immigrant wife of an Americans in the military.

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From what I understand of the story, she totally Karen’d it. Which is why I totally respect advocate parents of disabled children even if I may not agree in a given situation.

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I always wonder what if the psychiatrist got their way. After all, they were the experts with the credentials and that normally was leverage over my mother and even my father who at least spoke English.

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My father doesn’t deserve much credit except for medical benefits from the Army. He was embarrassed to tell his commanding officer he was even taking me to see a psychiatrist. From here, I’ll hold back.

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Getting back to the psychiatrist’s recommendation, it would have me be institutionalized. I always wonder how many parents during the 1950s-1970s followed similar advice for children who were like me. #AutisticPrideDay2022 #AutisticPride #Neurodivergent

I always wonder about the lost generation of Gen X autistics. I could have been part of that. #AutisticPrideDay2022 #AutisticPride #Neurodivergent

There’s a lot more I’ve said (and have said) about getting through because I become literate enough to do so. And long story short, I got my high school diploma (even though that was my most masking era)…

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and move on to get my BA in English and MFA in creative writing. And there definitely some difficulties, some of it academic challenges and some of unfriendliness on the part of some professors. Time to slap them is later.

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This story is for people like me, whether you were written off or told you couldn’t do . It’s for you to find out what you can do an
d can achieve, there’s not one path for us all.

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Be resplendent.

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