35 lines
6.9 KiB
HTML
35 lines
6.9 KiB
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<!DOCTYPE html>
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<html>
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<meta charset="UTF-8">
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<title>rain - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<p align=center>
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<b>MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)</b>
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</p>
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<p><b>rain: an autistic manifesto</b></p>
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<p><b>published: 7-20-2018</b></p>
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<p> </p>
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<p>It is getting cloudy outside, and I spent at least a third of Girl Scout Camp behind the main cabin on the verge of crying because everybody was already running smoothly without me and I suddenly realized that I am utterly replaceable. I tried to help a little girl crying and I got yelled at for interfering with someone else’s unit. I tried to explain to the girls in the red unit that it was unsafe to go swimming without a lifeguard because what if I get a cramp in one of my legs, and they told me that they hoped I drowned.</p>
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<p>I spent three years begging, <i>pleading</i> with the core staff to let me do the newsletter, and they finally relented one year before I turned eighteen so that they could pat themselves on the back for the bare minimum. I cherished that year. I ran around camp without a single complaint and took beautiful pictures of everything the girls were doing and I hand-crafted my own templates when the old controlling lady who was training me threw herself for a complete loop when she saw LibreOffice in the title bar and not Microshit Office and the template they’d been using for the past who-knows-how-many years wouldn’t display correctly.</p>
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<p>And then they gave it to a girl who asks dumb questions like “what’s an operating system” when I explain why she doesn’t have anything better to edit her photos with than Paint because they gave her a shitty computer to do her work on and “what’s encryption” when she gets confused why I enter so many passwords into my computer every time I turn it on.</p>
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<p>It’s because I have special needs for my computer, I explain. I don’t trust anyone with my computer. I have unwritten books and a decade’s worth of photos and all sorts of torrented movies I mean to watch again and I don’t want anyone getting a single bit of it without my permission. If I left my computer unencrypted, someone might plant malignant code and steal all my passwords and use my files to blackmail someone.</p>
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<p>And then she looks confused, and I drop the subject and show her where she spelled words wrong and where she needs to move her commas so that her wall of boilerplate text is readable.</p>
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<p>It is getting darker outside, and I am crying behind the main cabin some more because my girlfriend accidentally told everyone that I have autism and all the girls I was supposed to protect in my unit started mocking me instead. You’re not an adult; you act like a camper that’s allowed to eat the adult snacks in the cabin basement. You don’t sit back like adults are supposed to. You say weird things like “it’s time to consume some hydrogen-based liquids” instead of yelling “water break” and you draw angel heads on people’s shirts and you disappear at random.</p>
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<p>You’ve been going to camp since you were a pinkie- in first grade- and every step of the way, you were singled out, separated, discriminated against because you were autistic, because you <i>are</i> autistic because, no matter how hard we light it up blue, we still don’t have a cure, still don’t have a way to shut you up. We screamed at you when you were tiny and wanted to swim more than the alloted swim time and we ripped the part with your name on it off the swaps you gave us and we forced you into our unit pictures even though you hate having your picture taken, hate having someone you don’t completely trust have a copy of your likeness to do with as they please.</p>
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<p>You’re not an adult.</p>
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<p>You’re a camper with privileges.</p>
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<p>You can get ice cream when everyone else does. Oh, me? Oh, I get ice cream early because I was helping in the kitchen. No, I don’t care that you were just helping the newsletter girl. Run back to your unit.</p>
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<p>It is okay for the girls in the red unit to tell me to die, but it is not okay for me to tell Coconut to go to hell.</p>
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<p>It is raining softly outside, and I am on the bus ride home, sitting right beside my girlfriend who asks me what’s wrong and why am I sad and understands when I say that Coconut’s an asshole who acts like she owns the camp just because she’s the daughter of one of the camp directors. Coconut disappeared for years and everyone cheered when she led morning flag instead of the actual director. I stayed for all twelve years and bandaged girls’ legs when they fell down and showed them how to grow origami flowers from paper and dried so many tears that I could make my own Red Sea and part it down the middle. I taught them a new camp song- the Beard Song- and I made swaps in the shape of little pride flags when my cousin’s friend came out to me and her as nonbinary, and I cheered my team on when they played bootleg quidditch and won.</p>
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<p>And I’m a nuisance, and I need to stop asking each unit for a team photo between games.</p>
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<p>And Coconut yells at me like I’m a pinkie who wandered away from where her unit has planted their backpacks in the spectating area, and I want to punch her in the face.</p>
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<p>It is pouring rain outside, and I’m finally starting to understand what some people of color mean when they said that, even though they can legally do all the things they should have been allowed to do when this country was founded, that they still experience racism. Because I can have a driver’s permit, and I can get accepted to college, and I can force myself to verbalize enough to order my own food at a restaurant and have short conversations with people enough to be seen as “normal”. But it doesn’t change the fact that people still see me as a diagnosis, as a problem to be worked <i>around</i>, rather than a person to be worked <i>with</i>.</p>
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<p>It doesn’t change the fact that, no matter how hard I work to “pass” as neurotypical, the world is still fundamentally wired in a way that is difficult for me to navigate.</p>
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<p>I am finally starting to understand what some LGBT people mean when, even though sexuality and gender aren’t and shouldn’t be the main point of one’s identity but just another facet, they go to Pride parades and wear things with pride flags on them and be, you know, <i>proud</i> that they’re whatever gender or sexuality they are. Because there are still crusty old people out there who think “gayness” can be cured, and there are self-proclaimed “autism moms” who flaunt their children on shitty blogs and exploit them for money and sympathy and then have the audacity to pull out their blue pistols and gun for a “cure”.</p>
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<p>It is starting to clear up outside, and I am starting to realize a truth: when the world refuses to let you exist, you spit in the world’s face and choose to exist anyway.</p>
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</body>
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</html>
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