Autistic Passing Project

the end

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 09:19:01 -0400

the end

(a page filled with text, no pictures) I’ve many say they...

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 09:18:00 -0400

(a page filled with text, no pictures)

I’ve many say they don’t believe I have it. It makes me feel good to know that I may have misdiagnosed. The diagnosis has been absolute hell for me. I’ve been discriminated against for work and other things because of people’s misconceptions.

I get the asshole remark, “Oh, you must be VERY high-functioning!” I consider that an asshole remark because, uh, first, I hate the term, and second, they don’t seem to realize that they’re simultaneously praising me for playing the game they insisted I play *and* implying that somehow the game-that THEY INVENTED-is easier for me than for other autistic people.

I have been told it does not affect me anymore, by a therapist. It angered me because it is so obvious to me, every day, how it affects me. People want to sweep it under the rug, like it is embarrassing, when I know it just IS.

Yes, by my mother. It made me angry and sad and frustrated, because I never stopped being autistic. I just learned how to get around in an NT wrld better. And, it made me angry, because it told me that she had totally written off the effort that it takes me to pass and thought that I didn’t put work into this at all.

i hide it alot but it would be nice if someone sead you don’t seem Auistic

it makes me feel erased, insulted, angry

In part I’m happy because it means that I was successful at passing, but also I’m upset because they are denying that the amount of work I put into making them feel more comfortable is legitimate.

All the time. And it makes me feel like they’re full of bullshit, because if I didn’t give off that vibe then they might actually treat me like a human being, but they don’t so obviously they’re lying and just trying to find another way to control and cut away at me.

All the time…and I love it!

People tell me their disbelief or that I’m recovered. They don’t know how hard things can get with my sensory issues. I feel erased by them.

I get worried about that because people might expect too much from me.

I get this a lot. I should be flattered by it, but I am not. Because the minute I start thinking of myself as normal something happens to let me know I am not. The people who say I am not autistic don’t know my history, don’t know my background, and quite frankly, only see what they want to see.

It angers me slightly because of the fact of everything that i have been through and the fact that these days i am pretending to be normal for them not myself and thats what hurts

I have seriously pondered the idea of just not talking anymore....

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 09:05:10 -0400

I have seriously pondered the idea of just not talking anymore. I have even thought of the best way I could pull it off. I would either wait for a traumatic event or lie that I had been through one and then I would just not talk anymore.

I wanted to not feel uncomfortable and try not to show that I was pretending to be someone I’m not but at the same time I didn’t want to just run away and forfeit any opportunities that I may have had.

the reason for doing so is to avoid the consequences of people different, bullying, people staring, weird looks, discrimination there are so many

If I did not pass, I would lose my job and become one of the impoverished/homeless mentally ill. I am not into living at the local mission, thank you. I like my creature comforts.

I experience anxiety frequently but mostly due to the inability to function as desired.

I pass because it gives me a feeling of control over my mind.

I don’t want this to control my life. I want to be normal.

yes, i sometimes with there was something physical that everybody with autism would have, a mark of some sort i wouldn’t have to lie to pretend that i’m normal

Cutting is really important to me. I do it almost daily and...

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:55:18 -0400

Cutting is really important to me. I do it almost daily and it’s helped me process that I actually do have emotional problems, which is probably the single most important thing I’ve done for my mental health.

I used to have strong impulses to cut myself—not because I thought it would make me feel any better but because I thought that if I self-injured, people around me would recognize how hard I was working just to do things that they took for granted.

I’ve always had a fascination with crutches/being temporarily non-able-bodied, because I’ve seen people fall over themselves to help an injured person. I used to think that people would be friendlier if you were not able-bodied (visibly) and that it might be a way to make friends. But it’s not.

I often imagine becoming noticeably scarred or mutilated in some way (such as heavy facial scarring), not out of a desire to self harm but because it’s comforting to conceptualize myself as being far enough outside the standards of conventional attractiveness or appearance that I could just stop trying.

no because i try… :/ to hide the fact eg stimming and the...

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:50:44 -0400

no because i try… :/ to hide the fact eg stimming and the things i talk about this means i dont talk mutch and dont have any friends :(

I am actually at a point now where I rarely leave the house because I don’t have the energy to pass.

(Eclipses) When I go out in public, I feel like a disgrace...

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:43:35 -0400

(Eclipses)

When I go out in public, I feel like a disgrace because I am autistic. I have been told that I do a relatively good job of passing as normal, but in my head I feel paranoid and I always believe that people view me as a disgrace, even though I know it is probably not true.

I tend to avoid stimming in public, because I worry about getting stared at or people asking questions.

I say no to things I would like to do because I know that doing them would lead to me being stressed after a while and therefore acting more autistic.

Less now, but yes. Usually there are things having to do with things that are harder for me to either understand and perform at, or harder to control myself with. So I’ll say no to, say, watching a tv show or talking about a book I like with someone, because I know I’ll let myself go and I can’t handle the way they get cold and back off. Or I’ll say no to a hike, because all the movement and coordination is hard and I can’t keep up or look normal for it and I certainly can’t ejoy myself.

(If you can’t control your weirdness entirely, you can at least keep people from having to see it.) But that’s not a useful strategy for an adult. My instinct to pass through invisibility probably in itself makes me look weird.

Too needy, too weird, too demanding. I wish I didn’t need so much help.

people are always judging me, for the way i act, what i say, and what i think. it hurts a lot, and sometimes i do think of myself as a lover. i get jealous of certain people because i may not be able to do what they do.

I kind of switch between periods where anxiety is my dominant emotion and other times it’s depression.

(The moon through branches) I sat through a fifteen-minute spiel...

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:35:59 -0400

(The moon through branches)

I sat through a fifteen-minute spiel in which I was told (among other things) that autistic people were “so weird,” that we were more visible because “they let them interact more with human culture now,” that executive dysfunction was “another word for personality,” that “prevention should always be the first goal,” and that autism was a terrible condition for parents. I nearly cried on the way home because a person I had previously greatly respected and quite liked had just unknowingly made her opinions on people like me very clear, and because it was so likewise clear that she did not think someone like me could possibly have been listening.

(Stars on one side and two small pictures of comets on the other side.) It can suck to be seen as...

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:33:37 -0400

(Stars on one side and two small pictures of comets on the other side.)

It can suck to be seen as the normal one, even though that’s usually my goal, if people take that as an excuse to badmouth less normal people to me.

when I’ve met these kids, I’ve seen them as similar to me, but nobody else has seen me as being in any way similar to them. It is often very upsetting.

It upsets me a lot because I feel like people are talking to me about me but without knowing it’s about me, and I have to decide whether to let them know or keep passing.

I wish people could see that my friend and I are both autistic, that I’m autistic like him.

hate it, because people talk about them, and tell them to act normal, and wonder why they are different, and i want to stand up for them, tell all of the neurotypical people to back off, and quit treating the other people like they are less of a person. but i cant do that without publicly identifying with them, and i’m afraid to do that.

At my current job, there are two autistic people and several Intellectually disabled people who are seen as severely disabled but I am not seen as disabled at all. It upset me when people expect me to join in mocking them. I fear to object might mean jeopardizing my job, that it might lead to losing access to food, shelter, and healthcare so I just walk away. It benefits me to pass but to me it is a necessary evil.

I’ve been an aide for other disabled people before. It feels like being a double agent or a spy behind enemy lines.

I hope everyone who was interested in this knows that I haven’t even gotten close to posting...

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 14:15:00 -0400

I hope everyone who was interested in this knows that I haven’t even gotten close to posting all of it (and this version isn’t the only version I will ever make), but I literally can’t do so now because I’m working at a sleepaway camp and only have a few hours free a day, plus very slow wireless.

if you want, you can direct questions to 203 247 7856 between 3-4:30 and 9-11 PM EST, otherwise I am indisposed.

love, awfv

(Tall pine trees against a green sky.) I’m less...

Wed, 25 May 2011 10:54:05 -0400

(Tall pine trees against a green sky.)

I’m less embarrassed to say things like “I have a mood disorder” and “I have a learning disability” than to say “I’m autistic,” by far.

Even today, I have difficulty admitting the extent of the educational accommodations I received during my school days. That a student who graduated with high honors and entered college as a sophomore was also a “special needs” kid is something that even my studying of disability theory has not helped me fully reconcile. I am actually more comfortable affirming my identity as autistic than revealing learning disability as part of my experience of autism.

when I’m with my friends who are also disabled but don’t pass as much as I do, I sometimes worry about how people perceive me because I am with them. This makes me feel bad about myself because I always felt very hurt when my non-disabled friends said similar things about me.

don’t usually tell people about being on meds, because then they will often discount what I say and not trust me

Autistic Passing Project, May 2011, collected by Amanda Forest Vivian, written by anonymous people on the autism spectrum. The pages are from National Audubon Society First Field Guide: Night Sky. If you wrote something that was used and you don’t want it to be on the Internet just tell me in my askbox (http://fourloves.tumblr.com/ask) and I will remove what you wrote from the image and transcript.

Well, you get the feeling like “SERIOUSLY what else is...

Wed, 25 May 2011 10:37:37 -0400

Well, you get the feeling like “SERIOUSLY what else is going to be thrown at me?!” Like you really can’t be normal in any way. Or that you’re just “trying” to be precious, even though of course you don’t choose those things, they just are.

Part of trying to hide being poor overlapped with passing as “normal.”

I am Black/Hispanic/Indian fat, and female so having so many negative stereotypes attached to me makes it important to me to change perceptions of me where I can.

Being queer and having various mental health issues have definitely contributed to my desire to pass—I already have tremendous difficulty being respected in those areas.

it feels like I can be autistic OR trans/genderqueer; I’ve been particularly afraid to engage with autism activism groups for fear of being exposed to transphobia and/or homophobia.

I often find myself antagonized by people from my ethnicity. As if the autism makes me more “white.”

It can be very/frustrating to be both autistic and/asexual because/I sometimes/feel that I’m/reinforcing/negative stereotypes against/both groups just by existing.

I find it hard to be immersed in other minority groups because generally they band together wanting solidarity with their experiences…but I can’t really erase the autism from my experiences.

One concern I have is that in environments where I would be the...

Tue, 24 May 2011 21:44:24 -0400

One concern I have is that in environments where I would be the only out queer person, were I to choose to be out (or were it to otherwise become apparent), everything about me would be more subject to scrutiny and I would possibly be taken as representative of queer people in general. In a situation where I am out as queer but attempting to pass as neurotypical, any sense of weirdness or “off”-ness people around

me may read from me will likely be ascribed to my gayness. I guess being autistic and attempting to pass makes me more uncomfortable with the idea of being out as queer because I am concerned about how I will influence the views and perception of the people around me regarding queer people.

people are more likely to perceive my behaviors as lazy or low...

Tue, 24 May 2011 20:56:00 -0400

people are more likely to perceive my behaviors as lazy or low class because of the other minorities I belong to. Most people believe that autism is a disease affecting only white male children.

I think sometimes people dismiss my autisticness as fitting one of their stereotypes about rural people or low income people.

I’m up front about being queer, and it definitely affects my passing—people are busy trying to work that part out and ignore my communication issues.

I don’t try to pass as straight, but if I were trying, it would probably help. People tell me sometimes I come off as really naive, so I guess everything I do comes off as not sexual even when it is.

Not unless it’s for safety (Someplace where queer people are beaten or killed for being queer and so on.) But I think most of the time My efforts are spoiled by my Autisticness, though sometimes they will blame the things I fail to hide as my Autisticness.

I’ve been hiding my sexuality (poly-) because I don’t want to risk having it discounted because of my ASD. Same goes for my gender identity.

Figuring out my trans identity has been made possibly more difficult than it is for others because of my being encouraged to mask over things that others can’t name, such as my dissonance.

being bi-cultural, some of the prevealent autistic...

Tue, 24 May 2011 20:22:10 -0400

being bi-cultural, some of the prevealent autistic characteristics are perceived as “proper” for women (such as no eye contact with others), but others aren’t (like having opinions and saying them, having non-traditionally feminine interests).

I look more normal in the brasilian community, basically because their body language is very….carribean cheerleaderish? One I know how to do anyway.

Working in a tattoo studio and traveling with professional musicians were the only times I was treated normal in my life.

my parents are rather upper class, and i stick out horribly at all of their fancy social gatherings.

I work in a nursing home where most of the residents have dementia and many of the staff are visible minorities whose cultures are different and more accepting of my eye contact issues. (I’m seen as being very respectful.)

I’m involved in circus arts./The circus really is one place where it is ok to/be crazy and different. It’s even welcomed.

(Blue sky of stars.) At my current job I put effort into...

Tue, 24 May 2011 20:06:12 -0400

(Blue sky of stars.)

At my current job I put effort into dressing and grooming myself to look “nice” in a conventionally feminine manner, in the hopes that the more my appearance satisfies convention, the more people around me will be amenable and accepting towards me and they less they will be inclined to scrutinize my behavior for oddities. I grew my hair very long this year and started wearing makeup. I feel that when styled in a manner that allows people to place me in the semantic category of “pretty

girl”/they/will/be/more

forgiving of behavior read as quirky, childlike, naive, awkward, etc. I don’t really like doing this because I feel like I’m basically trying to benefit from playing into sexist cultural tropes, but I don’t think I have the chops to successfully construct, pull off, and maintain a more assertive or unconventional personality at this point.

If I have to give an explanation to people about problems I am...

Tue, 24 May 2011 13:07:00 -0400

If I have to give an explanation to people about problems I am having, I will usually claim to have sensory integration disorder.

I’ve been told repeatedly that I should find somewhere to keep my arms so that I don’t move them all the time, and I definitely rock all the time.

make sure my voice doesn’t sound to flat or “fake”

I diverted the urge for a rhythm motion to pulling on my hair rhythmically, but since my hair gets brittle when it’s long, I now have a thin patch on my head.

I’ve been able to adapt my public stimming by chewing gum. In settings where I can’t, I do rock or tap my feet a lot

I also try not to monologue too much but sometimes when I’m really excited about something, I can’t help it. I try to buffer it by making up useful analogies…it slows me down a bit. Stims are pretty revealing too. I used to try and repress them entirely when other people were around, but it’s exhausting trying to keep that up. Now, I make them into small stims when I’m with strangers and let myself do full stims with people I’m comfortable with. They’ll ask what I’m doing, and I’ll explain what stims are all about. Usually they get used to it after awhile, but at first they can be uncomfortable.

The intense twitching that occurs if people touch me unexpectedly is a dead giveaway. I do what I can to always face people, because then I can see and prepare for any touch they might inflict upon me.

(Some more constellation drawings, mostly a dragon and a...

Tue, 24 May 2011 13:00:55 -0400

(Some more constellation drawings, mostly a dragon and a hunter.)

I have tremendous difficulty making or feigning eye contact. I have internalized my stims, causing me to appear and be very tense. I am often told to calm down, even by complete strangers.

People have often indicated to me that they think I’m angry, upset, bored, or some other thing, when I’m actually nothing of the kind. I was frequently criticized by teachers for not paying attention in classes as a child when in fact I had been listening closely

That I’m high when I’m not, that I’m not high when I am, that I use more and harder drugs than I ever actually have, that I’m a sociopath (!), that I’m intellectually impaired, that I’m rude or mean to people on purpose, that I’m a cult member, that I’m a survivor of rape and/or severe abuse…If I’m in a social context where drug and alcohol use is condoned, I guess I might let people chalk all my loopy behavior up to that

yes i spent 5 months of my life total between 2 different occasions in a hospital where i met people and i have to lie whenever they or the what i was doing at the time ever come up as im still in contact with them and missed allot of school with no believable explanation

I slur or talk very slow or I need to write instead of talking. I spent so much energy making every sentence perfect. I also would say sentences that I had heard other people say a lot, because those were easier, or avoid a word that would trip me up. Even if what I was saying wasn’t what I thought.

When studying abroad in Haifa, a Danish student in my program...

Tue, 24 May 2011 12:53:19 -0400

When studying abroad in Haifa, a Danish student in my program was very confused by my manner of walking, from which he concluded that I must be European, because I couldn’t possibly be American (which I am).

I speak way too fast. Loud enough, though, nowadays. I walk “weird”, I don’t know, I never saw myself walking but I’ve been told I do, and corrected every muscle in my body a billion times so as to achieve “normal gait”, but it was…complicated. I don’t rock in public, no, but I bite my cheeks and I have some weird episodes of aphasia, it seems.

oh gosh, a thousand things most apparent are misunderstanding people not blending in being weird and yes, I rock and stim all the time, though i’ve noticed that rocking is seen as a very bad thing to do. if you just jiggle your leg you can say you are nervous people automatically thing crazy when they see you rocking

i remember trying to lower my linguistic register when I was in second grade, to sound more normal. In general, I went through a lot of trouble to monitor my voice (both sound and language)

Walking is a giveaway. I have an odd gate. I also talk loudly and in a carrying tone.

i don’t move my arms at all when i walk or run so i try and move them right but it looks over done

(Words around drawings of constellations, most prominently a...

Sun, 22 May 2011 18:26:05 -0400

(Words around drawings of constellations, most prominently a green dolphin.)

I was sent to special education and entered into Skinner-influenced behavior modification classes. I was given drugs (ritalin and phenobarbital; the phenobarbital made me psychotic but nobody realized it at the time). A lot of effort was devoted to “breaking” me of my horse obsession. I was forbidden to read anything to do with the subject and I was not allowed to draw them.

Social workers and teachers and therapists - their success at their job was largely defined by how normal I could pretend to be, so of course they pressured me to do that, and mostly not for the relatively benign reasons my parents did.

That other people weren’t interested in hearing about the things I was interested in, that if I seemed too strange nobody would want to talk to me, that I was “closing myself off” with antisocial behavior, that it’s important for *everyone* to learn politeness and etiquette, that I had to develop real-world survival skills, that if my body language seemed too submissive or inattentive it would make me a target for sexual predators, that they were helping me overcome my disabilities so that I could succeed, that if I faked it for long enough I would eventually just be a normal person, that I was smart (or pretty, or talented) and it would be a shame for that to go to waste.

I don’t remember ever actually consciously deciding to try...

Sun, 22 May 2011 18:19:39 -0400

I don’t remember ever actually consciously deciding to try to pass at all—it’s just that I got laughed at or funny looks for failing to pass.

It wasn’t something I started deliberately, but I continued deliberately. I think I did it because I didn’t really have a lot of role models to realize that I was okay.

After severe bullying in fifth grade. I wanted people to like me and not beat me up.

I can’t remember many specific incidents, just a general idea that I did a lot of things the “wrong way” and people were disappointed in me for it.

My main motivation was to avid getting put in a mental institution. I was put in a short term one for up to a month fairly frequently, and at least some people wanted to send me to a long term one, and I considered avoiding this the same as trying to avoid being killed.

My mother’s second husband was abusive, and I hoped that by passing and hiding that I would be able to escape the abuse. That feeling ended up extending into the world as a whole. That the only way to be “safe” was to erase those parts of me that gathered the most attention.