Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈

I've always believed that "body language science" is fundamentally oppressive BS and an implicit form of allistic neurocolonization.

Misreading my thoughts and feelings from my body is traumatizing.

Elizabeth, a white woman with long brown hair, poses with Nicholas Joncour, a white man with short dark brown hair, in a large conference room with a blue carpet and dozens of people sitting at tables in the background. Elizabeth wears a white Communication 4 ALL t-shirt, a red jacket, and black pants, and holds her iPad. Nicholas wears a navy long sleeved shirt, dark blue jeans, headphones, and glasses. Both are wearing a conference nametag lanyard.

Elizabeth attended Nicolas Joncour’s presentation on independent living for nonspeakers and discussed over lunch how they could work together in France.

#aecongress2025

I can identify when something has become a special interest because I think about it constantly and can't stop thinking about it. It consumes my life.

#autism

being Autistic in the 21st century is deeply spiritually exhausting

Imagine watching the world argue about whether the way your brain works is real, valid, or even welcome. That’s what many autistic people are going through right now. It's not "controversy" to us it's erasure.

Growing up undiagnosed autistic feels like trying to run a race with invisible weights strapped to you. Everyone else seems to move forward effortlessly. You start wondering, "Why am I always behind?"
Eventually, you just assume you're a failure.
You're not. You were just misunderstood

Imagine spending your whole childhood thinking you're broken…
Because school is overwhelming.
Friendships don’t make sense.
You're always "too much" or "too quiet."
That’s what growing up undiagnosed autistic feels like.
You don’t just miss support you miss yourself ✨

Failing at basic milestones despite working really hard at them, is traumatic.

It's even more traumatic because survival under capitalism depends on it.

It's even more traumatic because I had no explanation, sympathy or solution.

#LostAutisticGirls

Nobody explained to me why the world was too intense, why 12 hours of multitasking was too exhausting, why other pupils bullied and ostracized me, why I couldn't shower or use a bus, why I was struggling to learn from textbooks, or why changes to routine were severely disabling and suicide-inducing.

I was an Autistic teenage girl who didn't know why she was struggling with basic teenage milestones because nobody made the effort to inform her she's Autistic.

#LostAutisticGirls

My confidence is intact, I told the DWP officer.

I'm an angry, assertive Autistic with chronic, violent meltdowns from 15 years of systemic institutional abuse of my autism.

I have plenty of confidence, but people ignore my demands for autism care.

Astonishing that they think they can cure my L2 semi verbal autism with a coach

the DWP approached me weeks ago with an offer of "job counselling to boost my confidence"

I told them I've never had a job, I failed school & I barely function at daily living tasks.

They promised to leave me alone.

🥺 yay to more international neurodiversity experts, this is how we win!

Elizabeth, a white woman with long brown hair, poses with two other white women, one with brown hair and one with blonde hair. All are wearing business casual clothing and conference nametag lanyards. Elizabeth and the woman in the middle together hold a sign that reads "Not invisible. I support the realisation of autistic people's rights! #AEcongress2025 Autism Europe." Autism Europe's logo is on the wall in the background.

She also met with Harland Neerland, President of @autismeurope.bsky.social, and many Autism Europe staff, to see how Communication 4 ALL’s free instructional videos could be used to teach nonspeakers to type.

#aecongress2025

Disabled people under the welfare state also suffer under an institutional fascism.

Autistic people who are diagnosed or seek diagnosis, experience healthcare fascism.

The reason I am info-dumping about this etymology is because I can't stop thinking about how the default experience of Autistic kids and their families is institutional, neurological fascism.

A neurofascism that tells you how to exist, and punishes you for failing to comply.

so, as an etymology pedant, I find it annoying when centrists or righties say "fascism is an exaggeration, stop exaggerating!"

... there's no such thing as a single, solid Fascism, as in "here today, gone tomorrow", because it's a spectrum state that always exists to some extent.

Fascism, etymologically, is any structure of oppression that controls how you live, especially in a harmful way.

Therefore, fascism has always been here. Fascism is the default experience of minority groups.

Fascism can worsen or reduce, but never goes away.

Fascism is a cognate of fascia (muscle attachments) and fascination (being enthralled by something interesting).

[Side trivia: "Enthrall" is an ancient word for enslave.]

As an etymology pedant, I've been thinking about how fascism doesn't have an ON-OFF switch, but is a spectrum state with positionality, and whether it exists for you depends upon who you are.

"Fascism" just means "fastidiously controlling how and whether other people should exist".

Semi-verbal brain feels like a non-linear, fundamentally dis-integrated brain. I get lost in my brain as I think. Things don't connect smoothly.

My brain is a rhizomatic, horizontal network of lateral associations (a "bush" or "cloud"), instead of a train track.

People describe semi-speaking as just a motor disorder that can be replaced with AAC, but that doesn't describe my experience.

I've also got a "thinking in words" disorder. Hence why I'm not just semi-speaking, but semi-verbal.

Why do I say semi-verbal instead of semi-speaking?

Because I'm not just semi-speaking, I am also semi-verbal. Finding and thinking in words is often hard.

Being semi-verbal doesn't equal lack of thought, I just think conceptually or with a delay.

I'm a L2 semi-verbal Autistic.

I don't want to be cured of my autism.

I just want it properly described, understood, diagnosed, empathized with, accepted, and supported.

Life as a L2 is worthwhile, with support.

"You spend all your time, on the net, talking to bl00dy autists!"

Well, yes. My autistic life has left me LONELY, and they're the only people worth talking to! The rest (NTs) are concerned only with blame, appearances, and other nasty trivia. 😐

#Autism
#ADHD
#AuDHD
#neurodiversity

Where is the systematic sympathy for Autistic suffering?

Where's my professional? Where's my program?
Where's my proper diagnosis?
Where's my healthcare system?

The NHS doesn't exist in my Autistic world. It's the Neurotypical Health Service.

I often see the media talk about "genetic counseling" in the case of genetic disorders, and how survivors of high profile violent events like plane crashes are given therapy for their PTSD.

But nothing for the severe trauma caused by being Autistic?

I can confirm, as an ex school refuser

#AutismArtOfThePossible
Ruth Moyse talks about her past research on autistic children and schools. Every child who wasn't able to attend school said they wished they could attend. But they can't do it. It's impossible for them.

It's not school 'refusal'. They can't access the school.

Waiting days or weeks for something makes the thing inaccessible to my AuDHD.

I need the thing to happen NOW, while I'm focused on the task. Otherwise I can't initiate or sustain the task.

This is about healthcare services in particular.