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Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 10h

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

Ruth Moyse @drruthmoyse.bsky.social · May 16

Dr Zahilah Filzah Zulkifli is a Paediatrician working for the Ministry of Health in Malaysia. She is also a certified SPELL Master Trainer, delivering training in Malaysia and Papua New Guinea, and an AT-Autism Associate.
#AutismArtOfThePossible

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Reposted by Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈

Communication 4 ALL @communication4all.bsky.social · 27d

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

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Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 15h

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

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

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Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 15h

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.

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Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 15h

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.

Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 15h

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.

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Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 15h

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.

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Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 15h

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

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

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Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 15h

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".

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Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 15h

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.

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Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 15h

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.

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Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 15h

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.

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Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 15h

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.

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Reposted by Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈

Pattern-chaser @pattern-chaser.bsky.social · 1d

"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

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Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 19h

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.

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Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 19h

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?

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Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 19h

I can confirm, as an ex school refuser

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Reposted by Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈

Ann Memmott @annmemmott.bsky.social · 20h

#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.

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Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 20h

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.

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Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 21h

it just occurred to me that birds would see our airplanes as "human disability aids"

Wendy Xu @wendyxu.bsky.social · 1d

y'all don't need to be here you HAVE WINGS

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Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 21h

I can vouch for this because the NHS only diagnosed me after they ruined my process the first time and it drove me to autistic meltdown and suicidal crisis.

A lifetime of persecution has broken me. I am now a rigid, aggressive, "severe" autistic who screams, cries + destroys things regularly.

Nicole Filippone, Autistic Advocate & Author @sensorystories.bsky.social · 1d

But because the diagnostic criteria are constructed based on observable behaviors that occur as a direct result of unmet needs, that's what you get in the DSM.

Here are a couple examples of how unmet needs can look like rigidity.

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Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 21h

Just had my 74th meltdown of the year.

My NHS process was ruined and it's unacceptable. I have suffered 15 years of NHS abuse of my autism and there's no health service for that.

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Ann Memmott @annmemmott.bsky.social · Jan 31

Are most autistic people fabulous?
Yes.
But we live in a world that spent nearly 100 years misunderstanding almost everything about us. And one that targeted us time after time for awful assaults etc.
It takes time to get good info out there.
Your exhausted autistic friends hope you're listening.

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The Autism Books by Autistic Authors Project @autisticbooks.bsky.social · 16d

I am begging people to please seek out Autistic voices if you want to learn about autism. You will find that rather than wanting our lives to be prevented or cured, we want appropriate supports for ALL Autistic people (including those with intellectual disability and other co-occurring conditions).

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Anton ☾ @antonarcana.gay · 10d

They should invent allistic people that don’t try to ruin the life of every autist on planet earth

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Reposted by Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈

Semi-Verbal Autistic 🌈 @autisticventing.bsky.social · 18d

It's not difficult to recognise autism in girls. You just need to pay attention!

Decades of suffering could be prevented if allistics stopped ignoring female autism.

11 signs of autism in girls.

Relies heavily on other children to guide and speak for her. Passionate restricted and specific interests. Unusual sensitivity to sensory challenges. Conversation is restricted to limited topics of interest. Difficulty moderating feelings when frustrated. Unusual depression, anxiety and moodiness. Difficulty making and keeping friends. Often described as quiet or shy. Unusual passivity. Difficulty with social communication increases with age. Epileptic seizures.

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