It’s Autism Acceptance Month and so many of my dear ally, autistic, advocate friends are already aching and it’s only the 5th day in.
Many of the loud messages out there, by sometimes well-meaning (sometimes not), but often misinformed people (because they aren’t connected to the greater autistic community and our voices), cause pain.
The messages are thickly laden with fear … fear of autism.
Fear of anything outside the “norm,” fear of their children not belonging because they’re different.
My heart is extremely tender as I feel the canyoned-etched pain of feeling separate, not part of, not accepted.
I know this intimately within myself and have done incredible amounts of work to finally believe I am whole.
…but many in my community still ache with the trauma of not being seen.
Not feeling valued.
Believing they are too much or not enough.
I feel my community’s pain.
I feel the cracks in their heart.
I feel the fire that burns them as the messages of fear about who we are, are so very loud, loud, loud this month. And we don’t typically love loud, loud, loud things.
And it’s not just my autistic community.
It’s so many of us.
It’s any of us who feels different and marginalized—or simply IS different and then, as a result, marginalized!
I have a soul poem for my community … and for anyone who relates to the danger of being different.
This soul poem is a reminder that you are not alone.
That we are interconnected.
That we belong to eachother.
As long as you hurt, I hurt. We are one, and we are not one, also.
But we are responsible for eachother.
My medicine: my words.
You are not alone.
You are not alone.
You are not alone.