Self Advocacy

[AprilR]

I also struggle with this, especially when i am with my parents. I have become much better at self advocating in the recent years though. Before, i simply hid my negative feelings and discomfort because i thought they "should not exist" and i should just "suck it up" because am being "too sensitive"

Thankfully i got therapy and learned to speak up for myself and started to consider that "I" also have an ego, and my own point of view! It was a bit of shock to me to learn that my feelings are valid and even when someone does not act out of a desire to hurt me, i can still feel hurt, and i can distance myself from the people that hurt me.

 

[RemyZee]

I saw a good lesson on self advocacy recently. I recently went to a rally on disability rights. The event was outside and there were around 200 people there. Ari Neeman, co founder of ASAN was the speaker. He's someone many of us autistics know who he is. When he started, people were talking and socializing. He went up to the podium and started speaking. No one stopped talking to listen to him. It went on like that for nearly his entire speech--him speaking on the topic of disability, and everyone refusing to shut up and listen. Here was this person who is widely recognized by the autistic community as influential, everyone was acting like he wasn't even there. But he just kept doing his speech. Didn't slow him down. Didn't falter. He just kept on no matter what everyone else was doing.

 

[Shevek]

An Indian Chief I knew would go up to a microphone, and just wait like a statue until people got seriously worried and you could hear a pin drop. Then he would speak so softly that everyone had to focus to hear him at all.