I was going back through the ASE website this morning, looking over an article that I probably wrote six months ago, and was taken aback by the kind of language I used and things I said.
WOW, you guys. My understanding, not only of autism but also of the Autistic perspective, has evolved so much in the past year. To take that one page for example, I had to go back and switch everything to identity first language, get rid of functioning labels, and completely eliminate some things I'd said about empathy - and that was just in one short article! I have little doubt that the rest of the website is in dire need of editing, too.
I knew I had grown in my understanding, but I had no idea how exponentially I had done so until I went back and looked back at the words of my past self. And I'm not the only one who has experienced this. Those of you whose were diagnosed or whose children were diagnosed a long time ago will understand what I'm talking about with this rapid growth of undersanding. If you go and look at the early blog posts of Ariane at Emma's Hope Book, or Jess at Diary of a Mom, or even The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism, you'll see a huge change between their thoughts then and now, as Ariane wrote a great post about. Those of you whose diagnosis experiences have been recent may be just starting on this curve. Believe us when we tell you, it is steep, but it is well worth traveling.
I will not deride my past self for having held mistaken beliefs. Two years ago, despite having grown up with an Autistic sister, I knew next to nothing about autism. Now, Caley and I run a Facebook page and website explaining autistic people. The growth I have gone through in that time is incredible, and I hope it never ceases, because I am always going to be willing to learn and the moment that we think we know everything there is to know about autism and have found "the one Truth" is the moment we cease to know much of anything at all.
-Creigh
WOW, you guys. My understanding, not only of autism but also of the Autistic perspective, has evolved so much in the past year. To take that one page for example, I had to go back and switch everything to identity first language, get rid of functioning labels, and completely eliminate some things I'd said about empathy - and that was just in one short article! I have little doubt that the rest of the website is in dire need of editing, too.
I knew I had grown in my understanding, but I had no idea how exponentially I had done so until I went back and looked back at the words of my past self. And I'm not the only one who has experienced this. Those of you whose were diagnosed or whose children were diagnosed a long time ago will understand what I'm talking about with this rapid growth of undersanding. If you go and look at the early blog posts of Ariane at Emma's Hope Book, or Jess at Diary of a Mom, or even The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism, you'll see a huge change between their thoughts then and now, as Ariane wrote a great post about. Those of you whose diagnosis experiences have been recent may be just starting on this curve. Believe us when we tell you, it is steep, but it is well worth traveling.
I will not deride my past self for having held mistaken beliefs. Two years ago, despite having grown up with an Autistic sister, I knew next to nothing about autism. Now, Caley and I run a Facebook page and website explaining autistic people. The growth I have gone through in that time is incredible, and I hope it never ceases, because I am always going to be willing to learn and the moment that we think we know everything there is to know about autism and have found "the one Truth" is the moment we cease to know much of anything at all.
-Creigh
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