My safety has always been in writing and art. My creativity in art and writing was celebrated by my family and encouraged, along with my sensitivity. I went to community college thinking I wanted to do art school, but if I was not targeted for my autism and violently raped on my first physical week back to school in 2021, I would have stayed in college and changed my major to journalism, as writing my thoughts freed me of feeling alone and unseen. What I want to say is always clear and precise in my mind, but I often struggle to answer a simple question without jumbling my words or saying the opposite of what I mean, or by having a delayed response to basic communication. While ASD (autism spectrum disorder) does play a part in this, the bigger factor in my circumstance is Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS), a neurological motor speech disorder that has my brain struggle to connect with my body when I am verbally communicating my thoughts. Although I did do speech therapy for years as a child, CAS requires me to work twice as hard (an understatement really) to verbally communicate my thoughts in a way that can be understood by others, even if I think I spoke clearly/correctly. These difficulties affect every aspect of my life and have costed me work opportunities, friendships, romantic relationships, and my personal safety before and after therapy, and my autism and other neurological differences together makes these things even more challenging. That being said, I have a job, friends, and a happy relationship, and more autistic people and people that struggle with apraxia don’t have the same privilege, and the therapy that exists for people like me is never a one-size-fits-all (a topic for another day).

A major indicator of autism is communication difficulties, yet the recognition for the in between of perfect speech and none at all often feels like it isn’t there ... but everyone claims they get that autism is a spectrum. Communication for autistic individuals can be “hindered” in a multitude of ways; misleading or conflicting body language and facial expressions, mismatched-tone, mismatched words, jumbled speech, selective mutism; communication difficulties in autistic people come in many forms that go beyond being a non-speaking autistic individual (who get even less recognition, mind you, despite being the primary stereotype of autism people tend to have in mind). While it still hurts to deal with ableism and ignorance directed towards me, I am not lonely, so the sharing of my story is not being shared for sympathy but for a perspective people aren’t aware of until it’s in front of them. This may be embarrassing to other people, but I was not raised to be ashamed of how I was designed; shame for being myself was only learned after I realized I was being bullied for my differences in private Christian school. Those same kids would later go to Barbados to counsel disabled kids and call it “the best experience”, for their college applications, as if the classmate they bullied out of private school wouldn’t see it.

I speak about Dyspraxia (DCD), and Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) this autism awareness month because it is rare for me to meet an individual that isn’t in the autistic community in some capacity that knows what it is, and it’s even more rare that speech disorders are considered when interacting with people in public and online (even amongst other people that are neurodivergent). We can be written off as weird, high, or have our inteligence assumed when the biggest universe is deep and unending in many autistic people and others who experience developmental disorders that challenge “natural” verbal communication, despite other forms taking more thought and effort to someone without these differences. For many autistic people, this alone makes people stay home and stay inside that place inside us only we ourselves understand. Many people don’t always have the patience or education to understand or learn that which doesn’t come easy to them, no matter if its profound, hilarious, straightforward, thoughtul, kind and/or intelligent that expression of thought is. Why is this always (quietly, often without requiring any accountability from the other communicating party) blamed on the disabled person?

My message to autistic people this Autism Awareness Month is that people’s lack of recognition for your authenticity, your wisdom, intelligence, talent, etc, is not lost on those who have the knowledge or desire to understand you, and that what you have to express is valuable. People judge what they don’t understand, and while it may be natural, cboosing natural over expanding one’s knowledge can show a lack of self-education, empathy, and/or weakness that people tend to freak out about not having when disability “confronts” them in the face. Any anger you feel is valid, and your patience with not being accommodated ishould be recognized on a larger scale. It’s not right, and to non-disabled individuals : I am not afraid to say that the lack of understanding of disability is a nasty failure in society that is a direct consequence of the false individualism promoted under capitalism. Lack of empathy and lack of education has led the United States to being a nation that starves and kills innocents openly and freely. Yes, we have been lied to, but when someone who is being truthfful and authentic people still don’t believe them, and believed suffering is not enough cause for action to many… the grip of compliance that enables the actions of our leaders isn’t just on our leaders anymore.

To all people today: we must unlearn shame in what our economy and leaders consider “weakness”and refuse to choose ignorance, or we will never come up with anything new or make the necessary movements to fix a system that many people have realized is clearly broken. If you read this far, thank you; I wish you safety and clarity. And again to my fellow disabled people: I see you and love you as you are, even if we are different in opinion and in experiences. My autism makes it hard for me to comfort others sometimes, and I don’t know how to comfort anyone really with how scary all of this is. I just want you to know that someone loves you and knows your value, and that I have not stopped caring, and the change we need in the world isn’t on you, no matter how hard that’s drilled into your skull. Help if you’re able of course, but if you’re disabled and/or marginalized and cannot, just express yourself the best you can; your ideas and humanity is powerful.

- EJ Shuemake