UNMASKED: Snippets & notes from a lifetime collection of journals (pre-diagnosis).
Advocating for autistic acceptance.
January 28, 1994,
Rediscovering my world fills me with happiness and wonder. I never truly lost it, but maybe I was standing in the doorway of my world looking at mine and others’ (through the doorway). When I went home, I knew I would never lose it, like so many do as they grow up. That alone makes me feel secure. Glad that I glimpsed a vision of other people’s world – helps me relate, gives me new perspectives, helps me appreciate all of life.
Kalpita Pathak
Age 18
COMMENTARY:
There is no place like home. And home is where the heart is. And “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince)
The “others’ world” is the neurotypical, neuroprivileged world. I fought it for so long but ultimately, in order to live, had to visit it *frequently* – school, work, socializing, relationships, running errands, medical care, law enforcement, pretty much every interaction with anyone else.
The irony is that I, like so many autistic people, had no choice but to learn the neurotyical, neuroprivileged perspective. It is literally a matter of survival for us. Yet that same society pathologizes us for not being able to do exactly that (see: double empathy problem). That pathologization demonstrates how our perspective is not considered. We do it for them but they don’t do it for us.
As I’d hoped, however, I didn’t lose my world. And I am so grateful for that. I hope the same for my fellow neurokin.