Autistics Speaking Day

…was officially on November 1 but I missed it so I’m posting something about it here now, although I have not registered my blog as one of the participants. The purpose of this special day…

How it works…

“The plan is that on November 1st social networking sites like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, as well as YouTube and  blogging sites will see a huge increase in the posts of autistic people.  We will post links to as many of these as we can to share the works of the autistic people.  Our hope is that this will help promote autism awareness and autism acceptance.  If you are a blogger or own a website, you can write a post on or around November 1st for Autistics Speaking Day and we will share the posts through this blog, Twitter, and Facebook.  Everyone is free to participate in ASDay however they want.  Some will just read through the posts, some will help to distribute the posts, and some will actively write them.”

So, I’m doing my bit to help spread the word, even if it is well after the official date.

Articulacy and feeling “stuck”…

I’ve also been reading some of the blogs listed on the main site (click on the banner above). In fact I’m feeling quite overwhelmed at the moment by the articulacy of the various blogs I read, excited by the many things that resonate with me about the experiences and feelings described within them but frustrated at my own inadequacy at literary self-expression. There’s so many things I want to say too but the words just won’t flow, which is my usual reaction to such blogs and why I can never manage to write comments on the blogs I really like. Thank goodness a “Like” button is on so many blogs now. 😉

Perhaps this is not the right time for me to be attempting to write a decent blog as I’m feeling so “stuck”. I have so many half formed thoughts and emotions that never make it to complete sentences on a page. It’s hard to write what I really feel and just let the words flow (which I’m attempting to do now) as my automatic censors get in the way — “what will people think?” or “I can’t write that, it’s too personal” or “it sounds fake (even though it’s not)” — STOP!

As I’m thinking the words I can feel the back of my throat constricting, a weird physical response to a mental stimulus. Yes, I know I have “throat chakra” issues — a fear of self expression subconsciously instilled throughout my childhood and early adulthood by constant conditioning — “oh, don’t be silly”,  “stop being so sensitive”, “you can’t say that!”, “you’re old enough to have more sense!”, “stop arguing!”, “you don’t know what you’re talking about”, “hmmm, I don’t think so (doubt about what I’ve said, forcing me to show proof)”, “you don’t understand” — the types of things possibly heard by many other children and adults in various situations with no long lasting detrimental effects, except perhaps for the “oversensitive” like me. Stuttering since the age of about 3 years old hasn’t helped either …so yeah, I definitely have issues revolving around communication that are tied up with self-esteem.

It also takes me so much time to try to express myself in writing (and sometimes when speaking due to stuttering) to get the words just right. A short post like this can take hours (this one did) as it involves editing and re-editing to make sure I’ve presented my thoughts correctly, to reduce people’s tendency to see what they think I’ve written instead of what I really mean …an impossible task really as people will always perceive things differently, no matter what. Therein lies another problem with communication in general, in all circles of life.

This is too exhausting …and probably pointless so I’ll stop now.

Anyway, regardless of my inane ramblings here, please take the time to read some of the wonderfully enlightening contributions to Autistics Speaking Day.