Social failings and such...

I really hate not being understood.

Yesterday in class my phone randomly shut off. I always keep it on and set to vibrate just in case there's an emergency. I was fiddling with it whilst I was waiting for the rest of the class to finish up a quiz, trying to make sure it was still working, and I ended up being told off.

I hand-wrote the text of this post in my notes - I was sick to my stomach and almost tearing up, just because a professor thinks I was trying to disrespect him. It's things like that - little situations where I do something that is misconstrued - that make me really unsure of myself as a person.

I really have never been too good with making mistakes to begin with. When I was a kid, I would get so frustrated with myself that I would scream and cry. Much to my parents' dismay, I would even do this in school, which made things rough for me at Somerville Elementary. Naturally, this means I take social criticisms really hard, like this.

I never, ever intend to disrespect anybody. Things like this, however, are very hard for me to deal with, because I end up being perceived as a bad person, which I don't think I am. I just wish other people could see through my social mistakes and understand the person behind them.

New Reading: Aspergirls by Rudy Simone

I ordered Rudy Simone's book Aspergirls, and it got here last week. I can't wait to read it and see what it holds in store for me! I'd be reading it right now if I didn't have to read about the Confederacy's little-discussed use of African-American troops right now.

I've been skimming it a little bit here and there, though, because now when someone misunderstands me I can pull up a passage from the book and read it to them or have them read it, and suddenly I make more sense to people. It's been really useful in the few days I've owned it.

There are a few quotes that absolutely and completely define me in here that I've come across so far, especially this one:

"Being a goofy but intellectual tomboy is normal in our world."

That's me in a nutshell. That is exactly who I've been my entire life. It's so nice to see that somebody else has pointed that out and described it and put that feeling into words. I used to say to people that growing up, it was more like my younger brother had an older brother than an older sister, or that I was a straight female who acted like a stereotypical male. Now it finally feels normal and I'm not ashamed to be me. A lot of people thought I was weird because I wasn't 'girly' enough, and I never understood why they felt that way. It just made no sense whatsoever.

Thank you for this book, Rudy Simone. I can't wait to read it cover to cover.

Speak Up for Autism!

I think today is an appropriate day to stand up for autism. One side of the blogosphere is telling people to be silent: they think other people should stop social networking for the day to see what it's like to be us. As someone who relies on social networking to communicate, I'm not sure if denying access to the internet is the way to go when that's the easiest way for many autistic people to communicate. If you really wanted to get the point across, wouldn't you make real life interaction harder for yourself than online interaction to be more realistic in depicting our lives?

Therefore, I'm taking the opposite side of the movement and supporting Autism Shout Out today. We have voices - instead of silencing them to make a difference, let's use them! We're speaking - are you listening to us?

(I took a few seconds to draw today's doodle in class. I'm that determined for us to be heard!)