A couple days ago a well known rapper, 50 Cent made a remark on his twitter page in a response to a tweet saying, ”yeah just saw your picture fool you look autistic.” Naturally this caused a lot of emotion within the autism community and upset many fans.
Holly Robinson Peete, an actress and respected autism advocate, immediately wrote a letter to 50 Cent urging him to realize the damage in using the word “autistic” by possibly turning it into a negative insult.
Holly writes, “I hope you can see how what you might see as a benign insult-or not- was so randomly hurtful, immature and misinformed. Maybe you are naive or indifferent as to how many of your fans might be deeply and personally offended by your insult. At the very least-can you please delete it? If you’ve read your mentions today I am sure you have felt the wrath of autism parents. We are no joke. Neither is autism. We are not about to let you attempt to make “autistic” the new “R-word” under our watch.”
So what does autistic look like?
Honestly, I’m not sure what autistic looks likes. You will NEVER find the same child or an adult with autism that is alike. Autism affects everyone differently. With that said, the experiences I have with the girls autism puts everything into perspective. (I know a lot of families have difference experiences and struggles.)
Here is a glimpse to what autism looks like from all sides.
  • Autistic looks like: a little girl wanting to be part of a group of friends but has a hard time with social ques.
  • Autistic looks like: wanting to communicate how you feel, if your hungry, or simply just to say “I’m tired.”
  • Autistic looks like: a world with scary noises, different offensive smells, weird looking objects, wanting to touch everything, not wanting to touch certain things and gets overwhelmed quickly.
  • Autistic looks like: the need to repeat everything just to feel calm and secure.
  • Autistic looks like: the potential meltdown of the century is around the corner for a simple issue, because your body just can’t process the issue to stay calm.
  • Autistic looks like: safety concerns are thrown out the window–wanting to run in the road, touching fire, jumping off a high playground equipment, running in front of swings while someone is swinging.
Then we have a different side of autism that we get to experience with the girls.
  • Autism is unconditional love and affection.
  • Autism is a way to see the world with different views from all directions.
  • Autism is fascinating.
  • Autism is mysterious.
  • Autism is a funny perspective that you would never see.
  • Autism is out of the box thinking.

So this is what autism looks like! Two beautiful little girls!


Michaela

Melanie


This post was originally published on Life's Little Puzzle and is reposted here with permission.