World Suicide Prevention Day as an autistic person

Two weeks, that's how long it's been since myself and many autistic advocates (who have been going at this for longer than I have) began fighting Spectrum 10K because of their behaviour and unwillingness to listen to the autistic community. 

That fight is still ongoing, and I am tired.

Yesterday I turned on my laptop and saw a post about a study relating autistic people to insects. I saw screenshots from "autism mom" blogs talking about how their life was so hard because of their child. Then I saw the video of a police officer kicking an autistic child to the ground.

It takes a lot of strength for me to believe I have a place in this world when things like this happen all the time. There is always something that degrades and belittles autistic lives and no matter how much we fight, advocate and educate, it doesn't seem to get better. You do a search on "autistic child arrested" and there are countless articles of autistic children being assaulted by police officers. In the US autistic adults, especially black males, are shot and/or murdered.

All of this is a fight that we seem to be taking on alone. I've followed countless advocacy non profits who haven't ever spoken about autistic issues. They've never spoken out online and so many nuerotypicals leave us to fight alone. It is really heartbreaking.

This is why, when World Suicide Prevention day comes around, it feels like a sham. There are countless posts about talking to people and ringing helplines, all retweeted by the very people who don't stand with us. Companies who don't hire nuerodiverse adults speak about mental health in the workplace, medical professionals who are often abelist support the posts about not ending your life. In my eyes, they are all filthy hypocrits. 

I feel like the autistic community is being left behind by society more and more. On a personal level I feel the strain of having to fight harder the older I get. Last year I decided my burn out was so bad, I needed to fight for myself and get accommodations to work from home. This fell flat immediately and I felt absolutely isolated and humiliated.

In an effort to support the next generation against the same problems, I joined a mentoring program to help kids and teens. Instead of support and a positive environment, however, the project was dominated by nuerotypical professionals who gave abelist advice, didn't pay autistic mentors on time and leaked our data.

These fights are constant, and for a world that apparently cares so much about suicide prevention, we are often left shouting into the void, unheard.

Suicide Prevention isn't just a helpline number or a trip to the GP. It is the following and more:

-nuerodiversity training done by nuerodiverse people in schools and workplaces

-nuerotypicals being good allies and standing with autistic people 

-medical researchers listening to what the community classes as support instead of publishing harmful studies

-Autistics being understood instead of questioned or disbelieved

-parents of autistic children advocating instead of being martyrs

-the media giving air time to actually autistic people instead of parents of autistic children

Until the issues get fixed, World Suicide Prevention Day will mean very little to those struggling. We have been asking for help for many years with little effect, so if you truly care, please start listening.