Tag: #posAutive

Pride Positive

Pride Positive

by alexforshaw ♥ 4 Comments

I’m proud and I’m not ashamed of it. Pride attracts a lot of negative responses: it’s named as one of the seven mortal sins in the Christian faith and it’s all too often conflated with egoism and hubris. I will argue that feeling pride is a good thing, a positive response to positive actions and circumstances.

To begin we need to define what pride is, and the first part of that will be to remove any confusion by identifying what it is not. Pride is not the excessive, self-absorbed arrogance of hubris. It is not the over-estimation of one’s own abilities, nor is it the egoistic self-congratulation of the narcissist.

Pride is a recognition of one’s own worth, that deep satisfaction which results from a job well done, an uplifting feeling of self-esteem. Pride is the natural step beyond simple self-acceptance: once you have learned to accept yourself as you are then it follows that you may begin to like yourself, to derive pleasure from aspects of your identity. I put it to you that being proud of who you are, of what you have achieved and what you may be capable of, is an act of love: to love yourself is to feel pride in yourself.

Pride is entirely a positive emotion. It arises when you feel good about yourself, when you feel worthy. It is empowering. In many ways pride is opposite to embarrassment; where embarrassment is the acknowledgment of failure, pride comes from success. Being proud is a celebration.

So when I say I am proud to be autistic, proud to be a trans woman, proud to be Lancastrian and proud to be married to Anne it is an indication of the high value I place on these things and the degree to which they form part of my identity. My pride is my internal celebration of them, my recognition that they shape me and make me the person I am. My pride gives me self-belief and the strength to deny any who would put me down. They cannot belittle me because I know who and what I am and where I come from: I know I’m worth something.

Trust and the Poetic Form

Trust and the Poetic Form

by alexforshaw ♥ 8 Comments

Trust is such an important concept. I couldn’t get by without the trust I have in my wife to handle certain aspects of my life. And trust extends to the readers I have here: I trust you to interpret what I write in the way I intended it.

That goes especially for my poetry (not that I have a particularly high opinion of my scribblings, as I’ve mentioned before). But still, I use poetry to capture images in my mind and can only hope that some echo of what I see id transferred to my readers. Some thoughts are easier to represent in a form other than prose. Poetry provides the means to stimulate a reader into an expectation of an interpretation beyond the literal.

This strikes me as ironic given my own literal inclination. The strange thing is that to me what I write in poetic form is literal. It’s a translation of what I see in my mind’s eye into words.

The potential problem is that it might be too dependent on my own experiences, my own response to particular words and phrases. But I persist because I trust that my readers will understand my meanings. After all, I believe that we have more in common than not.

Expressions of PosAutivity #AutismPositivity2014

Expressions of PosAutivity #AutismPositivity2014

by alexforshaw ♥ 11 Comments

Autism Positivity Flash Blog 2014

In the three-or-so years since I started this blog after recognizing I was autistic, I have come a long way in my understanding of autism and of myself. I have found myself, together with other autistic people, parents, advocates and allies, as a member of an extended online community that in my experience sets the standard for friendliness and mutual support.

Most of all, I feel fully accepted by my peers for who I am. Among my circle of friends, most of whom I have never met in person, I feel safe. These online spaces — blogs, social media — are a kind of refuge to which I can retreat when Real Life threatens to overwhelm me. In honor of that here is my contribution to the 2014 Autism Positivity Flash Blog.

Threads

Like the Norse of long ago
Whose Norns would weave the threads of lives,
Warp and woof and who could know
When theirs would end with flashing knives,
Live your life from day to day
As if each sunrise were your last.
Friends and love: for these I pray;
All else is moot, the runes are cast.

“God does not play dice,” it’s said,
And Chaos rules the universe.
‘Til the day you wind up dead
You play the hand you’re dealt at birth.
Should you feel you have no choice
And all is written in the stars,
Listen to your inner voice;
Accept yourself for who you are.

New threads join: new friends, a wife,
And how it ends I cannot say.
Grasp the threads that form your life
And weave your pattern your own way.

Coda

Discovering that I am autistic was a positive experience for me. I was finally able to understand why I am different from so many of the people around me. It gave me a structure on which to build my self-understanding. From understanding grew acceptance which blossomed into love: I love my autistic self.

As I have mentioned many times before I have made a number of friends within the autism community. From the first person with whom I connected online, Bird, my circle grew and there are too many loving, supportive friends for me to mention them all. But it seems unfair not to recognize at least some of the people who hold a special place in my heart. So, in no particular order, …

(I know there are many people I have not mentioned, and I apologize to those I did not list here.)

Being #posAutive: Supporting All Friends of Autistic People

Being #posAutive: Supporting All Friends of Autistic People

by alexforshaw ♥ 22 Comments

EDITED to include ischemgeek‘s words (underlined below) which explained things more clearly and succinctly than my own.

EDITED to improve the focus of this post on my main point by removing the direct reference to a tweet by JRE.

During yesterday’s #boycottAutismSpeaks Twitterbomb I read a tweet that criticized the action for being against a target. Now, I support the criticism and boycott of Autism Speaks for a number of reasons which I explained in my previous post. But it started me thinking about the many individuals and organizations who work hard in support of Autistic people by providing information and assistance, and what a positive force they are.

My idea is to have a day where we shout out about all the great work these people do on our behalf. A “Thanks for being allies/thanks for speaking out/thanks for your voice/these are people you should be reading” thing.

I realize I’m not going to be able to put something together without help, so I’m asking. If you want to help me put together an event to celebrate all the many people who work to improve the lives of Autistic people then please get in touch.

Together I hope we can broadcast our message loud enough to drown out the likes of Autism Speaks. Who’s with me?