Frustrating: That I am not able to adequately communicate my thoughts through speech, so impatient people assume (unfairly) that I'm unintelligent. Yes, I'm articulate enough here, in writing. Get me on a phone or in person and I fumble and can't grasp the spoken words to my satisfaction. I have an excellent vocabulary, but I cannot...organize it to my liking in the time frame that most people expect in a typical conversation. If they pressure or criticize me, I quickly turn into the likes of an inarticulate idiot, sputtering vehemently. They say that it's very funny when I get mad. :-/
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Carrying on from the previous thread: sometimes I have the wish to be an advocate for other autistics. I miss the autistic people I used to work with as a 'worker' (they were called 'consumers', how sick is that??? I called them clients instead, it sounded more dignified). I don't miss anyone else, just the other autists. I had a dream that I was working there again, only this time I was working with one of the ones they only let me work with once or twice (they quickly curtailed my interactions with my kin when they saw I was on their side). I was communicating with him, in non verbal ways, and we were interacting. I hesitiate to have written this. It isn't professional (fuck their professionalism!!!), and it feels weak somehow. But it bothers me deeply, the way our kind are treated. Frankly, I don't care where on the spectrum they are: they have a right to stim, a right to experience the things they do, and a right to be unique. They have THE SAME BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS that regular people take for granted. I get so upset, I feel so futile. We are autistic, NOT sub-human.

I was lucky; for all that I was smothered and abused, it would have been far, far worse had I been labeled. I am not against labeling per se, hell I like to label and categorize anythign that comes to my attention. If I see a plant, I want to know what it is, what it's related to, etc etc. But when a person becomes nothing more than a label, something to be dehumanized, to excuse inexcuseable behavior to them *because* they're autistic is WRONG.