“Trained in Autism”

When Neurotypical Social Workers, Teachers and Support Workers are all, "It's okay; I get it; I'm trained in autism" to Autistic people, assuming they know something about us that we don't, and that they are some kind of authority in how we ought to be living our lives.

Hmmm. Imagine some saying, "It's okay; I get it; I'm trained in black". Or, "It's okay; I get it; I'm trained in woman".

Let the person or people you're "trained in" choose what's right for them, stop assuming you have special, privileged access to secrets and information to a group of people to which you don’t belong, and please.... stop holding them to YOUR standard!

The latter is so insidiously dangerous it makes my skin crawl. Where lack of eye contact is mistaken for rudeness, stimming is mistaken for antisocial conduct, and special interests are mistaken for restricted obsessions. All of which are regarded as ill and in need of remedying.

Don't pathologise different and perfectly sound and harmless ways of life and being. If you can't accept experiences outside of your own, then something is wrong with YOU and not those you seek to fix.

Your being "trained in autism" doesn't mean anything. I say that it's a red flag, because you arrive in our world dripping with assumptions and pre-conceived and misconceived notions about us, hellbent on changing that which doesn't need to be fixed.

If you aren't Autistic, you may get to the stage where you KNOW a lot about us, but mark my words, you will never truly UNDERSTAND us, for you will never know what it is to experience being Autistic first-hand.

Your interference in Autistic related matters which do not concern you is not welcome.

With that being said, you are free to be a part of our lives, befriend us, and even support us.

So long as you don't micromanage us as though we are incompetent and inferior to you, and so long as you stop assuming you know more about us than we do, we can get on. Until then, BYE!