Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Lavender Darcangelo. Lavender shares her personal journey and insights on autism, blindness, and societal perceptions of disability. To improve readability and optimize the post for search engines, headings and internal links have been added. The content itself remains unchanged.
Challenging Perceptions of Weakness
What if the things we perceive as weakness are actually strengths in the big picture? What if children who exhibit challenging behavior are actually trying to communicate something deeper? Those were some of the questions that I’ve always had as a kid that I didn’t know how to verbalize. I had a lot of struggles learning in school. I was given the proper training as a blind person such as orientation and mobility, where you use a white cane to travel, memorizing tactile and auditory landmarks/cues. At the time, I was diagnosed with a now outdated form of autism, but it was overlooked because of how capable I appeared. I was given a lot of tools that typically work for the blind, where my sensory differences due to autism would overlap, working against the tools I was given. This, I did not know how to communicate with my caregivers, which was why I came across more rebellious the older I got.
Navigating Independence and Misunderstandings
My caregivers at the time only wanted what was best for me: to be more independent. But what if that means dismissing the components of my autism that went against society’s definition of independence? When I would ask for extra help or an accommodation that seemed a bit far-fetched to them, they have said things like, “You need to figure things out on your own more. We’re not here to do the work for you.” So I began to have a belief that exhibiting the components of my autism meant going backwards in my growth. I believed that a lot of things were my fault and I became utterly confused about where the line is drawn in the types of accommodations you need.
Questions About Responsibility
What if I was traveling alone and I got in trouble with the authorities because of a communication issue? How do we know who is responsible when we can never truly know another person’s level of trying their best? We are a dismissive society, and all of these questions were what led up to my unhappiness. The components of my blindness were easy for people to acknowledge, but I felt like I wasn’t allowed to truly acknowledge the way my brain processes information. For more on navigating life with autism and chronic illness, check out this post.
A Life-Changing Connection
It wasn’t until I met my boyfriend when I started thinking about the questions I had about the world that I buried a long time ago. I met him almost two years ago, shortly after I got re-diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. I was having a rough night because I was four years out of high school and I was very unsure of where I should go if I needed to expand my horizons. So I looked up his videos on YouTube.
Finding Validation
At the time we were only starting to know each other and I heard that he does graphic design, is an aspiring writer, and makes a lot of inspirational videos. In the first video I clicked on, he talked about how it’s ok to do things differently. He said that as long as the job gets done, it doesn’t matter the how. That it isn’t about going with modern trends; it’s about what you offer differently, and that what is perceived as failure or avoidance is actually just a million ways to do something differently.
For an example of creating inclusive spaces for people with disabilities, read about our Multiple Disabilities Club on Clubhouse.
Breaking Free from Societal Norms
We, as a society, have the tendency to walk away from things that are uncommon. We push away what we don’t understand when moving forward really means listening to what it’s telling you. We want to stop something because it looks wrong.
Letting Go of Straight Lines
I guess you could say that a part of my ego died. What my boyfriend said not only opened up flood gates; it’s as if I went numb, running on autopilot. It was like I didn’t know what reality was anymore—again! But what would you do if you were told there never was a straight line at all?
About the Author: Lavender Darcangelo is a passionate advocate for disability rights and awareness. She shares her experiences as a person with both blindness and autism to promote understanding and acceptance. For another perspective on living with multiple disabilities, see this post about life as a Christian with multiple disabilities.
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Reblogged this on How Autism Self-Advocacy Revolutionalized My Life and commented:
Unfortunately, this is an all too common experience for many people who don’t get diagnosed until adulthood, or who were diagnosed as children back when society’s understanding of autism was “in the dark ages”. Far too many of us adults on teh spectrum can relate far too well to this post!!