High-Functioning Question

Kind of an awkwardly awful bummer when your answer to "well, is he at least high- functioning?" question is "no."

While the extension of that answer could be "...at least not yet...the doctors and therapists says he's pretty impacted...but you know...we aren't palm readers and he still can't communicate three-word-phrases simultaneously or initiate even a 'hi mama' on his own yet," the shortest and easiest to cough out is more often than not "no."

Consequently, that "at least part" lays the concrete between the bricks that separate me from that asker--the one who is trying to do right, but doesn't know she/he has slipped because that "at least part" assumes that there is a hierarchy of human worthiness. It delegitimizes the human, segregating her/him by categorizing her/him into the box of "fit" and "unfit" for survival.

That "at least part" is a barbaric thought.

It's a violent thought.

The user might not be violent, but the larger implications behind the words induce violent acts embedded in our treatment of autistic individuals in the medical setting, the educational setting, and on the playground.

I guess the question here is "but what should I say to a person who discloses an experience to me that seems heavy to me, since I don't have the vocabulary of their experience to participate fully in a conversation about that experience?" You could try "seems like a cool kid to me!" or "he's handsome" or "dude, tell me more! What's a day-week like in your household?" Starting a conversation with genuine complimentary observations and curiosity is always better than attempting to use a lingo that you haven't researched, rehearsed, or lived. #autismpolitics#subculturedivides#fuckhierarchy