Aspie – a person with Asperger’s syndrome.

I originally posted this image back in October 2017 on my Instagram account. This was around the time I discovered I had Asperger’s. At the time, I didn’t add any comment or reference for it, it was just the image and it kind of went overlooked. I wasn’t ready at that time to really discuss things, I was still making sense of it. I’ve just reposted it this year (2020) as I felt I had something to add to the Mental Health Awareness week discussions going on.

Things have changed a little and a lot since I first posted it. Asperger’s is more likely refered to as being on the highly functional end of the Autistic spectrum.

For me, it was a huge relief in alot of ways. I’ve never been a fan of a label that is used to define a person. But a label that can help you to understand, to assist you with pointing you in the right direction with your research and self learning… this was a ground breaking moment in my life and it has brought me and my family alot of peace and helped ease alot of my anxieties.

I could write alot about this. It really fires up my passion, I love to talk about it to people. It’s a very fitting conversation to have right now too, it’s #mentalhealthawarenessweek after all and it’s also been the launch of the third series of #theaword from the @bbc go watch it from series one if you haven’t already. It offers a really great insight into the realities of Autism for many.

I don’t normally like repetition but I will repeat this… I could write alot about this subject, maybe one day I will. I mean I’d really like to. But here is not the time or place. I am not ashamed, embarrassed and neither do I feel weird or different, even though I am… every single one of us is… part of the greatness of the human race and personalities.

There is simply too much to write and at this time in my life I don’t have the time to be composing all of the detail I would like to write. However, I invite anyone who wishes to discuss this amazing subject with me to do so. Call me (at a reasonable hour), invite me for a social distanced coffee sometime on the local beach, I have alot to say though and I like to talk in a lot of detail… so you may have to bear with me, conversations can be long. Perhaps if I get organised enough I could produce a transcript of the conversations and start to write that book…

Don’t quite believe I’m on an the autistic spectrum because I’m too ‘normal’ well… the good news is… everyone has different traits… some are more pronounced than others, some are simply hidden so I can function, some are deeply supressed and cause alot of emotional pain, some are managed on a constant mental cycle of learnt behaviours.

The thing I’ve learnt is… we all have our own shit. Every one of us. As a supply teacher once taught me when I was eight years old… we are all unique. (I still have the poem I wrote about it from that lesson).

It really is so true though, we are all unique and we should all be allowed and able to celebrate our uniqueness in any way we see fit (apart from hurting people on purpose)… we should be allowed to feel sad, happy, angry, annoyed and feel no judgement. We should be allowed to act ‘weird’ or ‘crazy’ or to say NO If we don’t want to take part in an activity even if it may upset the friend who has asked you. It’s not selfish to allow a full range of emotions and to want to take care of your wellbeing, but explain your reasoning. (Hopefully you won’t be judged, but you most likely will be) but thats ok too, people are ok to judge me as they wish, its their freedom and I accept that too.

I should end this now.

Peace, love and pockets full of fluff,

Mr Arteest x

#aspergers
#aspergerssyndrome
#autism
#autismawareness
#mentalhealth
#mentalhealthawareness
#reachout
#talktopeople
#beunique
#wearealldifferent
#different
#weird
#strange
#aspie
#aspielife
#aspiesofinstagram
#asd