If only I was more...

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I think it's wrong that people are taught to be proud of who they are just because of what they can do. I think that when autistic people say "I am proud of who I am because I have a lot of intellectual skills," then it does send an insulting message to people who either don't have them or don't think they have them. (Autistic people aren't alone in this, by the way: Physically disabled people do it pretty often too. And some intellectually disabled people say they're more worthwhile than people with fewer people skills than they have, which of course can be hurtful to autistics.) Basing one's sense of self-worth on being better than someone else at something or on having a skill has consequences for whoever a person is being described as better than or whoever does not have that skill.

I don't know what your intellectual skills are, but I know that you are a worthwhile person (because I don't believe in non-worthwhile people.) I went to special ed as well. One of the first friends I ever made was one of the people you would call a "ret*d" (which does hurt them to be called as much as it hurts you to be called it, by the way) ? her IQ score (and I don't put much stock in IQ tests, by the way) was probably around 20, she was also autistic, and she did not show any outward savant abilities. And she was quite a worthwhile person. All of my current friends are disabled in some way (most autistic). They are all worthwhile people and it's not because of some "special talent". I have also felt inferior to people because of lacking some skill that other people were saying made them worthwhile. But it wasn't true; skills aren't what makes a person worthwhile.

Most disabled people (of any kind) are taught to view ourselves as worthless, and it sounds like you get a fair amount of that. It's not true, though. Even if you feel worthless, it doesn't make you worthless. And concentrating on a skill to make you feel worthwhile ? even if you gained that skill, if you lose it later on you'll have to deal with feeling worthless again.

I am not meaning to sound like I'm telling you what to do or what to think, though. I just know that really hanging onto the idea that a skill is what makes you worthwhile is a very temporary thing and there are more lasting things to base your sense of value on. I also know that's not easy to learn, particularly in a society that looks down on you as "less than other people" for being disabled. (I don't mean that skills are bad things to have, just that a person's intrinsic value isn't based on what skills they have.) But it's possible to learn it, and from what I've seen, people who do eventually learn it (and it takes most people years) end up happier than people who are always looking for a skill to hang onto as proof that they're worth something.

I also know that a few messages like this won't automatically destroy all the messages you're getting from everywhere else that say you're not worthwhile. So don't feel bad if none of us manage to make you feel better. But whether your IQ score or any similar rating is 10 or 210, or where you are in your grade level (and you could just be being undereducated, by the way ? special ed taught me several grade levels below where I'd been before I came there, just because they had lousy teaching), doesn't make a single bit of difference to me, at any rate, in viewing you as worthwhile.



You might have, and you might not have. Simply being autistic, regardless of IQ or other measures (or supposed measures) of intellect, is enough to get people called a "ret*d" and a "psycho" by the other kids, and high-IQ kids can end up in special ed as well. I get called a "ret*d" and a "psycho" just walking down the street, but people who know me tend to consider me fairly intelligent. (I don't really like being considered "really intelligent" or "really unintelligent", frankly; I'd rather just be considered me.) And I was put in special ed and institutions and stuff and have been through a fair bit of crap in my life.

I think, though, that getting out of school, moving out, and knowing people who valued me for what I was rather than what I could or couldn't do helped me a lot. And I'm completely bad at most expected skills for a person my age. So (and this ended up needing to be fought for) I have an assistant here (in my own place) every day who helps me with things most people consider pretty basic. I no longer see that as a horrible thing, though — it's just part of the way I am. There are people who'd consider me a leech and a drain on taxpayers for not being able to do some things, but that's their problem; I'm not less than them just because I can't (in the current setup of society) do a lot of the things that they do without using help that they consider strange. I never thought, by the way, that I'd ever encounter people who understood and valued me as I was, but I've encountered a few and that has made a fair amount of difference in reversing the messages I'd gotten up till then which was that I was the worst person in the world and better off dead. I now don't see myself as better or worse than anyone else, and I'm starting to (for the first time since I started school, really) be happy.