When the 1930s Return
Autistic People and Parents Go First
The System Was Never Built for Me
I have been aware — and I have communicated — the entire time that the system doesn’t like me. Not just because I’m a woman. Not just because I’m LGBTQIA+. Not just because I’m poor, outspoken, or politically inconvenient.
I am all of those things. But the one identity that consistently triggers rejection, punishment, and silence fastest is being autistic.
Being autistic means:
I communicate differently and often "too late" due to processing delays and neurological timing. I get frustrated at the speed but enjoy the accuracy.
I struggle with interoception (sensing hunger, exhaustion, illness) — so I speak when I can, not always when others want or how they want.
I have heightened sensory and emotional processing, which leads to shutdowns or overloads that are biological, not behavioral.
Despite what people think, autism is not a behavior disorder — it is a communication, regulation, and sensory processing disorder.
30+ Hard Facts You Can't Ignore
Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting communication and regulation (Tager-Flusberg et al., 2005).
Autistic people often suffer from delayed melatonin release, making sleep deeply dysregulated (Tordjman et al., 2013).
50–80% of autistic individuals experience chronic sleep difficulties (Richdale & Schreck, 2009).
Autistic shutdown is a form of neurological self-protection during overwhelm — not rudeness or refusal to engage (Raymaker et al., 2020).
Autistic people die 16–30 years earlier than neurotypical peers (Autistica UK).
Suicide risk is 9x higher in autistic adults, especially women (Hirvikoski et al., 2016).
77% of autistic adults in the UK reach crisis level waiting for basic social care (Times UK, 2024).
Over 80% of autistic women go undiagnosed until adulthood, increasing lifelong trauma.
Over 70% of autistic adults have co-occurring mental health diagnoses, many misattributed to personality flaws.
Diagnostic overshadowing causes autistic symptoms to be mistaken for unrelated issues, delaying care
Most mental health systems are built on neurotypical communication standards, excluding autistic voices (Botha & Cage, 2022).
Parents of autistic children often experience PTSD symptoms, especially with little or no support (Weiss et al., 2014). Think being at war 24/7 and having to cook, clean, work, and survive.
Autistic mothers are more likely to experience postpartum depression and social isolation (Pohl et al., 2020).
During COVID-19, autistic families experienced severe regression, stress, and isolation (Fatehi et al., 2023).
Most autistic people delay asking for help due to fear of being misunderstood or shamed (Crane et al., 2019).
Autistic children were among the first targeted for extermination in Nazi Germany under Aktion T4 ([Lifton, 1986]).
Hans Asperger sent autistic children to institutions where they were killed (Czech, 2018).
Parents of disabled and autistic children were sterilized, imprisoned, or institutionalized alongside their children (Buck v. Bell; Alberta Eugenics Board).
The United States forcibly sterilized over 60,000 disabled people, many of them autistic or mentally ill.
Institutionalization rates increase during economic collapse for those with intellectual or sensory disabilities.
Food insecurity, climate change, and housing crises disproportionately affect neurodivergent families.
Sleep deprivation in autistic parents leads to severe cognitive and emotional dysfunction, including loss of language.
Executive dysfunction in autism isn’t laziness — it’s a brain-based inability to start or switch tasks.
More than 85% of autistic adults are unemployed or underemployed, despite capability.
Autistic students are punished at higher rates in school systems for communication differences.
Social rejection and burnout lead autistic adults to shut down or disappear from community life entirely.
Therapies often focus on masking, not authentic support, which increases suicide risk.
Many autistic people are rejected by their families, partners, or peers when they stop masking.
Being misunderstood repeatedly causes trauma, which compounds shutdown and isolation.
Caregivers of autistic people are more likely to be blamed when systems fail.
Parents often give up asking for help when community responses are cold, patronizing, or punishing.
Every autistic crisis looks like "too late" to someone who never listened when we said it gently. It can because they are neurodivergent too, but that doesn’t make either needs disappear.
We ask because we want to survive, understanding the world doesn’t think we often need to.
When autistic people ask for help, it’s not manipulation. It’s not drama. It’s not convenience. It isn’t us trying to ask for too much or push boundaries. It’s because it’s our last option and you’re the person we trusted.
It is communication — often delayed, sometimes clumsy, always vulnerable.
If we are punished for asking, we stop talking. We shut down. We withdraw. We go silent. Not out of malice — out of neurological self-protection. Our brain retreats but the tears are often the only words it can speak.
When you judge us for asking late, asking at a bad time, asking too much, or asking awkwardly, what you’re really saying is:
"I only care about your pain when it's easy for me to carry."
You may feel that way too when hurt by someone. That’s valid. Your boundaries and needs are important. It’s just also why most autistic people survive alone.
Something to remember is the loud, political, protective, and women autistic people are here when the world gets worse — and it is getting worse — we will be the first to be forgotten. Again. Our children they take will remembered, and hurt, but we will be forgotten.
So we rely on each other. We build community. We name our needs in public.
Not because it’s safe.
Not because it can be done clean.
But because it’s necessary.
Believe us, if we could manage it on our own, we would.
We have been sounding the alarm for years. And we are still here.
We are not the burden.
Being unsupported, dismissed, and forgotten — that is the crisis that caused our dehumanization to start and perpetuates it.
There is a reason our community is a bunch of solitary places together is because many of us will have to figure out who we are too much for and who we aren’t if we are going to survive.
As always you put my heart and mind into words as an autistic pansexual native woman. Much love to you, you brilliant activist. Thank you for your dedication to our country and its people.
All of this. Very accurate and very true