Re-Investing in the Future: Autistic Artistic Carnival Coming Soon this June 18, 2019 for Autistic Pride Day

Introducing...... Drum Roll Please... 2019 All New, All Inclusive, All Ages, All Parts of Autistic Culture from The Autistic Pride Day Event 6 years in a row, from 2010 to 2015...Autistic Pride Day, June 18... It’s the One, the Only, the Much More Multi-Million Idea in a Lifetime, Hosted by Drive Mom Crazy Blog, by theamazinJ: Autistic Artistic Carnival 2019
Introducing…… Drum Roll Please…
2019 All New, All Inclusive, All Ages,
All Parts of Autistic Culture from
The Autistic Pride Day Event 6 years
in a row, from 2010 to 2015…Autistic Pride Day, June 18…
It’s the One, the Only, the Much More Multi-Million Idea in a Lifetime,
Hosted by Drive Mom Crazy Blog, by theamazinJ:
Autistic Artistic Carnival
2019

Submissions for this year’s reinvestment in the future for the Autistic Artistic Carnival is as it always was from 2010 to 2015. Any Autistic person from the all ages from youth to Adult to Seniors, from all parts of the Autistic culture regardless. It does not matter if the Autistic individual lives independently as an adult, lives with their parents, lives among their Direct Support Professionals, lives among Shared Living, Lives in a Residential School, goes to Public School, goes to Private School, goes to a Charter School, is a Senior citizen or even a Veteran. Also, anyone can submit as always, not just in the United States. There has been so many people throughout the world who had submitted their art work, films, poetry, writing compositions, brief short stories to keep people’s attentions, music, paintings, photoshop work, media work, scientific work, and for this year to dedicate to the Society for Disability Studies I would like to introduce any Disability Studies Scholars to submit any of their work they want to share in an image or presentation JPEG format for me.

This year is the reinvestment of the Autistic Artistic Carnival where will essentially create huge Autistic Acceptance, however a Tsunami of Human Acceptance across all Neurotribes from autism to autism with intellectual disability to developmental disabilities generally to psychiatric disabilities across the the mental health field. Neurotribes even exist among those who are nonautistic or Neurotypical, but generally speaking this is a socially constructed Neurotribe based out of the world. This year, more than ever, it will be a year for Disability Awareness Celebration and Acceptance no matter what!

Please email me your submissions to autisticprideday@gmail.com

by June 10, 2019

A Wild Journey to Acceptance

Hi Everyone,

(TRIGGER WARNING: There is noted talk of mental health crisis in this post)

I know it has been a while since I posted on this blog. It has been a long time because I am finishing my Master of Arts in Disability Studies at CUNY School of Professional Studies this Spring Semester 2019. I also turn 40 years old this year. I have been through a lot since 1997 to 2018. From that whole time which is a 20 year lifespan, I made a lot of stupid mistakes in my life, was very naive, and even went through 2 psychiatrists during that time. The first psychiatrist during that time of the first 8 years was a complete mess and utter disaster which caused the beginning of a living nightmare for me.

During the second half the 20 year lifespan, was seeing a different psychiatrist to try to stop the living nightmare from occurring. The living nightmare continued unfortunately until very recently in October 2018, when it started to subside and ease more and more. Now, I have to clean up everything that happened from 1997 when I first started my undergraduate schooling to October 2018 and take responsibility for everything. The best thing I can say will help me through this process is finishing my capstone to complete my Master of Arts degree in Disability Studies.

One of the things I learned in graduate school at CUNY is that I learned the process of coming up with my own ideas and learned that I don’t have agree with everyone while certainly I don’t even have to disagree with everyone either. I just have to come up with my own ideas and add to the discussions that are already happening. I also learned what I want to do with Disability studies. A strength is to use my knowledge and passion in Disability studies to use media like film to create media for the public to understand the message. I even made my first movie in 2017 when taking a noncredit class at School for Visual Arts in digital filmmaking. I met a friend from School for Visual Arts who is an actor to help me film it. It is on YouTube and this past summer I went to Joey Travolta’s Film Camp in New Jersey where I met someone to help me caption the film. I also do other things too with the paintings I make and the poetry I write as well.

Yet, I also have to learn from all the mistakes I made from 1997 to 2018 as well and there were too many of them. From being too adamant about choosing an undergraduate major as a Freshmen right out of high school to being too ashamed to admit a medication that is used for OCD caused me to be suicidal in Spring 1998. I told medical professionals I was hallucinating because I was too naive and thought telling that sounded better.

I actually did The Moth at the JCC Manhattan for the 2014 Reel Abilities telling my story in less than 5 minutes about my path to autism acceptance starting off with the experience from Spring 1998. It didn’t make it past the dress rehearsal. However, The Moth and the other participants, thought I should have done the final performance telling my story. However, it was the decision of Reel Abilities to choose who they wanted for the final performance. Everyone else loved my story. So, they never chose my story.

Anyway, from Spring 1998 to October 2018, I started on a whole lot of medications that literally distorted my thinking and created a living nightmare. When I finally left the first psychiatrist who started this, I saw a new psychiatrist in 2005 to this present day who wanted to change my medication all that time. This new psychiatrist confirmed what I know now that I am Autistic. However, it took him until October 2018 to change my medication to a different class of medication when the living nightmare finally came to an end.

One can only imagine all the stupidity and mistakes that occurred from 1997 to 2018. However, one can also know the positive things that happened too. I also learned recently since October 2018, sometimes when people see positive changes in the person who starts to feel good about themselves, those people don’t like it especially when they see the person who feels more positive no longer gives their power away. Hence, we then learn who really cares.

Many of the things I did in that 20 year lifespan, I wish I could take back and change, but I can’t. Instead I have to move forward with my life experiences from those 20 years taking the good with the bad. Every experience I had was a learning experience and it was the path I needed to go through whether I like it or not. Whatever experiences I will have in the future from this day moving forward, I will be ready for gaining the wisdom from those past 20 years and never go back to rehash any of those past experiences. They were just experiences I needed to go through to get to the present day.

As I move forward, I have to say that my experiences in graduate school has given me the opportunity to grow tremendously. I even did an unpaid internship as an elective during Spring 2018 for the New York City Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD). I learned so much from the Commissioner of the MOPD, Victor Calise and his whole staff. From that internship, I impressed so many people.

When I put the internship on my LinkedIn account after the semester was over, a connection I had for like 10 years or so, saw it, and emailed me to interview with him. The workplace was very close to where I live and is at the local independent living center. I interviewed with this independent living center and now I am working part time there while I finish my Masters degree. My last semester in graduate school I will be busy doing a lot of reflecting and creating the project I want to do for my capstone. When I graduate this May to receive my Masters degree, I will remember that it will be something I earned and will be proud of that I finally did something for myself without any influences from anyone else. As a professor once told me too, no one can take that away from me.

I will also remember where I came from during the 20 year lifespan that wound up being a living nightmare for not only myself, but my family too. I just need to remember it was the past, and now I can move forward. As I move forward, I can only remember how much I wanted to start graduate school, but couldn’t start right away. So, I took an undergraduate disability studies course at CUNY that the professor teaching it was very impressed with me, and helped me to start my graduate program by writing a recommendation for me to become a Kennedy Fellow for my first semester in graduate school. I can also remember something my professors told me during my first graduate semester at CUNY, to always think broadly and it is okay not to be perfect. I will always remember that. Now, I am a Kennedy Fellow once again as I finish up this degree.

It has been a long journey to get to this point with the new medication and I feel happy.

J

A Poem called “Pride within and without Prejudice”

Pride within and without Prejudice,

by theamazinJ

Must be proud,
without prejudice,
everyone is solid,
everyone’s fluid even with gender,
even with their thoughts,
even with strong willed thoughts
that we all think and think that,
no one is solid enough just to be rich,
no one is solid enough to be you, me, or anything,
everyone is vulnerable,
vulnerable to the point of moving away from you,
moving away from institutional thinking,
moving away from complicity,
moving away from compliance of what
the world wants stemming away from authenticity,
beating us down, beating us, beating us,
until we are all the same
and until no one is different,
and without authenticity,
however, what is authenticity?
Finding you, finding me, finding ourselves
until we are found,
found guts, found what we are.
Everyone has the guts,
everyone has the strength,
speaking to be well,
weaker than weak,
stronger than strong,
all in between.
Have you ever loved someone
so much, and found everyone
never really experienced who you are,
what you are, and think they are?
Maybe that is the problem,
maybe that is the thing that needs fixing,
maybe that is the thing we need,
we need
we need
we need
we need
we need what we want,
we need what we want
we need what we want
we need what we want totally
totally in our strength,
in our strength
to be who we are,
who we are in a world
who wants complicity
in a world who wants compliance
instead of respect,
instead of manners,
instead of receiving and giving and respecting boundaries
to the other person(s) or groups around.
They take our children,
they take our dignity,
they take everything,
but most importantly,
they take our love away,
only to say we have to love
the governing bodies or the complicity of compliance
that does not make sense,
because we are totally impart from that,
we are totally not like that,
and we are totally explicitly
controlled, we are all totally implicitly remarked
and we fight,
when we are told our voices are unreal,
when are communications are invalid and distorted,
and all our thoughts have to be programmed
the way dictators see it
even when dictators don’t recognize it
even when dictators can’t see it,
even when too many look too closely,
even when we just have the right
to freedom of speech regardless how we speak,
regardless what we want to say
to be complicit only to ourselves
compliant to the person we are individually
and never ever strike a match
start a war,
and fight another person
because we don’t like that
or we don’t like it
or we just have it
in the world around us
because we speak for what we want,
and it’s always nothing about us, without us.
I love so much you
take it or leave it,
but never understand it,
because you never will
only for complicity
and for the unwillful act
to dictate and the unfulfilling
rights to be struck by a exemplary probation prohibition,
even when we are all really the person we are born as
and no one can take that away,
no one can get us to comply to behaviors not making sense,
and no one has the right to act
like they have it all, when they really have nothing,
think about it,
we cannot feel when we can’t comply to something not making sense.
When it’s really pride without prejudice
without being someone else.
Amen.

A Poem Called “Humanity’s Rhetoric”

Humanity’s Rhetoric,

by theamazinJ

It’s my own rhetoric,
different from your own rhetoric,
different from the rhetoric of the nonautistic, normal condition,
different from American conditional rhetoric
harboring eugenics which is now called genetics,
but different than genetics and science,
different from worldly cultural conditional dominant rhetoric
in the mass media,
and the less accepted rhetoric I have known on my own
and what I learn recently
and try to communicate
is a part of a unique different rhetoric
affixed to complete,
affixed to infinitely affinity to yours and yours,
but it’s still different and unaccepted rhetoric
from the dominant discourse
many in the mass media,
many in politics,
and many of the lay persons even know…
my rhetoric, your rhetoric,
it’s all about being the human being
we all were born as,
it’s all about being the conditions
everyone wants to live by,
rhetoric of rhetoricity,
rhetoric rhetoric rhetoric,
echo it, echo your own,
echo the rhetoric you speak of
like everyone else does
if only to come to an understanding.
I live for my own,
while you live yours,
yours may be the dominant rhetoric,
while I am minority away from the dominant cultures,
embedded in disability culture
within my own body, my own thoughts, and the way I live
even as my own Autistic and stimmy and tic embodiments
experience the world
as part of my humanity
with my own way of centering myself,
with my own way I move,
with my own way of connecting,
with my own way of communicating,
and
with my own way of language
that many may not understand,
that many may not duplicate,
and that many may not know how to communicate,
because the rhetoric is different than yours,
different than theirs and different all around
both of us,
I love you, but the rhetoric is different,
even though the rhetoric we use
is different, but
it’s unique to both you and I.
The rhetorics speak for itself,
rhetorics are a part of the human conditions
in the being of being human
in the eternity of time to live.
I love you, but can you understand me
even when I don’t understand you,
and does it matter,
because if it mattered
my love for you and the world
would not be anything and everything
to me,
I love you, you and the rhetoric you speak of,
and the rhetoric different from you that I communicate,
but can we gather the ideas from our rhetorics
and finally understand each other,
if only with an open mind
like every other individual speaks
of their own rhetoric
around the world,
otherwise we would not be human.
Amen.

A Poem Called “It’s my Identity”

It’s My Identity,

by theamazinJ

I live for my identity,
It may not be yours,
it may not be what you like,
it may not be what you learn(ed) and even accept,
it may not be what you would do,
it may not be who you love,
it may not be what you love,
it may not be who you like,
it may not even be your experiences,
it may not be your way of viewing the world,
it may be have a different sensory existence in the community,
it may not be your way of communication,
it may not even be your lifetime traumas,
it may not be the way you feel oppressed,
but it is mine.
it may even be a different culture of humanity,
it is disability culture and other cultures,
Cultures of humanity not very accepted or very well understood,
cultures collide, cultures fight, cultures battle, cultures in-fight, and cultures stream for survival,
I sing for you not to focus in on me,
while will not focus in on you,
I sing to you to say how much I love you,
I paint pictures of what is love in this world,
while not very well loved and even hated.
I love many, but some don’t really love me,
I find my emotions draw me to love and accept any one
while taking time to understand, some are not loveable,
and even when a President who is unloveable and ignorant and naive and
all considered to be manipulating a society into the past
without moving forward to the future.
I love regardless and presently,
I don’t forgive easily, but am learning to do this gracefully
especially when it comes to closest relationships,
because a relationship is sentimental no matter who has joined in
on the relationship as a friend, as an ex-friend, as a former lover, as a previous crush, as a colleague,
or as a part of the people
who came into this world with me initially,
because a relationship is cognitive,
because a relationship is to be cherished,
as relationship is inevitable and a way to build on
a network that eventually can land us a beautiful romance, wonderful job opportunities,
much much support during the most painful times, and
even the most celebrated and honoring times
with much many much much love and abundance for who we are.
I sit in every corner of every room
observing,
I sit in every corner watching,
I sit in every corner,
enjoying every relationship forming and re-forming and bonding
because every relationship we’ve created
even every relationship accepts the journey of my path
even with not wanting your way and wanting my way,
we get to build the relationships we get
whether we want it or not,
because a relationship forms
and we get to describe the culture we are in,
and the cultures form, the person forms the identity,
the identity becomes the person, and everything
else just becomes the relationships we made,
we sustain, we end, we recirculate, we create,
we recreate, and we find a true partner
to be with us until death do us part.
No one can tell us who,
no one can tell us what,
no one can tell us how,
because intuition is a part of all of us
coming in different forms, different structure,
and different ways of understanding the world.
I accept you,
I hope you accept me,
I love no matter what,
and no one can tell me otherwise.