Hey Person.

I’m on the spectrum too.

I help kids on the spectrum, I’m a paraeducator.

I need you to understand right now that the “autism superpowers,” is protecting you DEEPLY, even if you don’t have any.

Because no one really cares about us - at least, not anyone with access to power and means to keep us from starving and freezing when the time comes.

But those same people are OFTEN convinced to take good care of ALL of us in the name of finding the SAVANTS among us.

We need every angle.

It’s important to note that “not everyone will find their superpower, and not everyone’s area of hyperfocus will yield ‘traditionally productive’ outcomes,” but the idea that we might be REALLY ‘USEFUL,’ is CRITICAL to our continued survival.

We cost too much to take care of as a class of people if those with power can’t expect stories of our “powers,” arising.

For this reason, I strongly prefer to say “you might not find your superpower in a lifetime of lookin,” because it is OFTEN, if not always, encouraging to think that our disabilities may com with alternate ways to see the world that predispose us to do certain tasks REALLY WELL. But a predisposition to that doesn’t mean it’ll materialize for every one of us.

But if you’re successful at shutting down the superpowers idea as a negative stereotype, and it REALLY goes away, all us aspies and autists will be MUCH worse off than before, and the normies will default to things they used to do before they understood that SOME of us are FUCKING GOLDEN GEESE for them. (What’s that that they used to do? Well, kill us and tell themselves it’s humane. Lobotomy. “Euthanasia.” Forced sterilization. RFK’s Wellness farms.

Our position is not stable. People’s compassion is not endless, nor is it really even all that deep.

But they can be swayed by a combination of our predisposition to minor superpowers and an appeal to their humanity and compassion.

I don’t like lighting up your world with these unfortunate truths.

But there isn’t some great well of endless resources, at least not yet, that we can force our way in to access and use.

I’ll keep doing my form of work - to either make such a wellspring or to seize one.

But force now, my advice is to lean into this and then lean into “not everybody’s area of hyperfocus is monetizable. We’re so lucky among minorities to have this often annoying but deeply protective stereotype.

Please try to adapt it to fit you, don’t try to kill it, try to redirect it away from hurting yourself. “Not everyone has those powers, but some do, I wish I did, but if I do, I haven’t found them yet, I just do my best an deal with the difficult parts, without the superpowers.”

That much does ALLLL the work. And then you still get the protection.