As so many of us struggle with what the angry weather Gods are throwing at us. With the greed of a few threatening us all, with their empty dreams and blind visions of the future. And most of all with the greed and power-hunger of our so-called leaders and the spineless betrayal of those who should be holding them in check. It is perhaps worth remembering something.
Being born autistic, or adhd or both, means that this life has always been against us. We walk through it with incredible gifts. Such as sensory perception capable of seeing truly profound beauty, pattern recognition that lets us see the writing on the wall, long before others can even see the wall, the ability to concentrate and produce over extraordinary periods of time and character traits of truth and honour and honesty, logic and loyalty and steadfast courage. And so much more.
All gifts, I would argue, in the right circumstances, when they are not being abused by the systems we have to try and survive in, or the world created for others. Because then they can be turned into our curse and from them can be spawned other darknesses that we end up wearing like cloaks as we crawl though live, attempting merely to survive, anxiety, stress, depression, illness and despair.
This is the story of so many of our lives. Of our gifts also being our curses, of all that we have to carry that so few want to see or recognise. And do you know what that has made us? Stronger than we know. Give the average allistic even an hour walking in our shoes and they would give up, or break. Yet we endure, we have always endured. It is part of what makes us, us.
