Trans masculine/NB, Bi-Ace, actuallyautistic, writer, artist, wannabe filmmaker, completely in love with things before my time. Send me a poetry prompt and I'll write it. Currently working on a steampunk novel called Tocktick about disabled aeronauts undertaking the race of a lifetime.
When I was fourteen, we got homework from English class to pick a song which represented a scene or relationship in Macbeth and then do at least a five minute presentation to the class on it.
There was no maximum time limit.
I am autistic. My special interest in Shakespeare.
Some of the more perceptive of you might guess where this is going.
I made a three minute fanvid using (my apologies, this is the version of Macbeth we watched in class) Roman Polanski’s (*spits*) The Tragedy of Macbeth and then talked for another fifteen.
I found the infamous video which earned me 100% in that particular project.
It was made on iMovie, I filmed it on my phone.
This isn’t where my Shakespeare obsession started, but it’s really where it got it’s claws in.
When I say “I am so fucking angry that I cannot reach out for help”, I mean I’m furious I can’t get professional help.
I am struggling so fucking much with my job and my exhaustion to the point I am not feeding myself. I am on some days deliberately not making the decision to eat because I cannot spare the energy and I am so trapped by this spiral of autism and ADHD and mental exhaustion and I don’t feel I can reach out for help for one simple, little reason.
If I do, I will not be allowed to transition. If I acknowledge that my autism and my ADHD are controlling and wrecking my life then that lifeline, that massive, beautiful thing which will improve my mental health tenfold (because no binding means no discomfort and more exercise and going outside and less misgendering means less fear of transphobic violence) will not happen.
Ableism and transphobia will rob me of the future I want even as it robs me of my present because if I struggle then I am not seen as mentally competent.
I know who I am. I know what I want. I’m a twenty-odd year old man. I am very aware of my struggles with my conditions. I am intelligent and funny and kind and a whole fucking and self-aware human being. I just do not have the resources to cope.
And I cannot get that help without jeopardising something important to me. Something vital. I cannot improve my situation because of ableism and transphobia.
“But what if autistic girls -“ no. Shut the fuck up and actually do something worthwhile for autistic people before you use us as human shields for your bigotry. Your transphobia is making my life as an ADHD autistic a thousand times worse because I am afraid your uninformed hatred and patronising bullshit will end up fucking my entire life.