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Neah's avatar

Thank you.

I spend a lot of time informing my very minimally speaking 4 year old that he *isn’t* telepathic and that while it might seem like I can read his mind, I’m really noticing that he’s hungry/tired/bored because *insert body language here*. I often don’t know how I know what he wants or needs, other than the fact that I’ve spent nearly every moment with him since he came home from the hospital and I know him better than anyone else in the world. I can see how magical thinking could convince me of telepathy, I wish I could live in that delusion sometimes instead of a world of therapies that take up his time that he barely wants to participate in.

I’d love a magical world where we could just read each other’s minds- I’m sure it would make his life much easier & minimise communication related meltdowns!

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Laura Horowitz's avatar

"When we fear something or someone or don’t understand them, there is a tendency to want to see them blessed with some kind of otherworldly power, thereby making their condition more palatable or less scary to us. But it only serves to further their otherness..." Anyone who doubts the real power of our Jewish space lasers does so at their own risk. :-)

In seriousness, othering is the name of the Trump game. It's going to be a very short time until every single person in this country belongs to a targeted group or is close to someone who does. Claiming that people with autism are telepathic is one step away from denying them needed services because they can communicate if they want to, right?

I know what it feels like to be at the receiving end of othering. And I choose not to use the privileges I do have to scorn the identities that people in our many communties value about themselves. I don't need to assign hateful people to an identity for me to know that they are hateful and dangerous. Their behavior identifies them over and over.

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