Dear Mencap.
Done the surveys on your site and I'm a bit puzzled - your site MEANS well but, when it gets down to it, it's still a site for neurotypicals, not us neurodiverse. I suck at navigating websites so I'm just putting the bits that stand out in my memory - there was one page that asked 'What relation are you to the learning disabled person?' (or words to that effect, this is from memory) and there wasn't anywhere to say 'I AM the learning disabled person, so you were assuming anyone with a learning disability couldn't fill in that page of their own volition. And in your surveys, every question's got a list of virtually exactly the same answers. I didn't 'get' that. Why do you want the same answers to different questions? Your words are wonderful, all about wanting people to not bully us, to see us as we really are - but your site seems scarily neurotypically biased, as though you expect the dominating neurotypicals in our lives to be reading it, not us. And there's LOADS more, all aimed at neurotypicals, not at us.
It's a Mowgli site, written by wolves who don't....QUITE.... want to let us Mowglis into the pack. The Rakshas are THERE - but the wolves want to be in control too much to let them have the power to teach us how to join the pack. I get the feeling those lovely words were written by a couple of politician wolves, said to placate, not to integrate. Which is a real, real shame. Anyway.
I'm learning disabled, I have an official I.Q. of 68. With me it's one-sided, in English and Maths I'm 170-180, but then you get puzzles and maps and what-shape-comes-next and they all kill me down to 68! I've got Cerebral Palsy, Hydrocephalus, Dyspraxia and Asperger's, they come out in my face and make me look ugly - and that's all anyone ever sees. I'm 55 and I've never been with a group of people, or had friends, or jobs much, or volunteering jobs much (that's ANOTHER thing. You neurotypicals are total control freaks - you want to be the ones in charge of us AND doing all the vol. work. I've applied for every vol. job I can find over the years and been turned down for over 90% of them, no real reasons given. Purely coincidentally, of course, none of the others in the roles I applied for were learning disabled. Odd, that....!!)
But all I get, every day virtually, ad nauseam, is comments on how ugly I am. I go to see my g/f in her group home. 'Lucinda - Shrek's here....' 'Nah, it's Frankenstein's spare parts....' 'Wanna real man, Lucinda? I'm free!' So she seldom has me round there - she has to live with them. (Yup - that's the other inmates, you'd think they'd know better.) Tried to join an Asperger's group in Brighton where I live. Went there 3 times, got kicked out by the neurotypical leader after the third visit with the mysterious comment 'I don't want you infesting our group.' I'd barely even said anything! Tried volunteering for Buddy's in Worthing. Kitchen, nope, knives, might go Jason Voorhees on them. Office, lady took one look, grabbed all the paperwork, ran back in the office, slammed the door! Book stall they ran to raise money? Went along there 'Nope, we're fine dear, you run along and play with your little friends.' I was 48 at the time! Charity shop? Nope - the other customers wouldn't like looking at me, their words.
And so it goes on. On the bus, few nights ago 'Eurgh. Look at that f'kin repulsive spastic in the corner'. And the lady's b'f gobbed in my face. Passing a guy with a pram. 'Don't look at my kid.... You've started him crying. Should punch your effin' lights out for that.' On a bus with schoolkids - they make 'em BIG these days. 'You come to look at our girls, you effin' perv?' Walking along the road - occasional gasps, wide-eyed looks, people dancing out of the way... Thought I had friends in a bar, I go in, landlord says 'Finish your drink and go.' So I look at the others. They won't look back at me. Then one of the women stands up. 'At least we won't have to look at you any more. Why don't you stick with your own kind?' The Pier? Banned - apparently my face scares the tourists (King Kong told me that and he's NOT a bouncer to argue with, believe!)
Wetherspoons? Man comes up with a bouncer. 'I've not come in here to look at Frankenstein all afternoon, either you bounce him or I will.' I rearranged the bouncer's nose, they got me in the gutter and kicked the absolute bejeezus outta me!
Multiply that by 55 years and that's been my experience of life so far. But even with you neurotypicals it can't ALWAYS be like that for us, can it? Or do you always treat us neurodiverse like that?
If not - why's everyone got it in for me? And what can I do about it? I've frankly totally had enough of it all. Gotta be more to life than the above, no? I watch people in groups, with friends, going to be with friends, in bars talking to eachother - I've never once done any of it. And I try to be nice to everyone. The very, very rare occasions I get a shot, I don't know how to handle it. Imagine you've always loved fighter planes. You've read all about them, all about how the controls work, all the navigation. Then someone says, out of the blue, 'There's one over there. Go fly it.' Just because you'd read all about it, you wouldn't be able to ACTUALLY fly it, would you? So you'd get out and all the expert pilots filling the field would be going 'We gave you your shot and you blew it. Go away!'
That's how I feel, totally, when I've had my incredibly few and rare chances to be with groups. All the others are experts, I'm not. But I want to learn. I just have no-one to teach me.
Do you know anyone who could teach me how to fit in with groups well enough to be given a shot at DOING/LEARNING things? A Raksha for the Mowgli writing this? I'm rapidly reaching a point where I just don't wanna be here no more but I'm prepared to give it one last shot if I can get a bit of help - I've got the guy downstairs trying to get me kicked out of the flats I'm in 'Why should I have to share a house with that f'in weirdo? I'm gonna get you out on the streets where you belong.' And a photographer took pictures of me for a book he's preparing on Brighton Oddities! Not too sure how I feel on that one!
There's gotta be more to life than being rejected for everything, beaten up, robbed and, through lack of experience and knowledge, blowing the rare chances I've had to join in, hasn't there? (And I don't mean being taken by a bunch of neurotypicals, sat in an old church with other neurodiverse and being given colouring-in books and photomontage books to do all day! They tried me with that one, I set up a website so people could do it online - and they wouldn't let me teach the others how to use the website! WHY!?!?!)
Please answer this honestly. I'm learning-disabled, yes. But I'm not bad at understanding if people explain things to me and not just ASSUME I can't understand things BECAUSE I'm learning disabled. If I don't understand something, I'll ask!
Yours respectfully
Chris.