Arts House Listening Program

(Self-portrait as both ape and topless woman) wild and tame, strong and vulnerable, stupid and smart, masc and femme, masking and unable to mask: I can’t make a world without discrimination, I can’t end all ableism, I CAN draw a picture that holds us in the face of everything. --- Sometimes it’s so raw when you can’t regulate - if you’re under pressure, or out in society. I judge myself so much, forgetting not to feel all the things my early carers said to me. Please, don’t judge me for things out of my control. I want our society to change, and stop shaming and pathologising children that are born like me. I want stimming to be normalised, so our bodies can be free. I was diagnosed with ‘Polarised Intelligences’. In my childhood, this diagnosis was called idiot savant. They didn’t explain what the word savant meant (it means smart - I found that out at 32). My teachers’ aide also used the word ‘retarded’, which I preferred to ‘learning difficulties’ as it seemed more open-ended, and I didn’t have any probl