Hello humans,
Last week I wrote about how lonely I was feeling and up until yesterday (Monday 7th June) I felt exactly the same.
But then I was added to a Snapchat story with a bunch of people from my sixth form which now has over a 1/4 of my year group in it, and for the first time since starting college I’m feeling more optimistic about meeting people and making friends once the timetable changes and there’s more social opportunities.
But today I want to talk about what it means to be an advocate and to challenge ideas that you disagree with!
There was an incident yesterday (Monday 7th June) that has led to me thinking about this question ‘What does it mean to be an advocate?’
I would personally say that I am an advocate for autism, not that I do much advocating publicly but I think that the way I talk to people about my own experiences is it’s own form of advocacy.
So back to the incident on Monday, I was sat in my class over lunch and there was a group of us talking about relationships and our exes. Someone showed us a picture of an ex and a friend replied calling him a derogatory term towards people with disabilities.
Instantly I called him out on it, without even thinking about it and I explained why the word was wrong and why I specifically was offended. He apologised and we moved on. He was just completely clueless as to what the word actually meant and thought it was just slang.
From that steamed a heated debate between me and my brother who argued it was not my place to educate him as I am not a teacher and that it is just ‘a word’!!
After a long discussion I ended the debate - I didn’t give in as I clearly stated my views and why I had those views due to my own experiences as an autistic woman who went to a school for people with special education needs.
So what is it to be an advocate? Well for me I feel like I definitely fulfilled the role of an advocate yesterday. I educated someone about a derogatory word, and then had a long debate about my own experience.
I’m very grateful for the opportunity to have debates like this as it showed me my own growth and made me realise how important it is to me to stand up for what I believe in, even in small personal situations like yesterday.
See you next time,
E x