April is Autism Month.
Earlier this month at the Autism Acceptance Month Flag Raising event at City Hall, we heard a powerful speech presented by Sarry Lilly.
We’re grateful to Sarry for sharing their voice and perspective. Your words had a profound impact. Sarry has granted permission to share with our community.
“I am not here to give you a success story,
and I am not here to be the version of autism that is digestible or makes you comfortable.
I stand here with a mind that moves like lightning across patterns,
Yet stalls in the quiet gaps of a simple day.
I am twice-exceptional. Gifted in the ways I see,
But disabled in the ways I am expected to do.
My spiky profile is not a puzzle to be solved,
It is the honest map of my existence.
I remember sitting in class as the rosy glasses for me began to shatter,
Watching everyone perform a play they never had to practice.
They moved through a script of unwritten rules and hidden heights,
Building a world on whispers and nods that I could never hear quite right.
I tried to force my spirit into the jagged edges of a world built for the comfort of someone else.
But the edges were sharp and the cost was my own soul.
It is damaging to pretend the performance is the only way to be.
In my daily life, I may still stall out.
I may struggle with the simple things, the easy things,
The things most people do without ever having to think.
But I am not just here to explain my own patterns.
I am here because autism will never be the single image you imagine.
Because all behaviour is a form of communication.
When we raise this flag, we are speaking for:
The ones who speak through a device, who use augmentative and alternative communication, determined and unstoppable.
The ones with gestalt language processing, who speak in echoes and heart-songs.
The ones who speak not with words, but with their actions, unwavering and whole.
The ones whose bodies seek a comfort the world cannot provide, who find sensory grounding in ways that might look strange or even hurt.
The ones whose hands reach for things they should not eat, or whose movements turn inward, fighting to find peace in a body that feels like a storm.
The ones who keep spinning, keep stimming, and keep singing the song of their heart, even when the world stares.
The ones having a meltdown, not because they are bad,
But because they are amazing people overwhelmed by a world that is often too loud, too bright, and too fast.
The ones who exist outside the unwritten script because their normal is different,
Even when their normal doesn’t hurt anyone.
I am raising this flag not only for myself, but for all the silent listeners.
The ones who don’t respond in words, but who absorb every sound.
The ones who don’t react the way you expect, but who hear you anyway.
Just because they don’t speak your language,
Doesn’t mean they don’t have a world of their own inside.
Stop trying to change us to fit a script that was never meant for us.
Stop talking, and start listening.
I don’t owe the world a performance of normal.
And neither do they.
I will do things differently.
I will rock when I need to regulate.
I will stay silent when I am expected to talk.
I will be difficult if your version of easy hurts me.
Acceptance is not just a flag in the wind.
It is a promise to Fredericton.
That we will stop punishing people for how they survive.
That we will listen to the behaviour, not just the words.
And that we will make room for the whole spectrum, the entire spectrum!
Not just the parts that are easy to watch.
And to those who feel unseen,
You do not owe the world a performance.
You are heard. You are understood. You are valued. And you always matter.”