I thought living in Londonderry was bad until I moved more than 11 years ago. I now live in Merrimack, a larger populated town, and more square mileage than the former. While Londonderry had been traditionally conservative, it was quasi conservative, but not ultra conservative like here. I realized while “Ltown” (as the former Millennial aged residence would say) lacked tolerance (as I if I was not to exist); Merrimack on the other hand, has one thing going forward, tolerating my group. But it’s far from sexy.

They acknowledge my group’s existence. The local Police Department will raise money for the Special Olympics, but if anyone whose in that same group, whose a bit higher functioning, and does a counter campaign against Autism Speaks with a DSLR camera shooting video; then that’s the line where acceptance vs. tolerance starts to form. People who are conservative and believe in supports (such as funding, etc.) do not really in the long term believe my group should be “accepted” meaning our lives could be in par with typicals. They just assume if they just congregated amongst themselves in the “community” which is so laughable now, because how can the community not only “accept” a segregated group that isn’t “tolerated”?

This is a big issue, that even the cities like Nashua or Manchester wouldn’t understand. A vast majority of people does not, and I say does not “get us” (err. tolerance). While I use the word “acceptance”, this isn’t from the ASAN’s narrative. In reality, “acceptance” to me means…

• Being in par with typicals
• To be seen as equal, not someone lower than them
• To be heard, and not just seen; and not to be silenced… which is the most dangerous thing to experience.

A lot of the narcissists would say “Well have you done X, Y or Z?” and insist you are doing it the “wrong” way to get into acceptance. Everybody has to deal with barriers, it comes with life, the problem is for people in the worse of situations, sometimes these barriers are there to be intentional to make ones life even worse.

Individuals make it worse; the individuals behind the institutions make it worse, and the individuals who are making changes for their own good towards my group being the worse. And people who don’t have kids or those kids who weren’t exposed to my groups of people; need to learn about my group before making reckless opinions and decisions. It’s the people outside “the system” that are hurting my group’s potential – including myself.

I am under pressure to get things done but the barriers are these individuals that do not get me and my group that tolerate (as the baseline) to only see me but not accept me (as the aspiring goal) to also hear me. This is a lost cause at this point.

If only those in power actually gave a damn…