Monday, June 1, 2015

On Verbal Speech

By Kit Mead


I worry about being taken seriously if I write about certain things non-anonymously. Today I decided to write about them. Verbal speech tends to be a pre-requisite of society, and what would people say outside the disabled community if they read this and know that speech isn't all that great for me?

Anyone who has seen me talk out loud knows speech is not, perhaps, my first language. My first language was writing cat stories about a fictionalized version of my first kitten, Tabby, lost in a world of written words. I was in third grade and this is what I liked to do: Write and write and write.

My speech works best when I can read off my laptop, or if I've typed it out in advance. It's why my conversations with friends about activism tend to be with my laptop open. I'm telling them about the posts I already wrote and quoting, and also paraphrasing with words that make me sound slightly angry. I don't have the access to prettier out-loud language.

Okay, sometimes I actually am angry, but usually not as angry as I sound out loud.

Someone once told me I was more expressive than this other autistic person they knew. I wish they knew that my real words come down on paper or Word documents. They spill out faster and with more clarity there than I could hope to achieve out loud unless I have prepared over and over again in advance.

And I don't want to prepare over and over in advance unless I'm actually giving a presentation. Because I need people to accept me with my slightly stop-and-go conversations with words hacked into pieces and sometimes losing their meaning. I need people to know that I don't always mean what I say because I can't always have words out loud.