Staying in the Fight Without Burning Out: Autistic Tips for Organizing

Autistic Advice #13: How to build a politically engaged life that works with your disability, not against it.

Devon Price

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A photo from a November pro-Palestine protest on Lake Shore Drive, taken by author.

Welcome back to Autistic Advice, a semi-regular advice column where I respond to reader questions about neurodiversity, accessibility, disability justice, and self-advocacy from my perspective as an Autistic psychologist. You can submit questions or suggest future entries in the series via my Tumblr ask box, linked here.

Today’s question comes from two separate Tumblr users, both of whom want advice for balancing their commitment to organizing and community-building with their need for a lot of alone time as Autistic people:

Question 1: I’d like to get back into organizing with my union after some burnout, but I am Autistic and I hate Meetings due to interacting with people in groups. Do you have any advice? Question 2: How as an Autistic do you reconcile the need for community and coalition building with the need to be alone? I have to spend most of my time alone to feel okay. Even if I’m with people I love, even if I’m unmasked, socializing depletes me. How do I find balance?

This is a question that really hits me where I live. Figuring out how to balance the need to connect to others and enact my political ideals in my behavior with my need for bountiful alone time and rest is an ongoing question for me, one that I’ve had to develop answers to numerous times through my years as an activist (and then as someone who stopped identifying as an activist).

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Devon Price
Devon Price

Written by Devon Price

He/Him or It/Its. Social Psychologist & Author of LAZINESS DOES NOT EXIST and UNMASKING AUTISM. Links to buy: https://linktr.ee/drdevonprice

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