Autistic Pride Day

Today is June 18th which means it is Autistic Pride Day. I didn't know about this until last week. There are 31 days of the year dedicated to Autism. World Autism Awareness Day which is April 2nd, April being Autism Awareness Month, and Autistic Pride Day which is June 18th. That's about 1/12 of a full year.

I remember actually making a blog post entitled Autism Pride back in December where I was basically showing pride in myself, my younger brother Nicky. and everyone in general with Autism. At the time, I had no idea that there was a day dedicated to showing pride in people with Autism.

As I have said before, the creator of Pokemon is Autistic. I have known this for months but a couple of weeks ago, I was on a message board and learned that the creator of Pokemon loved to collect bugs. He was really interested in insects. As a matter of fact, he got the idea of creating the show Pokemon based on his passion for collecting bugs. That's how Pokemon trainers capture the Pokemon and place it in a poke-ball. People with Autism have high interests, obsessions, and/or knowledge in one particular hobby, object, etc. The Pokemon Creator's passion was bug collecting.

My younger brother Nicky and I have the same interests. We both love Power Rangers, Dragonball Z, Super Mario Bros, the Nostalgia Critic, Batman, old Nicktoons, etc. He is a great artist. He loves to draw characters from movies, write spoofs about them, the works.

He loves movies. He knows which company produces a certain movie, the year it came out, directors, the actors, you name it. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post we both loved a movie we watched years ago when we lived in Long Island called Aladdin and the Magic Lamp which was an anime form Japan dubbed in English. That movie is really hard to find in stores. We can't even find it on youtube. The movie is on it but it's either in Spanish, Japanese, or French. He tells me he misses watching Aladdin and the Magic Lamp with me. I tell him I miss it too.

It aired on AMC. Nicky loves AMC. He has been collecting AMC Magazines for quite sometime now. They show the schedule where they aired movies in what year, month, week, day, and time slot.

For those who played the old Sonic games on SEGA Genesis, Nicky watches the videos on youtube. He plays Sonic 2 music from its official soundtrack videos and puts them over actual game play levels of either Sonic 3 or Sonic and Knuckles. He does this based on which ones are similar.

Some Examples: He plays Casino Night Zone music over Carnival Night Zone level gameplay because they are both nighttime levels with a lot of colorful objects in it.

OR

He plays Emerald Hill Zone Music over Angel Island Zone level game play because they are both grass-levels.

He doesn't just do that for Sonic games. He puts Adam West's Batman music over Power Rangers' episodes because the are both super hero show. He plays the Bulk and Skull theme music over the Joker and the Penguin scenes because he feels that they are very similar characters.

I always knew I had Autism when I was younger. I remember taking the small yellow bus and being in Special Ed. classes. Growing up, I always thought I grew out of Autism. I later found out that once you have Autism, the symptoms may become less severe over time but you will always have Autism. I discovered that I still had aspergers during the Fall Semester of my Freshman Year in college.

Being Autistic myself and also having a younger brother with severe autism made me learn so much about Autism being a spectrum. Working with Non-verbal Autistic Adults by helping them play the drums at the Kelberman Center helped me learn about the most severe kind of Autism.

Being Autistic has led me to making some social mistakes. However, being Autistic helped motivate me to start the Autism Awareness Club at Utica College. It motivated me to be a volunteer helper at Pool Pals by helping out kids with Autism and other types of disabilities swim and play games in the pool. I was able to meet a kid my game, Nick Bonacci who has autism as well.

My Compeer mentee Christopher is a young twelve year old on the spectrum as well. I met a kid with Autism named Connor. He may only be in Middle School but he has a blog of his own as well. If I weren't Autistic, I would not have been able to meet all of these people and I probbaly wouldn't have been able to relate to my younger brother Nicky as well as I do.

Autistic Pride Day may be June 18th but to me, Autistic Pride Day is everyday. Ignorant people who discriminate against people with Autism or other disabilities will just keep me that much more motivated to spread awareness.

Happy Autistic Pride Day everybody!