The aim of this blog post is to raise awarenes about -- you guessed it -- autism! 
Autistic Pride Day is a pride celebration for autistic people held annualy on June 18. I am not a neurotypical person, but I am a firm believer in sharing nuanced stories regarding important topics; so I've asked a fellow Stardoll member to help me out with this endeveor by sharing their story and advocy for autism rights here on the StarBlog.

Meet Paloma, a 23 year old from Brasil, also known as SaintReptilian on Stardoll and a member since 2008, Paloma is a proud 'autie' / auspie. Here is their story...

Growing up being autistic can be quite a difficult thing for us, and it was not any different for me.

When I was a kid, I clearly had a different behavior than the other children. I would like to play alone sometimes. I would not understand some social cues.
I would stim often (stims are repetitive movements we do to balance our sensory/emotional inputs) and do some things that were, eh, not really expected for my age, such as having special interests in the medical field (to the point of reading medical books and performing surgeries on my dolls, lol).
I was an extroverted kiddo, who wanted to make new friends, but wasn't good at socializing, which led to me becoming an easy target for bullying...

Due to the bullying I experienced in real life, I was drawn to the virtual life Stardoll had to offer to an 11 year old in 2008: here, I could make friends and express my style (I had changed my style quite A LOT during those years). Stardoll enabled me to have a little bit of a social life, considering I didn't have friends back then, and helped me a lot with my English skills! This was a great place to escape from the cruel, ableist world and just have fun! 

Side note: One thing I would like to change in this game, is to enable accessibility such as a 'night mode' (I struggle with photophobia, making it really hard for me to deal with brightly coloroed websites!) I would  like to see more representation of the disabled here (not only autistic people, but in general), such as a pal collection with disabled pals (for the autistic pal, I would highly recommend it doing the flapping stim, because loud hands are happy hands!) or even some stuff such as prosthetics, canes, wheelchairs, etc. that we can use in our dolls!

In Brazil, awareness of autism seems to be limited among the general population, especially regarding autism in girls which is way more difficult to detect. Besides having clear signals of it since age 1, I was diagnosed at almost 13 years old, due to the misconceptions about autism in women, and there's a lot of misconceptions about autism in POC (not only in Brazil, but worldwide), that are often misdiagnosed as "conduct disorder," unfortunately! 

We need to go to specialists in order to get a proper diagnosis, and unfortunately, not everyone can afford that and get the proper therapy, including cognitive and sensorial therapy, along with equine therapy, introduction to AACs (Alternative and Augmentative Communication) for non-verbal children, etc., to at least have a proper life quality and dignity.

For my fellow autistic peers, (and even the neurotypicals reading this article), if you are able, please spare some time of your day to educate yourself about ableism, autism rights, autism acceptance and neurodiversity movements. It can help you a lot with understanding and accepting who you are (or knowing a little bit better about your autistic relative, friend, or significant other) and to not be ashamed to be autistic (I used to be just like that before educating myself on this matter), and please use symbols that are accepted by the autistic community to refer to ourselves, such as the rainbow infinity symbol (the puzzle piece symbol is a big NO) and consider donating to Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) and Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network (AWNN). They do a wonderful job with those movements I mentioned above and do a lot of work to help autistic people in need around the world!

April 2nd was Autism Awareness Day (where we use red (the campaign is called: Red Instead) and or gold (that campaign is called: Light it up Gold) against Light it up Blue, a campaign promoted by Autism Speaks which is a harmful organization that only spread hatred, fear mongering and ableism against us. I highly suggest doing your research about this organization, because they don't represent us. June 18th is the Autistic Pride day, when we show our pride in accepting ourselves and when we take a time to open a dialog about autism rights movement issues and what the society can do to improve our lives and include us properly! Autistic Pride Day is represented by the rainbow infinity symbol. This symbol is intended to represent the diversity of autistic people and the infinite possibilities and variations within the autistic community. 

I really enjoyed talking a little bit about autism here, I really need to thank AllDolledUp for giving me the platform to speak about important topics. Stay stafe and have an awesome day!

If you are interested in showing your support, please pay a visit to Paloma's suite. She is launching her own designs, and can restock or reserve them for y'all. 

Share your thoughts in the comment section. We can't wait to hear from you!