The Teen Behind the Blog

There’s a blog called, TeenTyper, written by someone who describes himself as, “an autistic teenage awesome boy.”  He started his blog two years ago when he was 14 years old.  On a recent post he wrote, “the feeling is bold saturated thimbles of strength.”  Em and I had the honor to meet the young man behind the blog while in Syracuse.  As he also lives in the same city as we do, we got together with him and his mom yesterday.   He is non-speaking, but types and so he and Em typed to each other for a little while and then I asked if it would be okay to talk to him about his blog.  He said it would.  I asked him, “Why did you start writing your blog?”

He typed, “i startd because my aggravation abt my spaz speaking.”

This is from his Subway Poem –

“Subway subculture asserting the stroll
I watch and try to look like another old soul…”

Later I asked him, “Is the blog a place where you want to tell people something specific or is it more a general way to communicate your thoughts, or something else?”

He typed, “neurotypical need to be more conscious abt mean stares and hearing my voice will help them understand who I am.”

From Let me say:

“Before you judge let me say
You need to try being me
Before you judge let me say
I feel awful when you overly stare at me
Before you judge let me say…”

We need to be aware of the harm we do to each other with our judgments and implied criticism.  We need to pause and take our time.  We need to give each other the benefit of our kindness, we need to slow down…  we need to talk less and feel more, we need to give one another the gift of acceptance, we need to stop with our projected fears, our desire for sameness, our impatience, our disregard for another’s humanity…  we need to embrace one another.

From Wasted Words:

“Words wasted on nonsense
Still
Define…”

I urge everyone to go over to TeenTyper and give it, and the “badass awesome” teen who writes it, some love and support!