This cannot, cannot, always be on me alone. That I can do everything right, take every precaution to protect myself, short of just never leaving my room (and then I would doubtless be told that I was “letting my diagnosis limit me” or “using it as an excuse”), and still wind up hurt, sick, melting down, my ability to function for the rest of the day or the week ruined, not because of my [SLAM] autism, but because you don’t [SLAM] have any stakes in being more fucking careful about how you go stomping through the world. It cannot just be my fault for existing and, like, daring to think I might be able to do something wild like go out for coffee before work without destroying myself.

—Emily Paige Ballou, in “Sometimes it’s not me. It’s you.”