*sigh* Oh come on, I really just want to buy myself a fidget spinner because they look like such a good stim toy that I even think my dad would like one. But every time I look them up, I get this condescending bullshit. “Eff these spinners”? “Are fidget spinners a threat to America?” “No proof fidget spinners can help people with autism”? Seriously? Seriously?
Look, I already know The NTs hate autistic people and see us as a threat. I already know they don’t want to listen to us for their “proof”. But now they’re seriously viewing our stim toys, things that so many of us NEED, as threatening? I’m just so fed up with this right now that this is my second post about it.
And honestly, this really isn’t necessarily the fault of the children who use them–we can’t assume everyone we see is neurotypical, and kids especially on the younger side won’t know better. This is because of teachers and administrators, who need to be educated on the way stim toys can help people with ADHD, autism, anxiety etc and on how to tell the difference between stimming with a toy and playing with it. So they don’t take away the stim toy of an innocent ND kid who can’t focus or relax without it, and so shit like “fidget spinners are a threat to America” doesn’t get said.
I’m an adult. I don’t go to school. But seeing shit like all these negative fidget spinner articles is starting to make me feel nervous about using my stim toys in public when I wasn’t so much before. Now I’m starting to wonder if people are looking at me and going “look at that annoying kid playing with some toy and being a distraction”. And it’s made me think that when I do get a fidget spinner I definitely won’t use it in public so I don’t get viewed as some annoying weirdo who’s just too obsessed to put down the hottest toy.
Neurodivergent people using a stim toy that you don’t like isn’t threatening or annoying or distracting, it’s these “uhhh what’s an autism what does ADHD mean anxiety is fake also i just hate kids in general lol” teachers who are all of those things :/ I used to think “well, stim toys need to be normalized more for people to be more accepting of them” but this bullshit with the fidget spinners is having the opposite effect and making me more anxious.
