WEBVTT 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:03.808 I wanted to share with you how my Autism helps me connect with animals... 00:00:04.400 --> 00:00:06.970 It's happening right now... 00:00:06.970 --> 00:00:11.289 There's s squirrel outside the window and he's upset... 00:00:11.289 --> 00:00:12.401 about... 00:00:13.588 --> 00:00:15.530 ..an acorn. 00:00:17.169 --> 00:00:21.495 Okay, it's not THAT kind of connection.... 00:00:22.593 --> 00:00:33.276 (Music, scribbling noises, animal calls, bird song, bees buzzing) 00:00:33.360 --> 00:00:38.560 Hi, it's Emily from BiteSizeVegan.org, where you can find free resources, eCourses, kids' content, 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:43.290 and a Guided Search to help you find just what you need, even if you don't know what to ask! 00:00:43.360 --> 00:00:46.090 I've wanted to speak on this topic for some time now, 00:00:46.090 --> 00:00:49.540 but I'm honestly worried I won't be able to do it justice. 00:00:49.540 --> 00:00:53.249 I know I won't be able to convey everything I want to convey, 00:00:53.249 --> 00:00:55.770 but I wanted to try, best I can. 00:00:55.770 --> 00:01:00.160 I do want to be clear that I do not speak for all Autistics. 00:01:00.160 --> 00:01:03.100 I am sharing my own personal experience. 00:01:03.100 --> 00:01:05.370 Every Autistic person is different. 00:01:05.370 --> 00:01:08.610 I didn't know I was Autistic until my thirties. 00:01:08.610 --> 00:01:14.324 Looking back, I believe my Autism has been an integral factor in my connecting with non-human animals. 00:01:14.324 --> 00:01:18.430 I’m far from the first Autistic person to draw this association. 00:01:18.430 --> 00:01:23.550 Perhaps the most prominent voice on this topic is animal behaviorist Temple Grandin, 00:01:23.550 --> 00:01:27.140 who has spent decades designing slaughterhouse equipment. 00:01:27.140 --> 00:01:33.280 Grandin has written extensively on how being Autistic allows her to put herself in the place of animals; 00:01:33.550 --> 00:01:38.348 how she can understand how they think, what scares them, what makes them feel safe. 00:01:38.540 --> 00:01:42.145 And, how she uses that profound connection to design 00:01:42.280 --> 00:01:47.090 “better” and “friendlier” ways to systematically slaughter them. 00:01:47.090 --> 00:01:52.030 I, on the other hand, arrived at a different conclusion. 00:01:52.030 --> 00:01:58.060 It never once occurred to me that non-human animals don't have thoughts, emotions, desires, 00:01:58.060 --> 00:02:00.900 and rich interior lives all their own. 00:02:00.900 --> 00:02:06.423 While I didn't know it at the time, looking back, I believe this was due to my own Autistic experience. 00:02:06.423 --> 00:02:12.530 My entire life, I've felt like everyone had some manual that I’d failed to receive. 00:02:12.530 --> 00:02:16.780 Human interaction and communication is utterly baffling to me. 00:02:16.780 --> 00:02:21.342 Growing up, out of necessity, I became something of a child anthropologist— 00:02:21.342 --> 00:02:27.531 observing the behavior of the people around me and doing my best to approximate what I thought was expected. 00:02:27.531 --> 00:02:32.233 Navigating everyday interactions was—and is—exhausting. 00:02:32.233 --> 00:02:38.580 This was made all the more distressing by the fact that I felt everything so intensely. 00:02:38.580 --> 00:02:44.130 There was so much I was experiencing and wanted to communicate—yet it was impossible to 00:02:44.130 --> 00:02:46.760 translate it out to those around me. 00:02:46.760 --> 00:02:52.790 But, just because I couldn't express everything in a way others could understand, didn't mean 00:02:52.790 --> 00:02:54.360 I wasn't going through it. 00:02:54.360 --> 00:02:58.690 I assumed this was the same for others— human and non-human alike. 00:02:58.690 --> 00:03:04.470 That just because non-human animals couldn't speak in a way humans could fully understand, 00:03:04.470 --> 00:03:08.180 didn't mean they weren't capable of thought, emotion, or communication. 00:03:08.180 --> 00:03:11.511 In fact, I was certain they were communicating. 00:03:11.511 --> 00:03:12.812 Just as I was. 00:03:12.812 --> 00:03:17.747 It was only that humans couldn't understand their language at the level they could, 00:03:17.747 --> 00:03:20.870 just as people around me couldn't understand mine. 00:03:20.870 --> 00:03:27.951 I knew how profoundly frustrating, isolating and demoralizing it was to be unable to convey 00:03:27.951 --> 00:03:29.510 what I wanted to convey. 00:03:29.510 --> 00:03:33.455 I knew how it felt to never be truly understood. 00:03:33.877 --> 00:03:41.562 And it broke my heart thinking of what non-human animals were experiencing at the hands of humans; 00:03:41.562 --> 00:03:48.013 that, no matter how desperately and clearly they communicated their terror and pain, 00:03:48.013 --> 00:03:51.263 they were ignored and discounted. 00:03:51.263 --> 00:03:56.280 Honestly, I think most people do connect with non-human animals in their childhood. 00:03:56.280 --> 00:04:00.421 If you put a piglet or chicken in front of a child, they will want to play with them. 00:04:00.421 --> 00:04:04.793 But we're taught to conditionally sever this connection. 00:04:04.793 --> 00:04:08.819 This animal is okay to love, this animal is okay to eat. 00:04:08.819 --> 00:04:11.160 Love Babe the pig, but eat bacon. 00:04:11.160 --> 00:04:13.710 Watch Finding Nemo, but eat fish. 00:04:13.710 --> 00:04:16.297 Love dogs, eat cows. 00:04:16.297 --> 00:04:24.535 Over time we separate ourselves from the most fundamental truth we knew inherently as kids: 00:04:24.535 --> 00:04:27.229 that it's not okay to hurt others. 00:04:27.229 --> 00:04:31.123 For me, this separation never seemed to fully take. 00:04:31.123 --> 00:04:36.025 One of the most troubling—and, frankly offensive—theories about Autism 00:04:36.025 --> 00:04:40.087 is that Autistic people are deficient or totally lacking in empathy. 00:04:40.087 --> 00:04:44.893 More recent theories of Autism propose that the exact opposite is true: 00:04:44.893 --> 00:04:51.156 that "rather than being oblivious, autistic people take in too much and learn too fast. 00:04:51.156 --> 00:04:55.234 [That] they are actually overwhelmed not only by their own emotions, 00:04:55.234 --> 00:04:57.102 but by the emotions of others." 00:04:57.186 --> 00:04:59.778 This is certainly the case for me. 00:04:59.778 --> 00:05:04.460 As odd as it may sound, I empathize to a debilitating degree. 00:05:04.460 --> 00:05:09.620 I can't help but put myself in the place of others, including non-human animals. 00:05:09.620 --> 00:05:15.870 Growing up, I assumed that others did this as well, which made cruel or even simply inconsiderate 00:05:15.870 --> 00:05:18.860 behavior seem all the more menacing. 00:05:18.860 --> 00:05:25.280 I couldn't understand how people could knowingly harm one another and other sentient beings. 00:05:25.280 --> 00:05:29.979 I couldn’t understand how they could be so seemingly disconnected. 00:05:29.979 --> 00:05:35.639 How could they not recognize the piercing screams of pigs being lowered into a gas chamber 00:05:35.639 --> 00:05:37.180 as an expression of pain. 00:05:37.180 --> 00:05:41.689 How could they not recognize the cries of a mother cow in the dairy industry 00:05:41.689 --> 00:05:47.389 after her calf has been ripped from her side as an expression of grief and anguish. 00:05:47.389 --> 00:05:54.340 I couldn't understand why so many people didn't appear to see what seemed so clear to me. 00:05:54.340 --> 00:06:01.439 And honestly, it hardened me some to humanity, because I assumed it was intentional blindness 00:06:01.439 --> 00:06:07.360 You see, my brain doesn't filter things the way most peoples' brains do. 00:06:07.360 --> 00:06:11.249 Once I become aware of something, I have no way of turning it off. 00:06:11.249 --> 00:06:15.389 I essentially take in everything all at once, all the time. 00:06:15.389 --> 00:06:19.610 I feel everything all at once, all the time. 00:06:19.610 --> 00:06:23.639 For me, everyday life is often neurologically traumatic. 00:06:23.639 --> 00:06:29.139 While certainly exhausting and challenging, I believe this aspect of my neurology eventually 00:06:29.139 --> 00:06:35.260 led me to a better understanding of the disconnect many people have when it comes to non-human animals. 00:06:35.445 --> 00:06:39.183 As well as the resistance many people have to going vegan. 00:06:39.183 --> 00:06:48.439 Truly confronting what sentient being are subjected to for our dietary choices is itself traumatic. 00:06:48.439 --> 00:06:53.419 It's ripping off the blinders and seeing what you can never unsee. 00:06:53.419 --> 00:06:59.490 As someone who has no ability to filter, I understand how extremely painful it is to 00:06:59.490 --> 00:07:03.456 suddenly be overwhelmed by the suffering all around you 00:07:03.456 --> 00:07:07.124 —in every glass of milk, cut of meat, and carton of eggs. 00:07:07.124 --> 00:07:12.883 And I understand why someone would resist that pain of awareness. 00:07:12.883 --> 00:07:19.584 So, eventually, rather than viewing non-vegan resistance as willful blindness, ignorance or uncaring, 00:07:19.584 --> 00:07:25.354 I began to see the majority as springing from understandable self-preservation. 00:07:25.438 --> 00:07:32.813 Now, recognizing the obvious emotionality of non-human animals is often criticized as anthropomorphizing 00:07:32.813 --> 00:07:37.620 — meaning attributing human emotions and intentions to non-human animals. 00:07:37.620 --> 00:07:44.819 But there is a stark difference between personifying animals and striving to see from their perspective. 00:07:44.819 --> 00:07:49.830 We humans have a tendency to define everything through our own lens of reference. 00:07:49.830 --> 00:07:54.409 This is understandable in many ways given it's the only lens we've ever seen through. 00:07:54.409 --> 00:08:00.734 However, it's a highly problematic approach that invalidates the experiences of everyone unlike ourselves. 00:08:00.990 --> 00:08:05.514 An example of this within our own species is the history of our understanding of Autism. 00:08:05.514 --> 00:08:09.827 Autistics were—and often still are—ranked by levels of functioning, 00:08:09.827 --> 00:08:13.527 with non-verbal Autistics generally labeled as "low-functioning." 00:08:13.527 --> 00:08:18.300 This is a perfect illustration of assessing the Autistic person through a non-Autistic lens: 00:08:18.300 --> 00:08:23.240 just because someone is non-verbal doesn't mean they cannot or are not communicating. 00:08:23.240 --> 00:08:28.619 Of course, if a non-verbal Autistic puts things into an accepted format, like the written word, 00:08:28.619 --> 00:08:33.572 suddenly their level of functioning and validity of experience is reconsidered. 00:08:33.572 --> 00:08:39.281 In a similar manner, we are consistently astounded by non-human animals’ emotional capacities. 00:08:39.281 --> 00:08:44.650 Every now and again there’s a new article or study expounding upon the amazing possibility 00:08:44.650 --> 00:08:50.260 that animals experience complex emotions, or are far more intelligent than we once thought. 00:08:50.260 --> 00:08:56.354 Yet somehow, despite this happening time and again, we don’t take these revelations to their ultimate conclusion: 00:08:56.506 --> 00:09:02.220 that animals obviously possess multifaceted inner lives that we are not privy to. 00:09:02.220 --> 00:09:06.924 They have been thinking and feeling long before we were able to "prove" it 00:09:06.924 --> 00:09:09.908 within our own framework of understanding. 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:13.168 The same, unfortunately, holds true for pain perception. 00:09:13.168 --> 00:09:18.344 Humans have long carried out horrific experiments to determine if animals feel pain. 00:09:18.344 --> 00:09:24.657 For the centuries that humans have been hurting animals to prove for ourselves that they could feel, 00:09:25.147 --> 00:09:27.030 they were feeling. 00:09:27.131 --> 00:09:30.220 So, why not assume that they do feel? 00:09:30.220 --> 00:09:33.560 Why not assume that they do emote? 00:09:33.560 --> 00:09:40.259 Why should they have to suffer to prove to us within our own limited understanding 00:09:40.259 --> 00:09:42.429 that they are sentient beings? 00:09:43.071 --> 00:09:46.130 I've really struggled with putting this video together. 00:09:46.130 --> 00:09:51.100 There is so very much I wanted to convey that I'm simply unable to. 00:09:51.100 --> 00:09:56.910 While I am verbal, the process it takes for me to put things into words is extremely difficult. 00:09:56.910 --> 00:10:02.330 And honestly, words can't help but fail to fully capture what I'm meaning to express. 00:10:02.330 --> 00:10:07.750 While I think my experience of feeling more at ease and connected with non-human animals is hardly unique, 00:10:07.750 --> 00:10:14.204 I do believe that animals—in many ways—have helped me survive being Autistic in a non-Autistic world. 00:10:14.325 --> 00:10:16.886 And I cannot help but try to advocate for them. 00:10:16.886 --> 00:10:20.382 Not to be their voice, nor speak for them. 00:10:20.382 --> 00:10:22.706 They have voices all their own. 00:10:23.061 --> 00:10:25.456 They communicate quite effectively. 00:10:25.811 --> 00:10:28.780 We... just don't listen. 00:10:29.185 --> 00:10:31.844 While this video isn't everything I wanted it to be, 00:10:31.997 --> 00:10:36.621 I hope at the very least that sharing how I see the world differently 00:10:36.621 --> 00:10:40.780 may help others begin to think differently. 00:10:41.710 --> 00:10:47.498 To stay in the loop about new Bite Size Vegan content and updates, please subscribe, and sign up for the newsletter 00:10:47.498 --> 00:10:50.641 or follow the Telegram channel for the most reliable notifications. 00:10:50.641 --> 00:10:53.239 Now go live vegan, and I'll see you soon.