Diagnosis saves lives. What is your True Tale?
xRainbow
Hello! It's such a pleasure to meet you. My name is Rafa Beleze, and I am an AuDHD artist from Brazil. My artwork celebrates the autistic experience and memorializes adult diagnosed autism stories from people all over the world. I call this series, True Tales.
I have been an artist my entire life. As a child, art was my passion. It was my safe space, a break from a world I didn't fit into. Autism is hard as a child, especially when you don't know that you are autistic. Art celebrated my differences.
From there, I studied art in school. I am honored that my work has been celebrated and awarded, that people enjoy what I create. I've made children's coloring books. I was a tattoo artist. Now, today, my focus is on the autistic community. I love transforming the stereotypes of autism, I love creating artwork that speaks to autistic soul and experience. It is so much fun! And, provides so much meaning.
I was 27 when I was diagnosed autistic and ADHD. The diagnosis was transformative for me. I truly believe that diagnosis and the support of the autistic community saves lives. It hurts me to imagine all of the people in the world who do not know that they are neurodivergent – they have not been given the words or tools to fully make sense of their experience... I know. I was one of them for so long.
Join me! Truly. I invite you to discover and explore autism with me. I want to share with you my work and all of the other stories that are just like yours and mine. I love you!
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SW Hammond
The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence.
It's all here. It's all been documented. The complete, unabridged collection of my life's work. From discovering bugs and trees, to teenage melancholy, to rock n’ roll and relationships and philosophy and society and me never quite getting any of it right… and finally figuring out why.
Why?
Because I’m human. As much as I’ve tried to reach mind-altering states of God-like consciousness, I can’t. I’m not. It just won’t work like everyone else’s. *raps fist on noggin*
From a young age, I began documenting. Journaling. Writing about the world, how I saw it, and any wisdom gleaned from it. Enlightenment. I wrote about my journey simply to understand it, in hopes of one day transcending it.
I write to process the world. I don’t perceive it the same as you. I often don’t understand it at all. It feels very unnatural to me — my existence as a human. I can’t seem to identify my feelings and I don’t know what to do with them when I do. Putting all of this into language, tangible definitions, was my way of narrating the world — and thus being able to gain a mental image of the story being told to me about it.
Without words, I’d be… lost. Adrift.
So, with these words, and the world that I’ve internalized through them – this is the history I felt was worth writing and worth keeping.
