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b'(Self-portrait as both ape and topless woman) wild and tame, strong and vulnerable, stupid and smart, masc and femme, masking and unable to mask: I can\\u2019t make a world without discrimination, I can\\u2019t end all ableism, I CAN draw a picture that holds us in the face of everything.\\n---\\nSometimes it\\u2019s so raw when you can\\u2019t regulate - if you\\u2019re under pressure, or out in society. I judge myself so much, forgetting not to feel all the things my early carers said to me. Please, don\\u2019t judge me for things out of my control.\\n\\nI want our society to change, and stop shaming and pathologising children that are born like me. I want stimming to be normalised, so our bodies can be free.\\n\\nI was diagnosed with \\u2018Polarised Intelligences\\u2019. In my childhood, this diagnosis was called idiot savant. They didn\\u2019t explain what the word savant meant (it means smart - I found that out at 32).\\n\\nMy teachers\\u2019 aide also used the word \\u2018retarded\\u2019, which I preferred to \\u2018learning difficulties\\u2019 as it seemed more open-ended, and I didn\\u2019t have any problems learning art and things I was interested in. I didn\\u2019t see a need to talk or behave like other children. Now I like the term alternative processing abilities.\\n\\nI was privileged to go to the third most expensive private school in Melbourne. This meant that I was segregated with a Special Ed teacher, away from the other children, my entire education. This practice is now illegal. Instead of learning the curriculum, I learned a lot of weird stuff about me. I was tested a lot - around four times a year from grade five to grade 12, and once in my adult life. Even though I did the same test over and over, I could never learn to do things my brain hasn\\u2019t developed to do.\\n\\nI come out consistently around the 64th percentile on a two-week long neurological test. You could think that\\u2019s pretty average, I\\u2019m actually in 0.5% of the population - as half my areas of intelligence are below the 4th percentile, and the other half are in the 98th percentile or immeasurably good. Things that might be automatic or obvious for most people can be incredibly complex or impossible for me.\\n\\nOn the other hand, I solved a block puzzle that hadn\\u2019t been solved for forty years at Melbourne Clinic, in under 40 seconds, to the amazement of the neuroscientists testing me!\\n\\nI think of the parts of my brain that haven\\u2019t developed like a beautiful instinctive apelike-feeling body. There can be something unconstrained, unfiltered and raw about the immediacy I experience. This part of me is so vulnerable and wounded, it\\u2019s also the most beautiful part of me.\\n\\nI think of the parts of my brain that are immeasurably intelligent as the parts that can protect me. This part of me appears and disappears with my capacity. Like my speech. It allows me to see things many people in my community can\\u2019t see. It allows me to comprehend things 99% of the population will never conceive.\\nThere\\u2019s a real strength in my vulnerability. There\\u2019s a real skill in my specialisation. There\\u2019s something fantastic about me that statistics could never quantify!\\n\\nConcept & Artwork: Mishka'