Published on 12, July, 2020
This is something which bugs me a lot so I’ve decided to voice it - I’ve seen it in here and in the world around me and it seems to be happening more and more - people playing the autism card. For absolute clarity, I wholeheartedly believe employers etc should make reasonable adjustments for ASD where there is a genuine need, but too often I am seeing people try to use their autism as a means of getting more or justifying actions which aren’t right.
As someone on the spectrum, I don’t want to stand out, I don’t want others thinking I’m getting specialist treatment or get away with stuff because I’m autistic. Drawing attention to the autistic cause negatively isn’t going to help anyone, least of all ourselves.
For example people have posted on here saying they feel they should get to break social distancing/ lockdown rules because they are autistic (despite the fact that this puts them and others at risk), a year or two back I knew an autistic guy who set off an alarm because he didn’t get his way, the real reason was because he was annoyed at someone and generally throws his toys out of the pram when he doesn’t get his own way - his defence was ‘I am autistic’ - so I challenged him on this, and he eventually conceded that he used his ASD to cover up for his behaviours. The same I feel applies to violence or other bad/ anti-social behaviour - there is a huge difference between a trait being activated and a learned behaviour to deal with it. If someone says ‘I hit that person because I wasn’t coping with a particular trait being triggered’ - that’s a fair statement. To say It hit that person because I’m autistic’ is not - I accept there are links and I gave more sympathy for young children on this one who don’t understand law, social norms and values etc but as adults we have to take responsibility for ourselves and our actions.
So yes we should (if we want to) disclose ASD so as reasonable adjustments are made, but I wish people would stop misusing autism as an excuse where it shouldn’t be used. I worry people will tire of ‘but it’s because I’m autistic’ to the extent that genuine needs will get brushed aside - so everybody loses.
*Rant over*
For me the more troubling question is how much free will we (as human beings) really have.
Could I handle things better whenever things get overwhelming, or when I do have a lapse in keeping it together is it just weakness? Or is it something else? Stresses over taking on too much with too-tight deadlines, or not just being able to walk away?
Two days ago I just wanted to put the finishing touches on an art project I hope to sell online, as a project as decently professional as I hope to get.
But of course the job wasn't nearly as simple as it seemed and I started getting angry. It is easy to spend hours on the computer and not want to stop, even for a coffee, let alone a snack. I wrote to the company to ask why the software did not accept my box design and the next at tried again.
I spent over twelve hours at it, and this time towards the end, all sorts of weird glitches started happening.
There is always the fear my neighbours can hear, though the sound is good where I live. But there is no actual sound proofing. My poor cat was scared and i feel bad about traumatising her. Even now I can feel this horrible tightness on my chest again recounting this.
I do have a much nicer, more professional looking product that should hopefully bring me more royalties in the future. My quarantine was spent editing every last card from the artwork, spending many a night working into the small hours on the morning on Photoshop. But I do feel ashamed of the massive meltdown I got into again, when things started to go wrong andxI could not see why!