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Do You Embrace Autism?

Daniel

Ever since I were 2 years old the NHS has viewed me as one of the most severely disabled people in the UK. Due to this, just about everyone doubted me, and attempted to discourage me, even today the NHS themselves struggle to believe what I’ve accomplished in my life. 

I believe what has helped me make my achievements is embracing my Autism instead of suppressing it, I share my view with people and they claim they’ve never looked at it my way, shows just how effective having a different perspective and way of thinking of the world can be. 

I simply viewed Autism as an adjective instead of a disability, an adjective that describes my brain. I ask people why they view Autism as a tragedy and disability, I always get answers like “because it gives you limitations and disadvantages.” I then ask them “doesn’t every human have limitations and disadvantages?” They confess yes then I say “so isn’t humanity a disability?” They say No, I then tell them “Exactly, Autism, ADHD, Down Syndrome, Dyslexia and any other brain is part of The Human Spectrum, not a Malfunctioning Human Spectrum. I always tell them they are not “able”, they are “en-abled” and I’m “differently-abled”.

I love the positive neurological differences, and I believe it’s these differences like hyper focusing, special interests, critically detailed, awareness, not so easily driven away from my goals, concentrate for longer periods of time, perseverance and not so disturbed by what people think about me. Embracing these aspects, putting them to use is what’s helped me strive to reach my goals. I think it would be great if Autistic children could be more encouraged and taught about their strengths instead of been lead to believe Autism is only negative making them sabotage themselves.

Would you like to share what you like about your form of Autism or your child’s form of Autism and how you embrace it.

Parents

  • Bravo! Very well expressed. And an important point made.

    I'm 56 and still waiting for an assessment, with the likelihood that I am autistic all a bit of a shock to me still. But that process of preparing the developmental questionnaires has had me examine and reflect on my childhood a lot!  Funnily enough, under the "strengths" bit, both my mother and I mentioned my single mindedness to achieve even in the face of obstacles.

    Will I embrace this now? Yes, absolutely! It's making sense of my life for the first time; both the hard parts and my talents.

    I do ask myself what would have happened if I had had a diagnosis as a child. Would I have found my path easier because I could have had support? Maybe games teachers, at least, might not have shouted at me when I couldn't hit a ball with a bat.  Or, actually, might they have squashed my dreams and lowered my expectations of myself by assuming I just couldn't do stuff?

    It's impossible to know the answer, but I do wonder whether I succeeded inspite of the fact nobody knew why I was different, or because nobody knew.

Reply

  • Bravo! Very well expressed. And an important point made.

    I'm 56 and still waiting for an assessment, with the likelihood that I am autistic all a bit of a shock to me still. But that process of preparing the developmental questionnaires has had me examine and reflect on my childhood a lot!  Funnily enough, under the "strengths" bit, both my mother and I mentioned my single mindedness to achieve even in the face of obstacles.

    Will I embrace this now? Yes, absolutely! It's making sense of my life for the first time; both the hard parts and my talents.

    I do ask myself what would have happened if I had had a diagnosis as a child. Would I have found my path easier because I could have had support? Maybe games teachers, at least, might not have shouted at me when I couldn't hit a ball with a bat.  Or, actually, might they have squashed my dreams and lowered my expectations of myself by assuming I just couldn't do stuff?

    It's impossible to know the answer, but I do wonder whether I succeeded inspite of the fact nobody knew why I was different, or because nobody knew.

Children
  • in reply to Dawn

    Dawn,

    The majority of Neurotypical people cause divisions among The Human Spectrum.

    Is the medical model trying to help us, or is it a selfish designed to make us live the way they want us to live while harming us in the process? 

    Those of us Autistic have the empathy to look into and try to understand the Neurotypical view, but Neurotypicals don't have the empathy to look from an Autistic view.

    We have tonnes of Autistic people hypersensitive to light and sound then Neurotypical people decide to bombard the environment with bright lights and loud noises to bestow some artificial sense of excitement in themselves not caring that they are putting Autistic people in absolute physical and unbearable pain.

    So, is it the Autism hurting those hypersensitive, or is it the selfishness of the society?

    Look from one piece of suffering to another and see it's caused by what the society does to the autistic one, Clara mentioned stuttering, what's wrong with stuttering? I don't see stuttering as a problem, but the society does.

    Autism is not the problem, the problem is the society's ignorance, intolerance and fear of diversity, so if one of us is cursed, it's the society cursed by fear of what they don't understand.