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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

  • Honestly no. I don't embrace autism as a term. I embrace me, I am more than a label. And thats all autism is, a convenient label to explain to people how I'm different from them. I think I've always known I'm different from other people, probably at least since I was old enough to know other people was a thing. I have always been the alien, the outsider. I grew up finding things others never master incredibly easy and things almost everyone masters impossibly hard. Most kids grow up thinking they are smarter than most of the adults around them but I knew it in an objective sense. I knew I could adsorb complex structured and relational information faster than them and retain it more easily. I could see patterns were they couldn't, string together chains of events to predict outcomes they couldn't. I just couldn't understand why they were mad at me so often. I never needed a word to know I'm different.

    Having the word hasn't made me feel better about myself or made others more understanding. I don't particularly feel I've found a like minded community either. I find I'm very different to most other autistic people. Most autistic people I've met are highly introverted and many of them are almost apologetic for their autism. I find this frustrating. So many of my nerdy friends from the old days used to be lively outgoing people who liked interacting in large groups. Going out, events, activities, excitement, and now they are positive home bodies. People talk about autistic support groups etc but if autistic support group means group of people who want to hide in a quiet corner because the world is too noisy I'm quite certain I'd be a bad fit.

    The truth is autism is only useful to me as a label. I've I'd had that label in education I might, just might, have been able to trade upon it to get some of the flexibility and rule bending that might have allowed me to be around more young people growing up and reach my potential faster. Autism is only useful to me now on the same basis, I know if there is a horrible cockup at work I can lean upon it to get some latitude for misunderstandings and personality clashes with colleagues, thankfully that's not been necessary in my current job. In principal I should be able to lean upon it in the same way in social services (by which I mean services designed to facilitate social interaction not government social services). A kind of oil to lubricate interactions, a piece of paper to wave at people to remind them they are dealing with a metaphorical alien. Normal is not a reasonable expectation to have. Beyond that I'm not sure it does me much good.

  • in reply to Peter

    Peter,

    How exactly would you explain and describe why you can do things that others are not and never will be capable of? 

    How will you explain why there's certain areas in life you struggle with but others don't seem to?

    If someone asked you "why can you focus for so long?" what would you say?

    Introversion is a stereotype and people become introverted because the public will not accept them. If NDs can't accept neurodiversity how is the public going to do so?

  • in reply to Daniel
    These days I might indeed use the term autistic to explain these things to people, the point I’m making is I don’t need that word to explain it to myself. Autism can not tell me who I am. And I find myself very different from most people who wear that label openly. That may party be because those who do are undergoing periods of high stress and difficulty.
    It’s been my observation that a lot of high functioning autistic people only get their diagnosis in adulthood when they encounter serious difficulties in life. Serious difficulty’s can change a person, make them quiet or timid ... for myself I refuse to change. I intend to be the same noisy outward looking person I ever was.
    Most of the ND adults I know have settled into very insular routueen lives where they only have regular social contact with a small group of people often in a very predictable setting. A lot of them have significant others around whom their social lives revolve.
    You used to see them in night clubs, at concerts or out with 30+ people in a pub. Doing activities in big noisy groups... now they maybe have 1 activity they do religiously with the same small group of people.
    One or two have become total shut ins. They almost never see anyone other than their significant others.
    You understand what I’m saying? Autism is just a label and that cuts both ways. It brings some understanding but also miss-understanding, bias and bad stereotypes. I embrace me, the way I am. That doesn’t mean I have to embrace the paths others autistic people take in life or the expectations others have of them.
  • in reply to Daniel
    Daniel said:
    A good community is not an argumentative community

    Actually I disagree. argument is the refining fire through which we improve our ideas. civil and courteous argument has value, is necessary and is to be strongly encouraged.

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