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Trying to explain autism feels pointless

Laddo

Does anyone ever get the impression that trying to explain autism to some people is about as much use as banging your head against a brick wall? I try to explain to certain people time and time again that it is not as easy as just being more social and that social situations are genuinely exhausting and sometimes mentally and physically painful but it never seems to go in, no matter how I word it. Our brains are wired differently to NTs' brains but that still doesn't seem to be enough proof to some people that socialising is incredibly difficult for us.

I don't mean to rant, but it all gets so frustrating. I can't continue to be friends with certain NTs if they refuse to even attempt to understand my condition

  • You make a good point regarding our portrayal in the media. There need to be more 'ordinary' autistic characters on TV - characters that aren't savant geniuses or brilliant detectives, but everyday autistic people who deal with the same highs and lows that most of us on the spectrum have to deal with. The media shows more and more non-heterosexual people, different ethnic groups and people with other disabilities in these lights, so why not people with autism?

    I hate the stereotype that we're all perverts, especially considering how many autistic people are asexual and therefore have no interest in the private parts of the opposite sex. That nurse you mentioned represents a classic misconception that all autistic people are the same. It's absurd - just like in neurotypical people, you get some perverts but you also get a great deal more of us who can keep our hands to ourselves. I was innapropiately touched by a female doctor when I was a kid being assessed for Asperger's but it doesn't mean I avoid all doctors and think they're all perverts.

    The Triad has becoming the Holy Trinity of diagnosing autism. This is dangerous for both autistic people and psychiatrists alike as 1. it limits the support we have access to and creates misunderstanding of our condition and 2. it means that psychiatrists and the NHS have to deal with a greater number of complaints regarding their mishandling of a diagnosis.

    So, what do we do about it? How do we start making changes and portray autistic people as individuals without tying them to the Holy Triad?

  • Unfortunately media portrayals don't help. While "Rain Man" may have had enough media clarification as not being relevant a lot of portrayals of autism on television are not helping. These include autistic personas on Cracker, Frost, Lewis and other police/detective dramas, where the suspect or difficult witness needs a story line created around his/her state of mind.

    Then there are the TV detectives themselves - Sherlock, including Benedict Cumberbatch, is widely discussed as an autistic persona, and NAS has got involved in this. But is Hathaway in the Lewis series slightly asperger's?

    Many people have read The Strange Tale of the Dog in the Night time, or know about it, and now it is on stage.

    There is a group in America of people who self diagnose with the belief claiming to have autism improves their employment prospects. There is alleged to be a fad amongst academics of claiming to be on the spectrum because it enhanced their careers. When I informed my head of school (at a university) that I had the diagnosis, he actually thought that was all I'd done!

    People now have well established preconceptions about autism.

    They think its about being special, highly intelligent or superior rather than in any sense a disadvantage. Others have images of people having fits and lashing out at people around them. Many people think it is a mental health condition. A lot of people associate it with sexual harrassment, because people on the spectrum on TV often touch females inappropriately.

    I was horrified to talk to a nurse who had once worked in a home where a person with autism had touched female staff, and was now so disgusted that she refused to treat or help anyone with the condition.

    The other side of the problem is how you explain autistic spectrum. Most health professionals are told about the Triad of Impairments. The Triad was devised as a diagnostic tool, describing DETECTABLE traits that DISTINGUISH autism from otherconditions, particularly schizophrenia.

    So it follows surely that it doesn't cover less readily DETECTABLE traits, and it doesn't cover traits that wouldn't DISTINGUISH it from other conditions.

    But NAS is one of the worst culprits at this. The triad may describe obvious parameters in marked autism, but for many people on the spectrum it can prove misleading, and it fails to describe many day to day difficulties. Indeed many things not covered by the Triad are not taken seriously by health professionals. NAS doesn't seem at all botrhered that they are failing most of us with their silly parroting of the Triad.

    So you explaining the social difficulties, the exhausion and mental and physical pain. It's not in the Triad. Anyone looking up the NAS website only gets told about the Triad!

    NAS is our worst enemy.