Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi everyone,
I've been feeling really low lately and something that hasn't helped is the subject matter of a class debate we had the other day. We began to talk about autism and Asperger's Syndrome, and this popular girl who has no communication or social difficulties whatsoever (in fact one of her many gifts is that she makes everyone love her) says, "Everyone's on the spectrum, it's just to what extent. My cousins are autistic, so I know."
And...I know we're all entitled to our own opinions and beliefs. And it's not like that was the first time I had ever heard this theory, and to be quite honest, I'm not the most severely Asperger's person in the world. In fact, you'd probably say I had it quite mildly - particularly if you were an adult meeting me, as adults seem to bring out the best in me in a way that my peers can't. But when I saw her sitting there and just saying that, surrounded by all her friends kissing up to her and agreeing with her, whilst she'd just been going on about the party she was off to the next day, and the gig she was going to soon with another girl on our table, I just wanted to say, "OK. So you believe everyone's got autism. You try living a day in my life - seeing everyone make friends around you whilst you're left completely alone, no matter how hard you try. You try knowing you're different ever since you're old enough to think, and then tell me everyone's on the spectrum, because I think you might feel differently then. You've got no idea how lucky you are! I'd give anything to be accepted and supported by everyone like you are."
Now, I know she doesn't mean that everyone is autistic or AS to the point of diagnosis. She just means that we've all got little tendencies here and there. But, though I wouldn't say it to her or any of the kids at school as it makes me sound like I'm just making trouble or feeling sorry for myself or using any excuse to have a big, dramatic, overemotional reaction, I found it really difficult to hear that from her, and in my personal opinion it's actually quite an insensitive thing to say to/in front of someone with any form of autism. (She does know I have AS, and she says she believes it's true but I don't think she does - none of the others do.)
Am I being out of order?
Thanks for reading,
Liv x
I didn't assert you weren't on the spectrum if you didn't merit intervention, but I did suggest that's how the outside world, and healtrh professionals in particular, perceive it.
Spectral implies a continuum with more or less the same rate of change, although the electromagnetic spectrum is usually presented in a logarithmic scale in order to get it on one piece of paper.
You cannot impose such a simplistic scale on something so complex as autism. The environmental sensitivity, poor eye contact, narrow processing bandwidth that possibly causes meltdowns, organisational and behavioural traits, etc etc are not isolated parameters. They interact with each other to create further difficulties. Also people on the spectrum have differing degrees of any one attribute - that I suggest means multiple spectra.
I've worked with people who are to all outward evidence just like anyone else around them, who are severely constrained by their autism, it just doesn't show on the surface. I've worked with people with very conspicuous mannerisms, poor eye contact and motor control problems who yet are astonishingly well adapted to living in society - behind the facade or image it creates, they actually aren't that disabled.
The spectrum is a nice idea but too simplistic.
As you've said yourself you struggled for years believing everyone else struggled as well and only realised there was a difference when you got diagnosed. You could identify you were on a spectrum before diagnosis, but if no-one noticed and helped before it would seem the spectrum wasn't doing you any favours.
Also, and from my own experience, if I had been identified in the 1950s or early 1960s (and I was in fact investigated in 1959 but my parents, having a medical background, insisted on DIY) I would probably have been sectioned, taken out of mainstream education and institutionalised. A lot of people were. If I had been identified later in the 60s I'd have been put on psychotic drugs that would have greatly changed my personality for the worse. I wasn't living in the London area or any of those locations where early recognition led to some sort of special school. Obvious odd-balls got medicated in the 60s.
Where's you spectrum there? Its no use talking past tense. The spectrum is a current, inappropriate buzz word for something much more complex and much harder to define.
Using spectrum as a definitive term is not helping a lot of people.