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Raising awareness of autism

belles12345

Hello everyone,

Since discovering my autistic traits, and having undergone counselling and done my research to understand the roots of my difficulties, I am at a stage where I can begin to accept myself and am very slowly getting happier in life.  I feel very lucky that I have understood the nature of my difficulties, and that I have had a great counsellor to help with this.  However I only learnt about this by chance, and therefore could equally have remained unaware of this for the rest of my life.  Therefore it follows that there must be many others out there with no knowledge or understanding whatsoever.  I would like to find ways to raise awareness of autism, particularly among girls, to stop young girls from going through the experiences that I went through (or at least decreasing negative impact on them) and/or enabling self-awareness amongst women. 

So my question is does anyone have any ideas of how to raise awareness of so-called 'mild' autism?

I have read elsewhere on the forum that even those with a diagnosis (I do not currently have this, and may not even qualify for one, but even so the effect of traits on my life has been immense) struggle to get support as their autism is viewed as mild.  Is it not like being partially sighted (ie. still major difficulties even though some sight is there)?  I throw this out there to see what ideas may be generated, and to try to get a discussion going on this.  It may not be accurate but I am trying to think about how the difficulties could be presented....

Parents

  • I really like the star/rainbow analogy you use here treeswaving.  

    I agree with what you say about understanding of the spectrum.  In fact before understanding autism (especially how it presents in girls) I just understood so-called 'high-functionning' autism as in 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime'- another view that people have of aspergers, and as it being distinct from autism.  In my opinion, this book gave people another stereotyped and misunderstood view of what the basis of autism really is (for example that all autistic people must have some sort of obvious and highly unusual OCD type obsession, whereas in reality this can manifest in many different ways and I feel is only a symptom of the difficulties).

    Like you mention above people say things like 'we are all on the spectrum' which really annoys me as it devalues the huge struggles of autistic people.  There needs to be a complete overhaul of the current image of autism, but how to do this...

    Can we compare this struggle for understanding to another movement?  (I know it has been likened by some to 'gay rights' but I don't know enough about this to say- although I am sure it is very different it may help to have a model to use in terms of changing perceptions).

    I use the term 'autistic traits' as I don't feel that I can use the term autistic even though  I have effectively been told that I am but have masked it.  I think this helps me to give a term to qualify me in my mind and the minds of other NTs, however maybe it doesn't help the general cause if I use this term to describe my difficulties.  I have been told by professionals in the field that I may not get a diagnosis because I am female (and the criteria may not address this), however I have played with this in my mind about telling family/whoever I want to about being autistic and I don't think they would believe me without a diagnosis from someone qualified to give it.  Anyway this is going off-point slightly but however I understand that this is an issue for many females, and therefore again raises another difficulty in helping people to understand the 'spectrum'- because if some of us could just be viewed as 'quirky' rather than viewing the world completely differently then it is difficult to identify and also define.

    I am finding this discussion very interesting, I don't really know what I think properly so it is great to debate and redefine my ideas as well as looking for ways to raise awareness.

Reply

  • I really like the star/rainbow analogy you use here treeswaving.  

    I agree with what you say about understanding of the spectrum.  In fact before understanding autism (especially how it presents in girls) I just understood so-called 'high-functionning' autism as in 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime'- another view that people have of aspergers, and as it being distinct from autism.  In my opinion, this book gave people another stereotyped and misunderstood view of what the basis of autism really is (for example that all autistic people must have some sort of obvious and highly unusual OCD type obsession, whereas in reality this can manifest in many different ways and I feel is only a symptom of the difficulties).

    Like you mention above people say things like 'we are all on the spectrum' which really annoys me as it devalues the huge struggles of autistic people.  There needs to be a complete overhaul of the current image of autism, but how to do this...

    Can we compare this struggle for understanding to another movement?  (I know it has been likened by some to 'gay rights' but I don't know enough about this to say- although I am sure it is very different it may help to have a model to use in terms of changing perceptions).

    I use the term 'autistic traits' as I don't feel that I can use the term autistic even though  I have effectively been told that I am but have masked it.  I think this helps me to give a term to qualify me in my mind and the minds of other NTs, however maybe it doesn't help the general cause if I use this term to describe my difficulties.  I have been told by professionals in the field that I may not get a diagnosis because I am female (and the criteria may not address this), however I have played with this in my mind about telling family/whoever I want to about being autistic and I don't think they would believe me without a diagnosis from someone qualified to give it.  Anyway this is going off-point slightly but however I understand that this is an issue for many females, and therefore again raises another difficulty in helping people to understand the 'spectrum'- because if some of us could just be viewed as 'quirky' rather than viewing the world completely differently then it is difficult to identify and also define.

    I am finding this discussion very interesting, I don't really know what I think properly so it is great to debate and redefine my ideas as well as looking for ways to raise awareness.

Children
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