Autistic Mythology

“Me debunk an American myth, take my life in my hands?”

So goes the first line of one of my favorite Tragically Hip songs, “At the Hundredth Meridian.” And let me tell you, there aren’t many myths more American than the myth that autism can be cured, much less prevented. (This seems like a good place for a reminder that a crowd called “Cure Autism Now” is one of the component rabbles of Autism Speaks-for-itself, which was founded and headquartered in New York City.) And there is NO myth, American or otherwise, that I’m more committed to debunking, even — or especially — if I’m taking my life in my paws.

Not far from where I used to live in Massachusetts, there was an office building with the words “AUTISM INTERVENTION CENTER” spelled out on its side. The first time I saw this, I frowned, bristled, arched my back and hissed. I asked myself, whence comes this need to “intervene” in the development of an autistic child? Do we feel the need to “intervene” in the development of any other child, or only those who have trouble with communication and self-expression in a manner to neurotypical liking? Seems a little discriminatory, if you ask me.

It strikes me that such “intervention” is meant to alter a child’s growth so they can act more “normal” (though all they’re really doing is learning to hide themselves for self-preservation’s sake). So I will ask again: Why is it necessary to intervene in any child’s growth? Why not just let their development run its course, and better yet, aid it? As the child grows older, observe their progress and take note of what what really interests them, whether it’s mathematics or languages or sciences or maybe even music and theater; and cultivate that which really interests them and help them develop it into a life’s work.

As a matter of fact, for the sake of changing perceptions, I think “aid” is a much more appropriate term than “treat.” Treatment suggests that autism is an illness, and needs to be cured.

Well… *turns on shoddy, skippy vinyl record player* AUTISM IS NOT A DISEASE. As a matter of fact, when it comes to life coaching and skill learning for young autistic people, what say we just stop calling it “treatment” and start calling it “aid”? Seems a lot more appropriate to me. Aiding young autistic people implies that you’re actually HELPING them to track down what they’re best at — hell, there are plenty of non-verbal autistics who excel at math, visual art, maybe even physical activity. And verbal or non-verbal, if they’re provided with the aid and accommodation they need, should they still be treated as something less than human?

Full stop: They never should be treated that way to begin with.

Neurotype notwithstanding, it takes years, but brains grow and change the same as bodies, no matter who they belong to. It’s called “learning.” Learning that something’s drastically wrong with you and everyone is always going to hate your guts unless you behave properly (read: ABA) is not going to teach you anything. Learning that there’s something great you can do and that it’s possible to achieve opens up a much wider, brighter path for your life.

Being treated, in a medical sense, teaches you that you’re ill and broken and need to be taken apart and rebuilt into something you never wanted to be. Being AIDED teaches you that it’s possible to live your life doing something you’re good at. I’m thinking of a fella in southern Massachusetts who made the New England Cable News years ago by being a vastly skilled computer artist and architect. When he gave his interview, he never once looked the interviewer in the eye and he spoke in a hushed, inconspicuous tone, but he made mention of the excellent living he made doing this work he’d been permitted to do because he was good at it – and no one felt the need to “intervene” in his behavior or socialization skills.

If we want to intervene in something, let’s intervene in this NT mentality that all autistic children have to be “cured” or “made better” somehow. Let’s allow autistic youngsters to be themselves, let’s see what they can do… and then, most importantly, let’s step back and let them do it (as long as it isn’t contrary to the just laws of the land). THEN let’s see what kind of world they create for future generations, if they’re just allowed to do what they were put on this earth to do, instead of being forced to waste half their lives on trying to fit in.

There goes the record player again, AUTISM IS NOT A DISEASE.

I think what’s needed here (I’m looking at you, mental health professionals) could fall under the paradigm of Autistic Inclusion. Something whereby we can help all autistic people, both children AND adults, by not trying to “cure” them but trying to aid them in finding their place. Because we all have a place, an important place, a place into which each of us uniquely fits, and the biggest help you can possibly offer is in finding it, filling it and making a positive change in the world.

Autistic Inclusion. Let’s see it done.

Imperfect Circle

Hiding In Plain Sight

Sooner or later, we all traverse this pipeline…

You’re a child. You’re so overwhelmed by the light, the sounds, the expectations, the turmoil the world throws at you from every degree that it crushes you, you either melt down or blow apart. Doesn’t help when people expect you to behave a certain way and your persistent state of overload makes that impossible.

Still, you’re taught that it isn’t acceptable to react that way to being overstimulated. As you gain more experiences of the world, you learn how to avoid some situations and react to others in a way that is “acceptable.” In short, you mask.

But over time, you get so tired of hiding yourself as you try not to be spurned by everyone you meet, you can’t keep a grip… and you start losing the ability to hide, to mask. You may even react to situations the same way in your early 40s as you might have in your early 4s, with overloaded reactions, distressed outbursts, outright meltdowns.

Now, what if we lived in a world where all unusual behavior was acceptable? Where being non-violent, non-aggressive, undistressed and yet not typical was considered just another extension of the human condition? How tiring would that be?

“People with autism can’t communicate!”

… says everyone from parents to the psychology community, hoping to discredit every word we say in self-advocacy.

It began decades ago with “autism is characterized by an inability to communicate properly” or some dated nonsense from the DSM. Now it’s led to…

Autistic people: *turn to Twitter, FB, YouTube, etc. to share our stories*

Martyr parents: “People with REAL autism can’t use social media!”

Autistic people: *sigh*

NTs: “People with autism can’t communicate!”

Buddy, autistic people are trying to tell you something you don’t want to hear but still have to. Autistic people who are nonverbal — temporarily or otherwise — will explain to you in their own good time why they’re unable to express themselves in a manner more to your liking. True, a lot of autistic people have trouble with speech processing and articulation and need to write or type their thoughts to express them completely — thus it was that we rejoiced when texting became a suitable alternative to talking on the phone, my friend.

“People with autism can’t communicate!”

Maybe if you would shut up and let autistic people get a word in edgewise without interrupting every thought they try to express, their communication skills would amaze you. Autistic people can communicate just fine; you, Señor NT, are the one who won’t listen. That’s a you problem. You’d be surprised how much better autistic people are at communicating when YOU DON’T INTERRUPT.

“People with autism can’t communicate!”

Autistic people don’t do boring small talk. Fold your cards, shuffle the deck and deal with it. Autistic people are too busy thinking deep, far-reaching thoughts to become mired in irrelevant conversation.

“People with autism can’t communicate!”

Listen, buster…

…And that’s it.

Just shut up and LISTEN, as we communicate in our own way.

“People with autism can’t communicate!”

Okay, you want communication, how’s this? 🖕

Spectral Analysis

[CW’s for suicidal ideation, mental illness, bullying & trauma]

Autism is a spectrum because it isn’t black and white; it’s every color you can imagine. There are infinite possibilities that come with being autistic. You can’t just toss it all in one bucket, or worse, divvy it up into different baskets like fruit.

But there’s another spectrum that collides with it in matching colors as well as clashing ones — the spectrum of trauma.

Open Autism Night

Since time immemorial, I’ve been wondering: Why do ableist neurotypicals go the distances they go to make us look like a plague to be wiped out (even in the middle of an actual plague that threatens to wipe out a lot more than just us)?

Media representation has a lot to do with it, and no, I’m not just talking about “Music” or any other film or TV they’ve weaponized against us. Do you ever notice how, whenever there’s an incident like a school shooting or a dude in a van mowing down people on a street, the first conclusion people pounce to is “he must be autistic and unable to comprehend what he’s doing”? That was, after all, the defense used for Alek Minassian after he ran over 26 people with a van in Toronto in 2018.

Well, setting aside the problem of autistic people being picked on until they’re in such a distressed emotional state as to drive them to commit acts of violence, these unfortunately are the kinds of incidents that garner a lot of media attention. (Mind you, I am by no means saying that acts of violence are a necessary consequence of autistic people being picked on. Some of us have learned a hard lesson about reacting to negative stimuli. We’ve learned it’s a lot safer to shut down and dissociate than to risk a meltdown and/or outburst that could bring us to serious grief with the authorities.)

So media coverage does tend to poison people’s perceptions. It happened with Alek Minassian in much the same way it happened with Adam Lanza, the notorious machine-gunner of Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012. Autism, and an accompanying absence of mental competency, was the defense that Minassian’s attorneys used; and if the finger gets pointed in that direction to explain Men Behaving Badly, public opinion is all “OH NO DE AUTIZIMZ 😱” which also has a poor effect on parents whose children have just been identified.

So I think what we, the autistic people of the planet Earth, in order to form a more perfect humanity, need to do is try to draw media attention to our positive achievements as we make them. Maybe not as sensational, maybe less likely to get attention from the press, unless of course it’s something particularly positive and impactful, like on the Greta Thunberg scale. People who are #ActuallyAutistic, or believe they are autistic, who accomplish something great shouldn’t be afraid to let their neurological identity be known if they receive media attention. (Although it would be nice if they were better human beings than Muskallunge, whom I still hold to be an overrich douchebag who could find better things to do with his excessive wealth than privatize Twitter.)

And you know what else would help? If people like lawyers and teachers and politicians stop using autism as an excuse for a person’s shitty behavior. Not only does it give #autistic people yet another black eye, it’s not likely to help their case — it didn’t help Alek Minassian for sure. After all, as noted, Minassian was an incel — which is a trait that does not in any properly researched book go paw in paw with autism. Incels, in my estimation (and experience), come in all neurotypes. They have serious work to do on their self-improvement so that they will be at least more likable, and might find other paths to direct their energy rather than sitting around wringing their hands and waiting for a manic pixie dream girl to come along and do all the work for them. Blaming women for your own bad behavior is no more justifiable than blaming your neurology and misrepresenting it as a whole.

What would help more than anything is if a person could just for once safely disclose to employers, authorities, etc. that they are autistic and not be at once shunned, dismissed, canceled, or targeted for harassment that would immolate their mental health. A friend on AutiComm relates how she opened up about being autistic at work, and was accepted at first until her job came under new management, and: “When they found out I was openly autistic (and much more well liked than they), they started to purposely antagonize me, so I would have meltdowns and they could claim I was a danger and unfit for the job.”

With that, we’ve gone from misrepresentation to outright discrimination. I can count on one paw the number of people at my job who know I’m autistic, none of whom is a manager. Even if I did open up, all it would lead to is “well we all gotta deal with the same shit and none of us needs an exception, so we’re not making any, oh and show us your tits.” (Not word for word, but that’s the general idea.)

There are certain ethnic groups that are targets for violence and discrimination due to the actions of a very, very few of them. Autistic people are already targets for discrimination and prejudice — we need no more preemptive violence inspired by media sensationalism.

Autistic for Life

[TW’s for bullying, police brutality and suicide]

“YOU’RE NOTHING LIKE MY CHILD!”

…is an all-too-common response from a parent when an autistic adult shares their journey on social media. Can sometimes include such indictments as “you’re not SEVERELY autistic, you can use social media, you can speak, you’re not autistic at all” ad nauseam.

Well… no, quite right, I’m not like your child. I will quote no Nazi eugenicists and call no kettles black, but no two autistic people, child or adult, are exactly alike. So what if #ActuallyAutistic adults aren’t like #autistic kids? We’re still autistic, years be damned, but we have different challenges in adulthood than we do in childhood. And if we’re gonna be totally honest… among those challenges is just staying alive while the rest of the world continues to pick on us. And make no mistake — it IS a challenge.

Autism usually manifests in youngsters as an intense emotional reaction to sensory overstimulation, before our sensory processes have refined themselves. Occasional overstimulation still happens when we’re grown; maybe we can cope with it for longer periods, or maybe we become more adept at masking the effects of overload, but it isn’t necessarily easier. Autistic youngsters? Their brains are still learning to process sensory inputs, excessive as that might be, so they have to stim in order to process and manage their emotional reactions. Whether their elders are annoyed by it or not is immaterial; autistic adults with suppressed stims are under intensified mental stress because for years, maybe decades, they haven’t been allowed to “blow off steam,” as the saying goes.

Furthermore, far too many autistic youngsters spend far too much of their precious youth being picked on and hassled without mercy, by classmates and teachers, even family members. In adulthood, the bullies and their methods are different, but they do no less damage than judgmental schoolyard thugs. (Adulthood bullies include such sects as employers, the police, landlords, homeowner associations, Autism Speaks-for-itself, anti-vaxxers, and the Judge Rotten-berg Center.) This has the effect of worsening sensory inputs until the brain is so overwhelmed that it can’t even recognize the inputs for what they are anymore.

Maybe an autistic youngster had a difficult relationship with a parent who wanted their ideal of the “Perfect Child™” and didn’t get the pious, obedient, conveniently affectionate little angel they were looking forward to. Maybe that difficulty stayed with the youngster well into adulthood, and poorly affected their ability to make friends and form relationships of their own. Maybe an autistic youngster had a childhood idol, like a pop singer or an actor in a classic science fiction series. Maybe after growing up, the youngster learned an awful truth about this idol, like they really hated autistic people and badly misrepresented them in media, that totally ruined the euphoria.

Whatever the catalyst, when autistic youngsters are overwhelmed, or for any other reason unable to comply with a demand, they’re dismissed as recalcitrant little brats. When autistic adults are unable to comply with a demand, they get into trouble with either their job or the law.

The saying goes that “Autism doesn’t end at 5.” Maybe it’s referring to time of day, but let’s assume for a moment it refers to age. In that event, no, autism doesn’t end at 5. Nor does it end at 18, or 25, or 30. In too many instances, it ends at 36, or 45 or 50 or at whatever age a person can’t withstand the pressure anymore.

But autism never goes away — nor should it.

Child or adult, an autistic person is always autistic, always has their co-occurrences, strengths, weaknesses, talents, drawbacks, interests, bores, passions, indifferences, childhood, adulthood… HUMANITY.

Past or future, autism is always “present.”

Value in Interest

“Has anyone ever berated you for being “obsessed” with a certain subject or are you neurotypical?”

So read one of the most viral tweets I ever posted. After the massive response to it, something occurred to me about hyperfocus and #ActuallyAutistic people who exhibit it; something concerning that wolf in sheep’s clothing that neurotypicals lovingly call “Applied Behavioral Analysis.”

I thought more deeply about how people react to our “obsessions,” as NTs are more inclined to call them. But then it occurred to me, isn’t that one of the ultimate goals of ABA — to forestall #autistic kids from having “obsessions” that their parents and many NTs object to?

And then I thought, we develop special interests because we tend to hyperfocus on these subjects that fascinate us so. Based on the replies to that tweet, NTs have issues with it mainly because they tire of hearing about these topics after a while. So it wouldn’t at all surprise me if suppressing special interests is a component of ABA. Perhaps one of you poor souls who has endured it can confirm this.

Ah, but if suppressing hyperfocus is heading off a kid’s tendency to have special interests… what’s that doing to their ability to focus overall? How is that affecting their neurodevelopment? Is it positive?

I seriously doubt it. I feel in my fur that such attempts to curtail hyperfocus affect those areas of the brain that control ANY focus. Like, a developed brain, with an occupation (like mine) that requires acute attention to detail, can’t concentrate on the task at paw because it’s been conditioned to think, “oh no, this is wrong, I can’t devote all my attention to this, I have to think about something else!”

We know too well ABA causes mental health problems — this is just another example. And it got me thinking, in point of fact, that maybe it even leads to other neurological conditions like ADHD or executive dysfunction later in life. We know what effect these co-occurring conditions have on our lives, don’t we? As a matter of fact, we end up exposing ourselves to even more abusive treatment when we end up having to take unnecessary medications to manage ADHD, or our executive dysfunction is misinterpreted as laziness, incompetence or outright stupidity.

This is something that I think requires more research as the ABA debate rages on. ABA isn’t necessary; other forms of therapy are, and they should include teaching autistic youngsters the value of their special interests and how they can guide a life.

Changing Perceptions

In which an autistic adult describes how, and why, we have to change the perceptions of autism.

It wasn’t until my mid-20s that the first clues dropped: “Hey, all that weird, reprehensible shit I did when I was a kitten? It’s all because I’m #autistic!!” Of course, that wasn’t my attitude at first. I was more like, “Huh, well, that explains it. So now what?”

It took a while to process the news and to educate myself about what all this meant. During that process, I still thought “reprehensible” an accurate descriptor of the behavior of my youth. I still thought I was defective, chronically ill. This was because in those days, #autism was still thought of as a mental disease or defect.

But we know better now, don’t we, friends? Knowledge of autism has increased, even though efforts at unnecessary psychiatric treatment and eugenics have unfortunately increased with it. With increased knowledge came a change in the way I felt about being autistic. As I learned that there were advantages as well as disadvantages, I came to realize that yes, it’s a disability — as my own sensory and social challenges will attest — BUT IT’S NOT A DEFECT.

Years ago, I thought no one would accept me. Today, after finding my #ActuallyAutistic village online… well, I quit Twitter when it became unignorably clear that I’m not well liked by most of the more tenured activists in the autistic circle there. But I have a good pawful of friends here on WordPress and on AutiComm, and that’s better than no friends at all. My own perception of being autistic has changed even more dramatically in recent years. I’ve gone from regarding it as a weighty, splintery burden to seeing it as a source of light, a strength, a difference that begets difference.

As knowledge of autism has changed, so must perception. The perception must reflect the new information. It’s time to toss the DSM-V aside and write an all-new, autistic-written, autistic-outlined and detailed manual for the fair and humane treatment of autistic people.

Therefore it’s time for the neurotypicals to sit down, shut up and let autistic people tell their own firstpaw accounts of what being autistic is like. So we can change not only our perceptions of ourselves, but of all autistic knowledge for future generations.

Let Autistic People Live

[TW for ableism, abuse and murder]

Hear ye, hear ye:

When I say #LetAutisticPeopleLive, I don’t just mean “allow us to go on living,” although that is a big part of it. I also mean, let #ActuallyAutistic people HAVE lives. Meaningful ones. Allow us the same opportunities you would happily allot to any neurotypical.

I mean, give autistic people some accommodation. Give us a chance to show our talent. I mean, modify education programs so autistic people can receive “strength training” in the academic sense and learn what they’re most capable of, based on their special interests and sensory abilities (those that haven’t been rattled by excessive input at least). I mean, give autistic people important positions in academia AND the workplace.

And when #ActuallyAutistic people show signs of stress or burnout, don’t just stand there making it worse by increasing demand for the response you want, as in that substack of ABA tritely known as “exposure therapy.” Give them a break, let them calm themselves so they can regain focus on what needs to be done. In short, don’t overload them.

But I do mean, more than any of the above, let #ActuallyAutistic people remain alive, continue to exist. Don’t kill them before they’ve even had a chance to experience a calmer, gentler world than the one NTs force them to navigate.

And when it comes to the way #ActuallyAutistic people react to the world NTs force them to navigate… Don’t hurt or kill them.

Please? I’m serious. Being autistic is not justification for murder. Or filicide, or police brutality.

Leave us alone. Just #LetAutisticPeopleLive.