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.
The Autyssey 