This article is about the ground-breaking research: ‘Autistic Masking: Understanding the narrative of Stigma and the Illusion of Choice’ by Kieran Rose & Dr Amy Pearson.
Perspectives that lack knowledge are often dangerously misinformed.
You would think that would be a pretty obvious statement and perhaps you might think that there are certain contexts where that should be a mantra imprinted in the brains of everyone involved.
Naively, when I was much younger, less knowledgeable about myself and much less worldly-wise, I used to think that Autism Research would be one of those contexts.
How wrong I was and how terrifying it is when I look around and see so many Autistic people invested in Autism research like it’s written in the holy scripture of [insert religion here].
Autism Research is flawed
Autism research is incredibly flawed in an enormous number of ways. One example of how, is the fact that the sum total of all knowledge of Autism in academia is based on the work of two incredibly flawed men, both with incredibly flawed ideas and practice from the 1940s. Everything we know professionally and societally about Autism is underpinned by their work. As I’ve said so many times in talks and trainings the whole of Autism research is built on a foundation of sand.
Why is it a foundation of sand? Well, right from day one the narrative of Autism research has been this:
‘Expert’ looks at Autistic person (usually child; usually white child; usually white boy child; usually white boy child that presents in a particular way).
‘Expert’ takes notes.
‘Expert’ forms opinion.
‘Expert’ writes it up.
Another ‘expert’ nods wisely.
‘Expert’ publishes.
‘Experts’ applaud ‘Experts’.
Whole world believes ‘Expert’.
Services are developed around ‘Expert’ knowledge.
IF you have trouble seeing the problem with this process then I imagine that’s for one of three reasons:
1. You are one of the ‘Experts’.
2. You are a parent who has been conditioned to believe the ‘Experts’.
3. You are an Autistic person who has been handed a lifetime of internalised ableism and isn’t aware of it.
1 equals privilege
2 equals victim of privilege
3 equals victim of privilege
If you fall into any of those groups, let me help you. It’s the second word on the list: ‘looks’. It’s who they are looking at, it’s what they are looking for and it’s the fact that they are only able to look.
I didn’t use the word ‘dangerously’ above lightly, because when perspectives lead to one group creating a narrative about another group, massive power imbalances can be formed or perpetuated, leading to stigmatisation. As I highlighted with Dr Sophie Vivian in ‘Regarding the use of dehumanising rhetoric’ and which I explored in parts of ‘An Autistic Identity‘
The Autism Narrative
The Autism narrative has been missing the insight of Autistic people since day one. The world’s understanding of Autism is modelled on one of external observation. It is therefore completely biased.
When the knowledge that is missing from a perspective is the insight of the group that is subject of the narrative being created, there is a very strong case for the deliberate exclusion of that group in order to perpetuate control or dominance, to keep that group oppressed; or simply the reinforcement of stigmatised assumptions based on the previous perpetuation of that narrative: namely that Autistic people are incompetent.
Why that would happen is often complicated.
It sometimes involves the dominant group needing that narrative for self-gratification or self-promotion, sometimes even self-validation. The dominant group always gets *something* from the subordinate group and that *something* is usually to the loss of the subordinate group.
It also involves a whole lot of privilege.
Privilege is defined like this: a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.
I’d go one step further and and say that it also incorporates being unaware of the issues of others, the importance of those issues and the impact that you make on those issues; All because those issues don’t affect you. Which describes many people in research and many professionals working with Autistic people.
Autistic Masking and Stigma
You may be aware that the ‘area’ of Autism that I hold most interest in is Autistic Masking and the impact of privilege in that context is something that has grated on me for an enormous length of time.
I look at this narrative and what I see there are flaws, enormous gaps and the creation of and perpetuation of stigma.
I’m not the only one that thinks this. There are many conversations within the Autistic community around how the Masking narrative has been co-opted and twisted into something that doesn’t represent reality.
More concerning is that this new narrative is shaping understanding in the real world – it’s shaping how services are developed, its misinforming educational and health practice. It’s misinforming the the understanding of Autistic people too.
Several years ago I met Dr Amy Pearson on Twitter. Amy is a Lecturer in Developmental Psychology at the University of Sunderland, in the North East of England.
We went back and forth trying to arrange to meet up over a coffee for about 6 months, until eventually the stars aligned and we were both free at the same time.
Our first meeting was comically Autistic.
We’d arranged to meet outside a coffee shop in the city of Durham. I did my usual thing of turning up (very) early, to make sure I was there at the exact time I was supposed to be and parked myself outside. I didn’t know this coffee shop well enough to know that there were, in fact, two entrances. So ten minutes after we were supposed to meet, the inevitable message of ‘where are you?’ was sent and, at the same time, I received a similar one.
It turned out we were standing twenty feet apart with our backs to each other.
What was supposed to be a half hour coffee turned into a three hour-long conversation about life, the universe and everything; from the X Files, to the nature of Autism; from our similar and relatable life experiences, to the world at large; and of course ‘Dr Amy Pearson’ quickly became ‘Autistic Dr Amy Pearson’ in my head (and I may have mentioned that to her approximately an hour after we sat down).
And so what began as a coffee quickly developed into a beautiful friendship and working relationship. There’s rarely a day goes by where we don’t message, usually incredulous about some thing, or another, Autism related. There may or may not be entire conversations in GIFs.
Amy’s mindset and views around Autism are very, very similar to mine. Our views match in particular around where the Academic Masking narrative has gone and is going. We have shared concerns that so much context is missing from it, particularly around stigma and trauma and, even more specifically, with the fact that similar Masking behaviours are described across multiple marginalised groups, based on similar experiences.
Autistic Women and Girls
Added with that, is the side narrative that is being used to victim blame Autistic Women and Girls as to why they have gone undiagnosed. This again stems from Masking and the notion that Autistic Women and Girls are ‘differently Autistic’; and ignores the lens of prejudice and sexism that the narrative looks at Autistic Women and Girls through.
We know that there is zero evidence of Gendered brains; that gender develops through socialisation and learned behaviour, that underlying neurological function does not change dependent on your sexual organs.
So to say that Autistic Women and Girls go undiagnosed because they are of the Female Autism Phenotype, as opposed to being Autistic like other Autistics, is flawed and stigmatising on so many levels. Of course Autistic Women experience different things, mostly those things are related to being Women and how Women are treated and viewed. As I am quoted as saying in the paper:
Autistic women and girls don’t experience different Autism, they experience different prejudice
Kieran Rose
While being of a different sex, or gender, may mean that you experience aspects of life differently as an Autistic person specific to that sex or gender, it doesn’t mean that your Autistic Neurological system is a completely different Autistic Neurological system to everyone else’s.
The blame narrative I mentioned before effectively states that the reason Autistic women and girls have gone unrecognised is not because of a sexist system of recognition and diagnosis, not because of a literally sexist socialised system existing in society, but because the sneaky and crafty differently Autistic women and girls have been hiding from everyone all this time, with their superhero like power of camouflage and invisibility.
Those poor researchers scrabbling around looking under every rock all these years…
No.
They never looked at all and when they started, they never looked properly.
What is scary is the fact that out there now exists a world full of people who think that Autistic Women and Girls are different to any other Autistic person, whom somehow Mask in a different and even ‘better’ way. Indeed research on Masking has really historically focused on proving that notion, or has been mostly focused on the way women and girls ‘Mask’. None of which recognises the notion of those who tend to internalise and those who tend to externalise: those who research identifies as the atypical Autistics.
On top of that and even more damagingly is that they are excluding from the Autism narrative, those who do not fall into binary gender categories.
A narrative that *seems* inclusive, that should be wonderful in targeting a a previously rarely recognised group is, when you scratch beneath the surface, superficial, stigmatising and exclusionary.
The last issue is that these narratives exclude the ‘lookers’, the Expert observers from being part of the problem.
Bias in Autism Research
I mean we want to be fully inclusive here, so we need to recognise that Researchers are completely ignoring their biased and shortcomings; and are absolving themselves of any responsibility; leaving blame lying firmly at the feet of Autistic people. As a non-Autistic researcher observing Autistic people it is impossible to do that theory of mind thing (that non-Autistics love to harp on about), put yourself in the shoes of Autistic people and have the insight that we do. It’s literally impossible for you to do anything other than ‘look’; and then because of your privilege and bias, make assumptions.
So we wanted to highlight this.
What Autistic Masking ISN’T
And we wanted to highlight the point that nobody in this Masking narrative, or in the research into Autistic Masking, is pointing out what Masking isn’t.
That much of what is described as Masking is observational bias and assumption born out of the privilege of existing as a non-Autistic person in a non-Autistic world. That as much as you might deny the deficit model, you can’t help knowing unconsciously that Autistic people aren’t like you and judge us on that.
That Masking is grounded in trauma and is a trauma response, rather than three types of social strategies framed around Autistic people wanting to not be Autistic.
We wanted to highlight that the Mask is not something that you pick up two minutes before a social interaction, wear through it, then discard afterwards.
That it is a living, breathing projection of self, a double consciousness, an acceptable closet, a stigma driven suppression of the authentic you, that both controls and envelopes you, that both keeps you safe and harms you, that grows and develops over a life-span forcing you to dissociate from it.
That all of this is missing from the current narrative as a result of privilege and a huge lack of insight from deep Autistic perspective.
If you do not experience these things how can you ever hope to identify and pick it apart in any way that is not driven by your own bias and assumptions?
BEGINNING OUR RESEARCH INTO AUTISTIC MASKING
So Amy and I set ourselves a task to research Autistic Masking. Over the course of 9 months and mostly written through Twitter messages; we put together what became a complete labour of love, we wrote an Academic paper together; something that challenged both of us immensely.
Myself because I’m not an academic, I’ve never been taught to write academically. In writing academically everything has to be delivered factually and emotionlessly, it has to be verified and cited, it has to be edited and to the point. I actually find Academic writing really difficult to access and process.
Anyone that’s read my work knows that it exists on the basis of why use one word when you can write a sentence. Descriptions paint pictures.
It challenged Amy, in her words:
Writing it has been a life changing process for me. It encouraged me to think in different ways, and out of everything I’ve ever written it is the first time I feel like I’ve been really able to use my own writing style.
Dr Amy Pearson
Both of us were challenged by the knowledge of what we wanted to say and how we wanted to say it in our own without being bound by other people’s agendas.
We were also challenged by then having to link what we wanted to say with the words of those who have come before us, who have written and spoken on on similar themes, that to our knowledge are rarely pulled together in the context of Autism.
RESEARCH PAPER: ‘A Conceptual Analysis of Autistic Masking: Understanding the Narrative of Stigma and the Illusion of Choice.’
If you wish to read it it’s available via the academic journal ‘Autism in Adulthood‘ directly here:
You can download a free, PDF version here:
PDF VERSION – A Conceptual Analysis of Autistic Masking: Understanding the Narrative of Stigma and the Illusion of Choice
It is my first Academically published paper and we are enormously proud of it. Even Simon Baron-Cohen has looked on approvingly, which is ironic considering that many of the themes we tackle and condemn originate from him (But that’s a whole other article).
The publication of this paper is a huge moment.
Yes, for me as a working class Autistic kid from a council estate who is incredibly lucky to even be alive and have survived this long.
But mostly in terms of shoving that negative narrative back hard. At pulling together themes that most people don’t even know are connected. For enabling Amy and I to pull back the curtain on the patterns that so many Autistic people spot (chew on that for your book SBC) and so many others deny even exist.
In light of that I wish to thank those people in the past and present whose existence has meant that we have been able to write this:
Firstly Amy Pearson, without whom I could not have written this at all, whose friendship and knowledge I treasure and value immensely, with whom I can laugh and cry and rage and who ‘gets it’; and whom I’m proud to call my academic partner and friend.
Secondly to our actual partners, Michelle and Andrew, who have had to put up with us ranting endlessly with impotent anger regarding a whole manner of things and people related to the narratives we have tried so carefully to unpick and highlight.
Michelle you are my absolute rock, my best friend and I would not be doing the things I am without your unquestioning support.
Dr Damian Milton, whose work too often goes unsung, whose notions on Double Empathy (described beautifully in non-Academic terms here), for me at least, encapsulate all the problems at the heart of how humanity treats itself and each other; and, when applied to the Autism narrative, should shame the privilege from every single non-Autistic person working with Autistic people, or doing work that impacts Autistic people in any way.
Dr Monique Botha, whose ideas and concepts invigorate me and whose work on minority stress, stigma and the vitalness of community connection has been invaluable to the creation of this piece.
To Kristy Forbes, Dr Chloe Farahar, Julie Roberts, Christa Holmans, Hannah Molesworth, Jodie Smitten, Morénike Giwa Onaiwu, Ryan Boren and those other friends and colleagues in the Autism world who are too numerous to mention but whose work changes lives everyday; and through whom, unwitting to them, I have shaped and moulded my thinking around Autism and Masking through years of conversation and/or reading of their work.
To those who have guided me from the past, the Sociologists Erving Goffman and W.E.B Dubois (Who has become something of an idol for me) and all those whose work on Autism, stigma, self-exploration and critical thought who have helped me understand these concepts deeper than I thought possible.
And to the Autistic Community:
Thank you for existing.
I would not exist without you. This paper would certainly not exist were it not for the tens of thousands of you who I have spoken with, watched speaking, supported, been supported by. Whose shoulders upon which I stand, in my privilege, to do the work that I do.
Of those who have lived, who do live, who will live and suffer under these narratives every day, who inspire me and keep me going in perpetual motion.
There is a quote from the 2013 movie Man of Steel which has always stuck with me and to which I apply to the Autistic community and the narrative around not only Autism, but the direction in which humanity needs to go:
You will give the people an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you, they will stumble, they will fall.
But in time, they will join you in the sun.
In time you will help them accomplish wonders.
Jor El, Man of Steel, 2013
This is what the Autistic Community means to me and our culture in particular.
Every part of it. Even those members whose thoughts and ideology I disagree with.
Perspectives that lack knowledge are often dangerously misinformed.
This paper exists because of the insight of two Autistic people, plus hundreds and thousands of others, plus the work of those who exist or existed in other equally as stigmatised and marginalised groups.
That is true knowledge.
If we keep pushing. If we keep forging ahead. If we can keep being true to our convictions. We can change things.
And one day they will join us in the sun.
(As long as I can keep wearing my sunglasses)
BUY OUR BOOK : August 2023 update
Since publishing this blog post we have finished, and published, the book which was inspired by the paper Amy and I wrote together.
AUTISTIC MASKING – Understanding Identity Management and the Role of Stigma
The must read book on Autistic Making from Kieran Rose and Dr Amy Pearson.
No 1 Amazon bestseller in 3 categories.
- Accessible to everyday readers
- Offers holistic understanding of most up-to-date evidence
- Aims to develop solid knowledge and practice
- Suitable for professionals in health, education and wider society
- Considers intersectionality, trauma and social context
You can read more about our book on Autistic Masking and read reviews here: Autistic Masking Book by Kieran Rose and Dr Amy Pearson
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15 replies to "One day they will join us in the sun"
I have only just realised that I am ND myself at the grand old age of 53. My ND profile includes dyspraxia, Dyscalculia ADHD and autism. I’m trying to process this and hence reading a lot of related material. I realise that I have been ‘masking’ just about my entire life! I came across this paper earlier in the year and I totally identify with the contents. As a social worker in the mental health field, I am following this with great interest. Thank you so much for your work!
(Apologies in advance for this length of this autistic over-share; please feel free to opt out of reading & delete if it’s Too Much.)
Thank you for writing this! My hair stood on end as I reached the end of this article and saw you tie in a Superman metaphor. It’s only last year I found out I was ND with the PDA profile, amidst the burnout-inducing crisis of COVID-19 alongside finally getting disability income and struggling to use services to get housing suitable for my needs — and being failed spectacularly by social services at every turn, who heaped unreasonable demands and deadlines on me whilst making endless excuses for their failures. Meanwhile the only way I could get through every day was binge-watching ‘Smallville’ (a show about how Clark Kent became Superman) and taking so many long walks I wound up walking 500 miles in 2 months and 7 days.
Having never jived with superheroes in general before, and Superman especially, and assigned female at birth to parents who raised me in a bizarre full of ‘exorcisms’ that clearly didn’t cure my meltdowns, suddenly I saw myself in Clark Kent. I saw myself in his struggles to come to grips with himself and his differences, having a profound sense of justice and fierce loyalty and a need to do what’s right even for strangers and even at the expense of his own safety and well-being. I saw myself in his vulnerability to being targeted for exploitation. But I also saw myself in Lex Luthor, who had similar altruistic aims and a desire to help but had been raised in such a high-control, abusive, rejecting family with unholy levels of demands and expectations placed on him. I saw myself in how he was exploited and taken advantage of due to his money and privilege coupled with a desire to love and be loved.
As a result of engaging hardcore with ‘Smallville’ and exploring myself through its narrative (‘how can I nurture more Clarkness than Lexness in my choices even when it’s pathologically hard?’), and having to escape domestic abuse when I was shot at while fleeing last October, I realized in shock at age 40 I was actually a trans man as well.
It turns out the actor who played Clark’s father on the show had had a son on the spectrum and chose to treat his son as having ‘special abilities’ more than ‘special needs,’ which in turn informed his portrayal of Jonathan Kent. Around that time I saw a sticker on a car showing a masked kid in a cape that read ‘my superhero has autism.’ I came to see demands as my ‘Kryptonite,’ things that robbed me of even normal human strength and reasoning and sometimes literally put me down on the ground in so much pain I couldn’t move. I realized I needed to find a place where it would be like Superman under a yellow sun, where I could belong and find out what my secret abilities were.
So far I still haven’t found that place to belong, but I have found out a lot about myself. By letting go of and losing almost everything I ever knew, from my possessions to unhelpful friends and social services who failed me when I needed them most to survive, it’s like it’s peeling away layers and layers of who I’m not. It’s empowering me to face some of the scariest stuff in my life, pass through my fear and build courage, and find strength I’ve never known. And reveal a man I’m only just getting to know & become.
The actor who played Lex on ‘Smallville’ turns out to be a genuinely kind dude who does a podcast aiming to break down stigma about mental illness. Under COVID lockdown he’s formed a band with his best friend called ‘Sun Spin.’ Their music warms my heart and energizes me in some way I don’t understand — but hey, whatever works to keep me going through extreme burnout, and fighting for a life I’m only starting to enjoy and explore.
One of my most ecstatic special interests is fire hooping. So finally finding myself in a place where I was free to do so, I spun fire to a piece of Mark Snow’s score from ‘Smallville’ where Lex Luthor hallucinates his worst nightmare of becoming president and causing a nuclear holocaust, smiling faintly at the world he burned. It was emotionally cathartic for me. It burned away a little more of the fear that’s suffocated me my whole life. I overcame a crippling fear of heights to climb up to a diamond-shaped zipline platform in the sky in a ‘Superman’ t-shirt and get a whole new perspective, in substance as well as spirit. Up there above my fear and the demands of the world, the air felt so easy and clear. Stories helped shape the world I retreated to inside me but also provided profound clues to who I was, if I took the time to look deeper.
I won’t pretend everything’s easy now. I’m going through the toughest time of my life. But sometimes I can make moments of magic with a mind and heart that experience the world differently and no longer try to fit in to places and roles that don’t accommodate who I really am.
I hope I haven’t trespassed too much on your time. Thanks for reading. I hope you have a good day.
“Autism research is incredibly flawed in an enormous number of ways. One example of how, is the fact that the sum total of all knowledge of Autism in academia is based on the work of two incredibly flawed men, both with incredibly flawed ideas and practice from the 1940s. Everything we know professionally and societally about Autism is underpinned by their work. As I’ve said so many times in talks and trainings the whole of Autism research is built on a foundation of sand.”
I think I remember reading an article that looked into this more and I’m trying to find it now, did you write more about this somewhere that I can read?
Hi Mary,
If it’s one of my articles you’re referring to, it’s most likely one or all three of the following:
Asperger’s Syndrome: What’s in a name?
Regarding the use of dehumanising rhetoric
An Autistic Identity
I do cover this concept in depth in my ‘Inside of Autism’ training. If you are interested, you can find the waiting list here
[…] One day they will join us in the sun by Kieran Rose. This essay links to a scientific paper Kieran and his autistic academic friend wrote together about autistic masking. Here is a MetaFilter response. […]
When the knowledge that is missing from a perspective is the insight of the group that is subject of the narrative being created, there is a very strong case for the deliberate exclusion of that group in order to perpetuate control or dominance, to keep that group oppressed; or simply the reinforcement of stigmatised assumptions based on the previous perpetuation of that narrative: namely that Autistic people are incompetent.
Why that would happen is often complicated.
I am sorry I have not commented on your work before now Kieran. Well done on your piece and I will try and read more of you. This is interesting to me on account of the bizarre and pathetic encounters you and I have had on social media, particularly Twitter in 2019.
A group of individuals and organisations exist that have spent years of their lives, unable to accept that other people are entitled to their own opinions over what the term autism and what it is to be autistic means. Further that the motive seems to be to cure disabled children, or to wage some war against vaccination. Otherwise people on the spectrum were just being that. Self focused, hyper intellectual and without the capacity to see any other points of view as having worth. Aggressively so.
The pre established academic world is another example. Using the term people with autism is like saying we are people with male, or persons living with heterosexuality. Games with terms and words to have an effect. Now, I thought this was just a psychiatric disorder or mental health condition? Ever heard of such politics around any other brain state?
We do need to see a far bigger picture around ‘autism’ than we currently do. Why do people try to confine and squeeze it all back into an outmoded concept? I think your piece is a good explanation.
“This is interesting to me on account of the bizarre and pathetic encounters you and I have had on social media, particularly Twitter in 2019.”
Paul, I’m not sure what you are referring to there? I don’t recall ever having negative interactions with you anywhere – we’ve spoken semi-regularly on Facebook, exist in many of the same spaces, and share close friends; we actually we had a long and positive phone conversation with each other in 2019 too.
Is it possible you’ve confused me with someone else?
Thank you and Dr. Pearson for your work on this! I am writing a paper on the co-occurence of autism and PTSD due to our current medical model and this article and paper couldn’t be more timely! I knew starting a psychology program the perception of autistic people like me would be something I’d have to confront head on, and something that I would likely often find invalidating and traumatic. Having work like this to fall back on really helps me. I hope that I can make some difference in my small corner of the world thanks to the work of those that have gone before me, like you! Here’s to joining in the sun!
Thank-you, I am new to all of this – and expectedly this is my current ‘special interest’, as an autistic, newly diagnosed at 56. Your blog is a reassure, a taonga (Māori) – and makes me think, thank you for all the work, the research and for communicating with us – to us, for us.
A pleasure, Stella
Yes, yes. yes!
Hit the nail on the head and had me in tears. Thank you so much Kieran and Amy for challenging yourself to write a paper and form just a beautiful, honest and authentic relationship born of connection.
44 years old and spend my whole life feeling different and misunderstood- like an imposter in my own body, like I’m going mad or have a personality disorder. Like a bad actress that was ‘found out’ in small ways, every day-failing….. Only really allowed myself to ask the question since my son first was diagnosed at 3 years old (now 10) and my daughter eventually got her diagnosis this year (13 years old). They have been my priority- but finally self-referred. Even now, I’m waiting for the professionals to boot me out of the room laughing coz i don’t fit the bill! I hope they have read your article x
[…] Autistic Masking: Kieran Rose a new Academic Paper […]
“One Day They Will Join Us in the Sun” is such a powerful read. It beautifully highlights how dangerous misinformation can be and the importance of spreading knowledge and awareness about autism. At Autism Connect, we appreciate your efforts to educate and promote understanding. Keep shining a light on these important issues!
Thank you Kieran, this is such a great post! It’s really frustrating how these biases are alive and kicking even today.
Just the little bit I have read had me in tears. I’m in my golden years (68) and a situation during Covid put me in a position where I am now dependent on people.
I am housed in a tenement in Glasgow, Scotland and although I lack nothing by way of housing and electric bills etc, I am in sheer hell.
I see reports that only 21% of people in Scotland smoke and I laugh myself silly. To my experience there is nearly never a person in Glasgow without a fag or a vape in their hands.
I have daily meltdowns on buses, I have seizures and get put off buses, propped up against a tree and left there till the seizure passes.
I shout at neighbours who smoke cannabis into my home and the police cannot help me because they cannot smell it (Or so they say)
There are three neighbours that smoke and it kills me daily. My tongue hurts, my throat burns my heart rate is through the roof (Often need ambulance services when my nebuliser is not enough) I have seizures and meltdowns, and then total shutdowns. I am told that they have more rights to smoke anything they please (One of them smokes meth, which forces me to leave my home or die with an aneurysm) but I do not have the right to living in clean air.
I know already what anyone reading this is thinking. No, sadly I do not have the autonomy to live where I please and I am dependent on the state right now.
I volunteer and do much for other people struggling in life (many things other than just emotionally, like filling in forms etc) but all the neighbours around me are on some or other benefit although they are young and healthy they are all addicted to nicotine, cannabis and meth. I find this frightening because they have no purpose and it shows in their daily lives. We’ve had one of the most amazing summers and these people sleep during the day and keep me up at night with substances keeping me from sleeping.
The impact this has had on me is debilitating. Only another autist could understand.
It has made me fearful of other people (not scared) It is making me dislike people more than ever and the distrust of the very people pretending to be there to protect me. Not true, they are abetting these criminals to harm me…. because they simply cannot comprehend the extreme pain I’m in. They cannot comprehend how I am being bullied by these neighbours now because I tried to explain my autism to them. The spitefulness and the lawlessness is difficult for me to digest and understand. I’m in hell.
This publication is giving me a measure of clarity but still no way to make others understand it unless we can find a way to make them read it.
Thank you so very much for such a well written version of everything I want people to know if they care to read it.