Part 2 of my “What Is Autism?” Series
Content Warning: Descriptions of the unfortunate opinions I used to have on autistic people while I was in denial about my autism status. I’m not proud of these opinions now but nevertheless this is what I thought at the time.
I got my autism diagnoses in 2010, back then they were calling my diagnosis “Asperger’s Syndrome”, a term that has been taken off the DSM and many (though not all) autistic people reject the term, partly because there is no way to distinguish Asperger’s Syndrome from “regular autism”. And though I was diagnosed in 2010, I went into denial until 2021. Though there are many reasons I went into denial, some of which I’ve talked about already, today I’d like to talk about a reason I haven’t really talked about before. Basically, I thought being autistic meant you pretty much had no personality of your own, that you had no individuality.
I remember thinking “autistic people just copy the behaviour of others around them, I can’t be that, what kind of meaningless life would I have if that were true.” And I didn’t think autistic people were capable of breaking rules when that was the right thing to do, because autistic people always followed all of the rules, even if doing so was wrong. I thought being autistic was to be the most utterly conformist individual possible. I couldn’t be autistic. If I was, it meant I was a broken shell of an individual, with no personality. Like a highly advanced A.I that can never be its own person, but can only imitate the behaviour of human beings. I had such horrible, horrible opinions on my fellow autistic people, and writing this now, I feel ashamed. But what led me to these horrible viewpoints? I’ll get to that, but first I’ll try my best to explain how I came out of this horribly narrow view of autistic people.
It was Greta Thunberg! No, this is a massive oversimplification, but this had a bit to do with it. She showed that autistic people weren’t mindless automatons with no personality. She is somebody who wants to do the right thing even if the whole world is telling her no. And she’s not a mindless rule follower, I don’t think any amount of rules would ever cause her to give up. I also made friends with more autistic people, who weren’t soulless automatons. And I realized that being autistic didn’t mean you were to live a pointless existence, never doing what you want, never doing what is right, but always following rules, whether they come from society or the government or some other institution.
But why did I think autistic people were like this? After I realized I was autistic, it became so, so clear to me. And I became ashamed for characterizing other autistic people in such a negative, dehumanizing light. The reason many, though by no means all, autistic people are obsessed with following rules is not because they have no personality or individuality, it’s because they are suppressing who they truly are, as an absolutely desperate attempt to avoid being shamed, being bullied, being ridiculed, maybe even to avoid experiencing violence. And when I really thought about it, I was far from immune from this myself. Over the last few year and a bit I have become more and more comfortable with stimming (this is making hand movements or vocal sounds that are expressions of our emotions), when around other people, how comfortable I will be with doing this will depend on the situation, and also I don’t want it to be distracting to others, but I remember when I would never, ever do it even when I was on my own. Even when I was on my own, because I was so ashamed of it. So I was following social conventions, even when nobody was around.
And that’s the other horrible truth, autistic people aren’t just trying to avoid being shamed, many of us shame ourselves or put ourselves down because of our autistic traits, because that’s what we have been trained to do since childhood. Even traits we can do nothing about. I remember dealing with a verbally abusive teacher when I was five years old, because I was clumsy.
While this is part of my “What Is Autism” series, this post deals with what autism is not. Autism is not conformity. Autism is not following the rules even when doing so is wrong. Autism is not being devoid of a personality. Autistic people who seem to be this way, are not like this at all. They are just trying desperately to be left alone, hoping to get through one day without being shamed and humiliated just for being different.
In fact, as I got to know more autistic people, it became clearer that autistic people were if anything, less likely to be conformists, or less likely to think societal rules or rules in general made sense. After all, our brains are wired differently from the people who came up with all this stuff.
Autists don’t start life as conformists, but they are shamed again, and again, and again, and again, more times then they can remember, until it becomes too much grief and stress to be who they truly are, so the only way forward is to be someone who they are not, it’s the only way they can get any peace.
Many autistic people have been bullied all their lives, and that’s why many autistic “traits”, are not autistic traits at all, but a response to a lifetime of being dehumanized for being different.
Ponderings Of An Autist 