The Autism Problem - NonAutistics Treat Autistic People Like we're Broken NeuroTypicals (but We're NOT)

I believe the world is horrible for Autistic People we need to fix the world so Autistic People can be properly included. The world is inaccessible and cruel. Autistic People are NOT the problem.

In Autism Month conversations around Autism become more prevalent for a short period of time. Watching the festivities kick off, only 3 days into April, I’m noticing that there are 2 main ways people are talking about Autism and Autistic People online:

FIRST (what I, personally, believe): The world is horrible for Autistic People, and that we need to fix the world so Autistic People can be properly included within it.

NEXT (the gloom and doom narrative): That Autistic People are “the problem” and the (NeuroTypically designed and controlled) world is fine.

Those who view Autistics as a problem to be solved, believe Autistic People are incomplete, broken, or poorly behaved, and therefore, need to be molded to fit into the world around us.

People who see Autistics as broken non-autistics, believe the ultimate goal for an Autistic is for them to become as “normal” or non-autistic appearing as possible (indistinguishable from their peers). This holds Autistic People to unfair (and often unreachable) non-autistic standards and ideals, which is cruel (because it sets us up for failure).

Many outsiders (who don’t understand the inner-workings of the Autistic brain) will see Autistic People acting and communicating in ways they do not understand and reject the natural Autistic ways of doing things.

Because of this rejection, many Autistic People have been forced to communicate, socialize, regulate, and move in ways that are unnatural.

For example, let’s take eye contact:

As an Autistic person, eye contact can feel like a very intimate experience (an experience that I wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing with someone I did not know very well).

Forcing me to make eye contact with a stranger can make me feel very uncomfortable (because it feels like a very intimate experience). Having unwanted eye contact with the wrong person feels like a violation of my personal space, but I know it’s expected of me, so I often am forced to fake eye contact or give it anyway (despite my discomfort).

We wouldn’t and ask a child to let an adult touch them in a way that made them uncomfortable, but many Autistic kids will be told to “look at me when I’m talking to you” or one from my childhood “look at my nose!”

People who see Autistics as broken non-autistics treat us as if we are sub human, getting away with abuses that would spark outrage if carried out on non-autistics, training us like dogs, scolding us for “undesirable behaviors” and then rewarding us for “acceptable behaviors” (regardless of if these behaviors are natural, comfortable, safe, or appropriate for us).

We learn that our needs are less important than the needs of people around us. Some of us may learn to completely deny, ignore, and hide our needs (so we don’t inconvenience the people around us, prioritizing everyone else’s comfort above our own).

I, like many undiagnosed Autistic People, grew up believing I was a broken non-autistic person, and that I was inherently flawed in ways I couldn’t name.

Because of the treatment that I had received in society (especially in the Central Texas public school system) I felt I was the problem in need of correcting, and approached myself as such (an eternal project that would never be good enough for anyone, including myself).

My belief that I was broken, meant I felt I needed to mold myself to be more palatable to the people around me, which resulted in a fractured since of self worth, pride, and identity (leaving me more vulnerable to manipulation and abuse).

I was raised to believe it was okay that I was uncomfortable, as long as I was pleasing other people. This people pleasing led me to some bad places and situations in life.

Because I learned to make myself uncomfortable in order to please other people, it became second nature for me to ignore my own feelings. Eventually I started to believe my feelings and needs did not matter (and the most important thing was for me to always be pleasing and putting other people first).

I felt like I wasn’t allowed to say no to things I didn’t want to do. Which meant I also didn’t understand that I was the one who should have control over my own body or what happened to it.

My overly permissive and weak boundaries led to both physical and mental violations of my body, space, and mind on multiple occasions.

Abuse (physical, mental, sexual) is unfortunately too common of an experience for many Autistics, because of the way many of us are pushed into fawning and people pleasing as a means of surviving this unkind world.