All the life long…
In so many places the idea that autism is all the life long, or in better words a lifelong condition is prevalent. It’s pervasive almost. Pretty much anywhere outside of those associated with a cure culture idea about autism, then it is fairly widely excepted to be a life long reality for the autistic person.
Yes, autistic person, not person with autism, because autism really isn’t an added extra, a something I manage to carry around me in a glad bad of issues that I bring out for party tricks and whatnot.
No not with autism because quite simply every thought, feeling, action, compulsion, acheivement, failure and attempt I do from an autistic perspective, through a lens or a grid of autism. It is a part of everything I do.
Sure that amount that part holds sway or impacts varies at times, but it is always a part. Always present is that lens of autism.
I want to talk rather about a different aspect of lifelong in terms of being autistic. It’s the comorbid conditions as they call them. For some it’s an Intellectual disability, for some significant speech articulation issues, for some others mobility issues. But by far the most common, as far as I can understand it is that of mood disorders. This category includes what we simply call depression and anxiety, but it also includes others, such as dysthymia, bipololar, OCD, clyclothymia and so on and so forth.
For many autistic people these are a curse, with which we live. Every day we live with it, we manage to somehow exist despite them but they are very real struggles and I believe often overlooked and not considered by the autism professional class.
Personally I was diagnosed with depression in my late 20’s though I am convinced it was an issue from quite early in childhood. Fairly soon after this anxiety was added to the diagnosis. As the years passed of adulthood I aquired a number of different diagnoses to go with these, some of which make sense and some of which I consider incorrect.
To one psychiatrist I was narcissistic, ( apparently — though I never recall that terminology being used), to another Borderline Personality Disorder, to another PTSD.
In the midst of live as an undiagnosed autistic person I did my best I guess to make life fit together, to keep all the plates spinning at once, to juggle all the balls in the air and not drop any.
It was an impossible task. It was never possible at that stage as I had no clue I was autistic. I thought autism was, like so many of my generation, Rainman.
I went from relationship to relationship, job to job, course to course. Failing wherever I turned.
To date I have two failed marriages and 3 children, 2 of whom are also autistic. It was in raising them that I learned about autism and learned that it made sense to me.
Receiving that autism diagnosis was a moment of catharsis. Yes it had its very own issues too. It did, I confess take me some months to move beyond the doom and gloom of that and into a place of accepting myself as an autistic person who is different not less.
That realisation was one that included the realisation that it is indeed life long. How does one deal with such information? I guess everyone is different and there is just no simple answer to that question.
However, lets just add to the enigma that is acceptance of a diagnosis of neurodivergence. If one is a child, it is often accompanied by massive doses of parents searching for a cure, putting the child through training that is akin to dog training.
As a newly diagnosed autistic person you hear regularly that it’s the vaccines fault, or some other such ludicrous and ridiculous notion.
The point here, really, is that what you hear, ad infinitim, is that you are not ok. That you are defective, that you are less than, you are abnormal, you are other.
It is surely this, massive dosages of othering that we recieve that adds so deeply to the lifelong comorbid conditions we endure.
This massive othering leads us to have much difficulty negotiating and navigating the daily things of life, like, getting a job, like keeping a job, like not inadvertently offending someone by answering the actual question that is asked of us.
it seems to me that overall we walk a tightrope through life where not even a misstep but the mere hint of a wobble on the line ends up casting us out. Having the autism blamed, or used as an excuse or reason for not managing it like everyone else.
The real thing though, is we are capable, we are willing, we are talented, we are passionate.
Perhaps if some of those things were acknowledged and remembered in the wider world, by parents, teachers, employers and so forth, then perhaps those other life long comorbids like life-long depression and anxiety could be mitigated.
Imagine if you will, I dare you, go try it, when you meet autistic people, presume competence. Assume we can do it.
Let’s try that and see what difference it might make to the real and actual outcomes of those autistic peoples lives.
I reckon you might just see some improved outcomes.
Go on, try it, I dare you!
