Ah, Just a Touch of Autism...
Jan. 16th, 2015 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistAndrew resisted referring to himself as anything like autistic up until several years after I first met him.
His reluctance seemed to arise partly from not having -- or, at that time, wanting -- a formal diagnosis and partly from the people who had what we called Internet Asperger's, a self-diagnosis that guarantees accountability-free insults and bad behavior to anyone online, a get-out-of-consequences-free card that anyone can play by simply saying the magic words "it's not my fault, I have Asperger's."
Andrew is the furthest thing imaginable from that kind of person: he is hyper-aware of his difficulty in decipering nonverbal communication and is thus constantly apologizing pre-emptively just in case he's upset or offended someone and hasn't realized it. So he wanted to clearly differentiate himself from these allergic-to-accountability people by avoiding their self-description.
I understood, respected and did my best to support him in his decision not to claim autism as a label for himself. But a lot of things got better or easier for both Andrew and me when he started to realize how much of his experience fit what we gradually discovered were both the strengths and the difficulties of people on the autistic spectrum. A surprising array of seemingly-unrelated things, from his Princess and the Pea-esque sensitivities to the fact that he needs more Novocaine at the dentist than most people because he registers pain in a way most neurotypicals don't, suddenly make sense, make more sense, or have some evidence backing up what seem to otherwise be peculiar or inexplicable characteristics. It leads him to retroactively look on his experiences he had in university and in relationships more accurately and more kindly than he did at the time.
It has helped me appreciate the work I do in interfacing between him and the world, and it's even might explain why I'm good at being married to him, because my visual impairment leads me to share more traits in common with people on the spectrum than I would otherwise and there's a theory that autistic people form successful relationships with partners from different cultures, because those people go into the relationship expecting to have to work harder at communicating than perhaps someone from the same background might do.
It's hard to think of any downside to saying that Andrew is autistic that isn't about the sticgma and well-intentioned ignorance that autistic people face.
#
From what I can tell, the impetus behind this "you're not autistic, you're just endearingly quirky" is extremely similar to that which leads people to tell me things like "you're not fat, you're beautiful." What seems to be the message, in both instances, is that's a word we use for people we don't like, and I like you, so it can't be said of you!
Maybe a better way to fix that would be to stop thinking these words can only be insults, fit only for people who are to be either pitied or despised -- if not both.
#
I had a lot of random conversations during the week I spent looking after my mom in August. One of them, and I can't even remember how now, led to her telling me that Andrew isn't really very autistic. "He only has a touch of autism," I distinctly remember her saying, because I remember thinking that makes it sound like it's something he dabbles in. When he can find the time.
Yeah. No.
And then I thought And she should know better! She knows enough about autism... but of course, that was precisely the source of the problem. She knew about autism from working with an autistic boy who needed a ton of assistance to get through the mainstream school he was in. He was called "low-functioning" and fit a lot of the ideas people have about what autistic people are like -- he was difficult for neurotypical people to communicate with, he needed strict routines, stuff like that. And a friend of my mom's has an autistic son, who is a bit "higher functioning" but still needed tons of help in school and has some stereotypical traits. So this is what her idea of autism is. And Andrew doesn't really fit it, so he only has "a touch of autism."
#
I think she thinks she's paying him a compliment, by saying this. "You're not that autistic" is probably good, in the same way that "you're not that unattractive" would be -- with all the overtones of trying to be reassuring and supportive...and of failing oh so hard.
Like the people who reassure me that I'm totally not fat. Because I'm great. Like those are mutually exclusive states.
Thanks, but no thanks.
His reluctance seemed to arise partly from not having -- or, at that time, wanting -- a formal diagnosis and partly from the people who had what we called Internet Asperger's, a self-diagnosis that guarantees accountability-free insults and bad behavior to anyone online, a get-out-of-consequences-free card that anyone can play by simply saying the magic words "it's not my fault, I have Asperger's."
Andrew is the furthest thing imaginable from that kind of person: he is hyper-aware of his difficulty in decipering nonverbal communication and is thus constantly apologizing pre-emptively just in case he's upset or offended someone and hasn't realized it. So he wanted to clearly differentiate himself from these allergic-to-accountability people by avoiding their self-description.
I understood, respected and did my best to support him in his decision not to claim autism as a label for himself. But a lot of things got better or easier for both Andrew and me when he started to realize how much of his experience fit what we gradually discovered were both the strengths and the difficulties of people on the autistic spectrum. A surprising array of seemingly-unrelated things, from his Princess and the Pea-esque sensitivities to the fact that he needs more Novocaine at the dentist than most people because he registers pain in a way most neurotypicals don't, suddenly make sense, make more sense, or have some evidence backing up what seem to otherwise be peculiar or inexplicable characteristics. It leads him to retroactively look on his experiences he had in university and in relationships more accurately and more kindly than he did at the time.
It has helped me appreciate the work I do in interfacing between him and the world, and it's even might explain why I'm good at being married to him, because my visual impairment leads me to share more traits in common with people on the spectrum than I would otherwise and there's a theory that autistic people form successful relationships with partners from different cultures, because those people go into the relationship expecting to have to work harder at communicating than perhaps someone from the same background might do.
It's hard to think of any downside to saying that Andrew is autistic that isn't about the sticgma and well-intentioned ignorance that autistic people face.
#
Through my early twenties I found that many guys would hone in on my “cute eccentricity,” my “beautiful weirdness,” and, yes, my “adorable awkwardness.” Autism didn’t come into it for them — I was not what people imagined when they heard the word. I didn’t rock in anxiety, I didn’t speak in a monotone, I laughed and danced and engaged with people, showing interest in their work and passions. Here the common misconceptions about autism were both my ally and my enemy: they allowed me to hide, and to embrace a status as “off-key yet normal,” but they also damaged me by giving fuel to the lie that I was just a bit odd, making it all the more difficult when it blew up in my face with someone yelling: “What the hell is wrong with you?”#
From what I can tell, the impetus behind this "you're not autistic, you're just endearingly quirky" is extremely similar to that which leads people to tell me things like "you're not fat, you're beautiful." What seems to be the message, in both instances, is that's a word we use for people we don't like, and I like you, so it can't be said of you!
Maybe a better way to fix that would be to stop thinking these words can only be insults, fit only for people who are to be either pitied or despised -- if not both.
#
I had a lot of random conversations during the week I spent looking after my mom in August. One of them, and I can't even remember how now, led to her telling me that Andrew isn't really very autistic. "He only has a touch of autism," I distinctly remember her saying, because I remember thinking that makes it sound like it's something he dabbles in. When he can find the time.
Yeah. No.
And then I thought And she should know better! She knows enough about autism... but of course, that was precisely the source of the problem. She knew about autism from working with an autistic boy who needed a ton of assistance to get through the mainstream school he was in. He was called "low-functioning" and fit a lot of the ideas people have about what autistic people are like -- he was difficult for neurotypical people to communicate with, he needed strict routines, stuff like that. And a friend of my mom's has an autistic son, who is a bit "higher functioning" but still needed tons of help in school and has some stereotypical traits. So this is what her idea of autism is. And Andrew doesn't really fit it, so he only has "a touch of autism."
#
I think she thinks she's paying him a compliment, by saying this. "You're not that autistic" is probably good, in the same way that "you're not that unattractive" would be -- with all the overtones of trying to be reassuring and supportive...and of failing oh so hard.
Like the people who reassure me that I'm totally not fat. Because I'm great. Like those are mutually exclusive states.
Thanks, but no thanks.