When I hear this, I get an immediate desire to reply with “and you don’t look like an ignorant cunt, but here we are!”
Of course I’d never be that rude, but I cannot help to feel somewhat defensive straight away whenever this sentence ‘pops up’. Because what is an Autistic person supposed to ‘look’ like exactly?
There seems to be a kind of, misconception around Autism (AKA ASD) for some reason, mainly with how we ‘look’ or ‘don’t look’ Autistic. Where there are (of course) similarities between those (us) on ‘the spectrum’, such as (and not limited to); how we can think outside of the box, how we learn, how we do all in-fact have a ‘special interest’ (which is NOT always a form of transportation – nothing wrong with loving a bus or a train, but that’s not my bag), willingness to learn about certain subjects in the greatest of details (because we LOVE to properly understand stuff!), and the most common traits – being socially awkward as fuck, and are at our most comfortable & (happiest) when we have a routine/solid structure in place…
But, there are also a lot of differences between us (hence it being a spectrum), It’s based on the level of support one needs in everyday life – which can change/fluctuate throughout our lives. ‘Meaning that we can represent ourselves in different ways, for example; I was a ‘high masker’ of my ASD all my life until, something my life got flipped turned upside down – and no, I wasn’t ‘making trouble in the neighbourhood’ (a cheeky lil ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ reference/pun in there!)
If you don’t get the reference then basically it’s an American sitcom released in the 90’s, and I’m officially old AF!
Anyway, I was masking my whole life And appearing ‘normal’ to the naked eye (looking back now, there were many signs), until, something came along and completely messed me up! To the point where I didn’t know what or who I was anymore! I went from being everyone’s support, to actually needing the support myself.
I think this may be my life now… like, the anxiety can be managed somehow (I’m yet to find something that curbs that arsehole!), its everything else which has been ‘exposed’ and I’ve really had to re-learn about myself, its been hard and I still have a way to go. So it gets really exhausting having to explain to someone, who ‘thinks’ they know what autism should look like on a person – based purely around how the person they know with ‘it’, ‘represents’ themselves differently! Or (my personal fave), explaining to the people who have ‘known you’ for sometime, that you’re not the person they thought you were! And you have these ‘needs’ now! The look of disbelief you can get sometimes!
Bottom line is, stop telling actual Autistic people, that they don’t ‘look’ Autistic. It’s insulting and can invalidate ‘us’ and the suffering you don’t actually see!
until next time,
T
