Autistics Speaking Day, belated.
Nov. 3rd, 2010 10:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsidheI thought I'd give this a miss, mainly because I didn't think I had anything to say. But having a look at what other people have said, it turns out that I do.
Autistics Speaking Day was on Nov 1, but the fallout is only happening now, because it's Nov 1 somewhere for 48 hours. It was set up as a reaction to Communication Shutdown, where lots of famous people paid for the privilege of not twittering for a day. This was meant to give NT people a taste of what it's like to be autistic.
Here's what I have to say about that: It's bullshit.
For a start, it's patronising. By voluntarily doing it for a day, you do not know what it's like to be that way every day. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to know that you care, but don't pretend that it gives you any insights. For that you would have to actually listen to what an Autistic person tells you, which you can't do if you've turned off your internet.
And it's doubly patronising because it's exactly wrong: it's what autism looks like from the outside. The problem for autists isn't silence: indeed, that's usually where we're most comfortable. Our problem is not enough silence. Our experience is of overload, of too much feeling, too much sensation, and not being able to make any sense of it.
So to that extent, if you want to experience what it's like to be on the spectrum, try this:
Turn on all your lights, until it's too bright, until it hurts your eyes and gives you a headache. Don't turn it off or down, no matter how much you want to, because it's usually NT's comfort levels which are the defaults. I don't get to turn down or block out the blinding fluorescent lights at work just because I need to wear sunglasses indoors. And I don't even get to do that, because polarisation means I can't see my monitor. Believe me, if I could wear sunglasses at my computer, I would.
Turn on at least three radios, all tuned to different stations. Make as many as possible to talk stations broadcasting in languages you don't speak. Turn them all up. Again, NTs don't stop yelling at each other in the open-plan cube farm just because you're overloading. If you think it will help, you are allowed to put on headphones and try to drown out all the other noise. Remember thatif when someone demands your attention, you must remove the headphones. You may not turn down the radios. The other person doesn't notice them. It's your job to make sense of what they're saying over the din. If you can't, it's your fault and your problem.
Find an item of clothing which irritates you, which is itchy, or is too tight, or falls off, or has a tag made of sandpaper and chilli-oil, or all of the above. Wear it next to your skin.
Have people act unpredictably around you. Their behaviour should be surprising, and without comprehensible explanation. They should sneak up on you, make baffling demands and be upset when you don't understand, get annoyed when you can't keep track of who wants what, or make sense of them over the lights and noise. They should stand too close, or shout at you from the other side of the room. They are comfortable in the light, they can't hear the noise. They don't notice that they're SHOUTING! ALL! THE! TIME! (Or failing that, they're all whispering.) But be assured that they will notice if you raise your voice to match their perceived volume, so that you can hear yourself over the din.
Think of every interaction with another person as a job interview. Every interaction, with everyone. Your wife, children, parents, friends, the checkout chick, strangers in the street, everyone. Everyone is judging you on things you don't understand, and they all have lists which you aren't allowed to see. You must always be as alert as you possibly can be whenever talking to another person, because you never know which bit will be important, which innocent phrase will cause a frown and a black mark against you. Or why. Again, they're fine with it, so your nervousness and anxiety is just something else wrong with you. Maybe it would help to talk about it? (Well, why wouldn't you talk about your personal problems with the CEO?)
Have people get annoyed with you when you plead for some time alone in a quiet dark place. They don't notice anything wrong, after all. Your request for the lights to be turned back to comfortable levels, to find a place away from the radios, to not have to be consciously watching every single word you say, to not have to filter meaning from a confusing maelstrom of randomness, is an imposition on them. If they do begrudgingly grant you a few moments, be grateful for whatever few moments you can steal. And know that any respite, no matter how short, will have to do, will have to be savoured, because you will be dumped back into the chaos, and what are you complaining about, you had some time off, you malingerer! You don't get to say when you've recovered. Or if. And for even more fun; be trained like Pavlov's dog to expect that reaction, even if the person you're with is perfectly reasonable and sympathetic, so that you stop even asking, so you just put up with it until you snap and meltdown.
Now think about living like that all the time. Indeed, of spending most of your life thinking that this continual anxiety and confusion and incomprehension and distress is normal.
It's not the same for all of us, obviously. Some of us are high-functioning, such that the lights are just uncomfortable, and the radios annoying. For others, the radios are deafening, the lights blinding, no sense can be made of anything, and the world is made of confusion and pain and fear.
Autism is not about silence, not for the autist.
A day of silence would be bliss. And using silence as one of the things wrong with being on the spectrum is a massive display of Missing The Point. It's what NTs see, it's not what we experience.
So... yeah.
ETA:
PS. Do all the above without losing your temper.
Autistics Speaking Day was on Nov 1, but the fallout is only happening now, because it's Nov 1 somewhere for 48 hours. It was set up as a reaction to Communication Shutdown, where lots of famous people paid for the privilege of not twittering for a day. This was meant to give NT people a taste of what it's like to be autistic.
Here's what I have to say about that: It's bullshit.
For a start, it's patronising. By voluntarily doing it for a day, you do not know what it's like to be that way every day. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to know that you care, but don't pretend that it gives you any insights. For that you would have to actually listen to what an Autistic person tells you, which you can't do if you've turned off your internet.
And it's doubly patronising because it's exactly wrong: it's what autism looks like from the outside. The problem for autists isn't silence: indeed, that's usually where we're most comfortable. Our problem is not enough silence. Our experience is of overload, of too much feeling, too much sensation, and not being able to make any sense of it.
So to that extent, if you want to experience what it's like to be on the spectrum, try this:
Turn on all your lights, until it's too bright, until it hurts your eyes and gives you a headache. Don't turn it off or down, no matter how much you want to, because it's usually NT's comfort levels which are the defaults. I don't get to turn down or block out the blinding fluorescent lights at work just because I need to wear sunglasses indoors. And I don't even get to do that, because polarisation means I can't see my monitor. Believe me, if I could wear sunglasses at my computer, I would.
Turn on at least three radios, all tuned to different stations. Make as many as possible to talk stations broadcasting in languages you don't speak. Turn them all up. Again, NTs don't stop yelling at each other in the open-plan cube farm just because you're overloading. If you think it will help, you are allowed to put on headphones and try to drown out all the other noise. Remember that
Find an item of clothing which irritates you, which is itchy, or is too tight, or falls off, or has a tag made of sandpaper and chilli-oil, or all of the above. Wear it next to your skin.
Have people act unpredictably around you. Their behaviour should be surprising, and without comprehensible explanation. They should sneak up on you, make baffling demands and be upset when you don't understand, get annoyed when you can't keep track of who wants what, or make sense of them over the lights and noise. They should stand too close, or shout at you from the other side of the room. They are comfortable in the light, they can't hear the noise. They don't notice that they're SHOUTING! ALL! THE! TIME! (Or failing that, they're all whispering.) But be assured that they will notice if you raise your voice to match their perceived volume, so that you can hear yourself over the din.
Think of every interaction with another person as a job interview. Every interaction, with everyone. Your wife, children, parents, friends, the checkout chick, strangers in the street, everyone. Everyone is judging you on things you don't understand, and they all have lists which you aren't allowed to see. You must always be as alert as you possibly can be whenever talking to another person, because you never know which bit will be important, which innocent phrase will cause a frown and a black mark against you. Or why. Again, they're fine with it, so your nervousness and anxiety is just something else wrong with you. Maybe it would help to talk about it? (Well, why wouldn't you talk about your personal problems with the CEO?)
Have people get annoyed with you when you plead for some time alone in a quiet dark place. They don't notice anything wrong, after all. Your request for the lights to be turned back to comfortable levels, to find a place away from the radios, to not have to be consciously watching every single word you say, to not have to filter meaning from a confusing maelstrom of randomness, is an imposition on them. If they do begrudgingly grant you a few moments, be grateful for whatever few moments you can steal. And know that any respite, no matter how short, will have to do, will have to be savoured, because you will be dumped back into the chaos, and what are you complaining about, you had some time off, you malingerer! You don't get to say when you've recovered. Or if. And for even more fun; be trained like Pavlov's dog to expect that reaction, even if the person you're with is perfectly reasonable and sympathetic, so that you stop even asking, so you just put up with it until you snap and meltdown.
Now think about living like that all the time. Indeed, of spending most of your life thinking that this continual anxiety and confusion and incomprehension and distress is normal.
It's not the same for all of us, obviously. Some of us are high-functioning, such that the lights are just uncomfortable, and the radios annoying. For others, the radios are deafening, the lights blinding, no sense can be made of anything, and the world is made of confusion and pain and fear.
Autism is not about silence, not for the autist.
A day of silence would be bliss. And using silence as one of the things wrong with being on the spectrum is a massive display of Missing The Point. It's what NTs see, it's not what we experience.
So... yeah.
ETA:
PS. Do all the above without losing your temper.
Re: Absolutely
Date: 2010-11-03 08:00 pm (UTC)