Why Autists Don’t Need a Cure
Most of the time, people think about autism as a set of deficits. This is the way that a clinical diagnosis works. You have to check off certain boxes on a list of areas where you aren’t “normal,” things you can’t do the “right way” or ways in which your brain or body aren’t able to manage living as a neurotypical person. “Warning signs” for autistic children include:
1. Lack of eye contact
2. Repetitive behavior
3. Difficulty communicating
4. Trouble anticipating social expectations
5. Literalism/difficulty with jokes or metaphoric language
6. Sensory sensitivity
7. Needing routine/difficulty with change
8. Picky eating
9. Clumsiness/proprioception issues
10. Lack of appropriate friendships
Note that each of the items in this list is seen as a kind of deficit. Of course, this explains why autists are often targeted for behavioral therapy of some kind that is designed to “fix” them. Autistic adults often talk about the trauma of being forced to “behave” the way that others want them to. It is distressing, and is a form of socially acceptable abuse.
We’re supposed to “learn” scripts of how to act normally in the neurotypical social world. We learn how to laugh at jokes that make no sense to us or that we often find offensive. We learn to dress the way that is vaguely “fashionable,” even if we’re well aware of how fashion forces people to buy new clothes every season even if they don’t need or want them. We learn to eat food in a socially acceptable way, to live in lighting and other external environment that is distressing to us. We learn how to make small talk, how to jump into a conversation, how to let other people have a turn. We learn to make eye contact for just the right length of time to make other people comfortable. No one seems to care very much about our comfort.
And yes, we can learn how to act in ways that make us seem more normal. This is often touted as a “cure.” Temple Grandin is the lauded example of the “cured” autist, at least that is what we were supposed to believe in the 80s and 90s. Until it became obvious that she was never cured. She is still quite obviously autistic. She’s just figured out how to live in a hostile world.
She’s also in the unique position of having been able to convince people that her way of living in the world isn’t a deficit at all — it’s a remarkable and interesting, valuable and unique way that helps neurotypical people to live better, to see their assumptions in a new “upside down” way, and to behave more compassionately to animals and to their natural environment.
I’m one of many women who have been diagnosed as autistic late in life (in 2017, at age 46). Whether this is because I didn’t appear “autistic enough” as a child or if it was because I learned how to do behavioral therapy on myself, it wasn’t until my forties that I began to rebel against the demands of “masking.” Yes, I know it is more convenient for other people if I shut up, sit down, and don’t rock back and forth, suck my thumb, constantly correct other people and laugh when I’m supposed to laugh. But it is very much not convenient to me.
The reality is that to be told constantly that I was not allowed to show up as my authentic autistic self in any social situations was deeply damaging to my sense of self. And the cost of doing so much extra work is something I had paid all my life in frequent headaches, nearly constant nausea, and what I never called “meltdowns” even though that is what they were, where I had to isolate myself in a quiet, dark room and not have contact with the rest of the world.
I feel strongly that the way I live in the world as an autist is of value to society, not after I am cured, but once I’ve refused to mask anymore and am no longer interested in what is socially acceptable or what makes other people comfortable. I am not just a list of deficits. I know all the things that I do wrong. I’ve been told all those things all my life. I’ve worked hard to hide them, to change outward behaviors to be compliant, and to do what I was told made me a “good girl.” And yes, I was able to pretend to be mostly normal.
But all of the successes of my life, and there have been many, are because of my autism. What makes me unique and interesting is my autism. My autism isn’t just all the things that I do “wrong,” or the things I don’t understand about the neurotypical assumptions in social interaction. I make people laugh because of how clearly I see their world, their rules, and how they live. I am able to do this because I stand apart, yes, but also because autism is the thing that makes me more sensitive. Autism means that my emotional and physical reactions are often heightened. Instead of ignoring those reactions, being able to express them more clearly has made me a better human.
I think talking to neurotypical people about how it is to live inside an autistic mindset helps them be more human, too. So instead of talking about deficits all the time, I’m excited to talk about all the things that I can experience precisely because I’m autistic.