POST4: Helping Women on the Spectrum

 

Helping Women on the Spectrum

 The life of women on the autism spectrum can be quite difficult. From difficulties with being properly diagnosed to difficulties with ostracization from peers, there are a number of struggles that are regularly faced by women on the spectrum. This fact, combined with the many misconceptions that surround autism and the historic discrimination aimed at all neurodiverse or mentally ill individuals, may make it seem as though any major positive change is impossible. However, this is not the case. Life for people on the autism spectrum generally, and women on the spectrum in particular, has improved drastically over time. In the 1950s, the disorder was virtually unknown to the public, and any people with symptoms noticeable enough to be diagnosed with the condition were usually confined to institutions. Now, autism is much more widely known, many more people of both genders are diagnosed, and people on the spectrum are rarely institutionalized, instead going to school and working alongside their peers who are not on the spectrum. These changes were made possible by decades of work by psychologists, relatives and friends of people with autism, and, perhaps most importantly, the testimonies of people who were themselves on the spectrum. The history of the treatment of people on the spectrum, then, though long and unpleasant, does provide hope. Striving for improvements in the way that people on the autism spectrum are treated is not a hopeless endeavor. We know that improvements in the treatment of neurodiverse people, including women, can be made, because they already have been. Thanks to the Internet, people on the spectrum are more capable of talking about what they need to thrive than ever before. We have ideas for how to change our lives for the better. We just need people to listen and support what we have to say. 

Being a woman on the spectrum, I naturally have a strong personal investment in the way that autistic women are treated. While I am lucky compared to many other women on the spectrum insofar as I have had a very supportive family and very understanding teachers, the struggles of being autistic have still affected my life in some rather profound ways. Throughout elementary school, I struggled with handwriting, due to my lack of fine motor skills, gym class, because I was a rather clumsy child, and my peers. Occasionally, I was bullied, and I had virtually no friends, due to my difficulties with reading social interactions. By the end of fourth grade, I was spending every recess lost in my own little world, since I had figured out that my classmates had, in general, very little interest in spending time with me, and my anxiety levels started to rise. Aware that I didn't fit in, I started to view my intelligence as my only positive trait, and anything that seemed to pose a threat to my identity as a good student prompted intense anxiety. Even after I switched to another school which had a student body that accepted me, the anxiety remained, and has been a part of my life ever since. Currently, I have several good friends, a wonderful family, a formal diagnosis of autism, and a steady job that I quite enjoy, but I can't help but wonder if my elementary school peers might have been a little more accepting of me if I had been diagnosed before the age of 4 instead of at age 17. People often reject what they don't understand, and, as such, I think that one of the most important methods of improving the lives of people on the spectrum is through education. 

I am by no means a social activist. I am shy, socially awkward, and have terrible self-esteem problems. Being the leader of an awareness campaign of any sort quite frankly terrifies me. I don't think I could call for policy changes, educational changes, or even diagnostic changes. So instead, I'm going to propose a different sort of campaign. Its goal will be to create change not from the top down, but from the bottom up. Instead of petitioning a government or a school board or the American Psychological Association, it will petition our families, our neighbors, our employers, our teachers, and our communities. The awareness campaign will focus on meetings with small groups of people, preferably less than twenty at a time. At these meetings, women on the spectrum can tell their stories and explain what sort of changes they would like to have made in their environments. These meetings would also emphasize the humanity of people on the spectrum, provide information about how to recognize and help girls and women on the spectrum (and men and boys, if needed), and stress the fact that people on the spectrum cannot, and often do not wish to, separate themselves from the fact that they are on the spectrum. It wouldn't solve every problem. In some cases, it might not solve anything at all, at least at first. However, as more and more people were confronted with the facts that their neighbors, children, and friends are among the people on the spectrum who are asking for change, eventually, progress will be made. It isn't the flashiest or the loudest or the quickest solution, but if we want people to really change their views about women on the spectrum, it has to come from individual families and communities. Simply changing legislation will not make people accepting of women on the autism spectrum. To do that, we have to change their views about us. Otherwise, people will simply find loopholes in the law that allow them to mistreat people on the spectrum through other means. 

To this end, I would like to make a request to everyone who is not on the spectrum: We are different, and we have to work very hard to fit in. Please make an attempt to meet us halfway by remembering the fact that we are biologically incapable of thinking the way you do. When we behave oddly, it isn't because we don't like you or because we're being difficult, it's because our minds are wired differently than yours. Teaching your mind to operate in ways that are unnatural to it is exhausting. So the next time you're about to make a comment about someone's weird behavior, remember this: being different does not make us broken. More of our struggles come more from lack of acceptance than from anything else. Please be kind. 

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