- Welcome back to Aspergers From The Inside.
This month's Patreon's choice video topic
is isn't everyone a little bit autistic?
And the answer to this question is, no.
Thanks for watching.
I hope you've enjoyed this video.
If you'd like to subscribe to the channel.
I'm kidding, obviously.
This is a very interesting question
because when you think about it intellectually
of course the answer's no
and to be honest the first thing I wanna say
in response to this question is when someone
says this, it immediately shuts me down
and dismisses my experience.
So hopefully I'll explain in this video
why that's the case and we'll explore a little
bit more around the intricacies of what is behind
this kind of question and this kind of thinking.
So, the first thing to note is that having
autistic traits, having some autistic traits,
does not make you a little bit autistic
anymore than being sad sometimes makes you
a little bit clinically depressed
or liking to keep your house clean
makes you a little bit OCD.
Or another popular one that was shared
with me recently if you have indigestion
and swollen ankles that doesn't make you
a little bit pregnant, does it.
So one of the reasons that this phrase
is very misleading is 'cause it makes
it sound as if autism is a linear spectrum
from not very autistic down this end
to extremely autistic down the other end
and that is absolutely not what it means
to be a spectrum.
So to understand that a bit better,
every good lie has a really tiny element
of truth that is just believable enough
to make it stick.
So when someone says we're all on the spectrum,
that kind of makes sense doesn't it?
I mean when if you think about neuro-diversity,
all of our brains are different, surely that difference
is just a distribution and then if you're different
enough then you get autism so we're all
a little bit different.
That kind of makes sense, right?
But again that explanation invalidates
the autistic experience.
If you imagine that there's a theoretical normal
and most people kind of fall with a bit
of diversity around that.
Some people are short, some people are tall,
all that kind of stuff.
Within a certain range we still kind of call
that normal because it doesn't present a problem.
It doesn't show up as different, it doesn't get noticed,
whereas if you were out here, this is the kind
of autistic experience where the normies who are
all kind of trying to compete who can be the most
different, who can be edgy and cool
and all that kind of stuff, and if you're out
here the kind of attention you're gonna get
is not ah that cool, it's wow what's wrong with you.
You're a broken individual and we need to fix you
so that you can be like us.
That's a very different experience to just being
a little bit different and having your standard
level of diversity.
So I'm not trying to be cool,
I'm not trying to say look at me, look how different I am,
but I need my difference to be acknowledged
so that I can be included.
Otherwise it's just dismissed and there's a barrier
to being understood in that way.
Being this different introduces a whole bunch
of additional social challenges and let me use
average variation in height for example, alright?
Some people are short, some people are tall.
If you're too tall all of a sudden
you're banging your head on everything
and you can't fit through doorways and things like that
and similarly if you're too short all of a sudden
you can't reach things that other
people can reach, you can't drive a car 'cause
you can't reach the peddles and it becomes
a social disability because the world
that you live in is not designed to be
accessible for you because you fall outside
the realm of what people call normal
and design for.
So that makes a big difference.
It's not just the difference itself,
it's the secondary things that the difference cause
and with autism it's not just one thing that's different
it's a whole bunch of different things that
are all slightly atypical in all of these
different ways that are different for every
autistic individual.
The common thread is that the sum product
of what those differences lead to is the feeling
of being so far outside the norm
that it makes it very difficult to connect with people.
It's social isolation, it's the world telling
you you're broken, it's all these types of things
that kind of make the backbone of the autistic experience
so when you line up your pens and think
oh aren't I a little bit autistic, or when you have
a routine that you like to stick to and you don't
like to change it, that's not really the same
thing as a lifetime of rejection and feeling
like you don't fit in.
Not even a little bit.
Okay, so why do people say isn't everyone
a little bit autistic?
There's a couple of nice reasons why people might
try and say this.
It could be to try and empathize.
Look you know I have autistic traits too,
aren't they normal?
It could be to try and say that I understand
your experience,
it could be to try and bring the autistic
person closer into this, you know,
I wanna pretend that you're closer so that it's easier
to bring you in and have you included in society.
Unfortunately what it does is it trivializes
this difference by making it sound a lot
smaller than it is and the effect that that has
is it communicates the message that I already
understand which is the opposite of the message
that I want to understand.
So this message of I already understand shuts
the conversation down and doesn't allow
for any more connection, and unfortunately
the message it also communicates is I have
no idea what you're going through
and I don't care.
So imagine I'm sharing with you I've just come back
from military service overseas and I am deeply
scarred by the things that I've seen and done.
I have serious post traumatic stress disorder,
I lost a leg to a landmine, I nearly died
in the battlefield, and your response is,
oh I completely get it.
The other day I had a paper cut,
it hurt so much I thought I was gonna die.
I literally thought I was gonna die,
I've never been in so much pain in my entire life.
I completely get where you're coming from.
Makes sense, yeah.
Makes sense.
Those two things are not anywhere near similar
and what the second person has done by trying to empathize
and trying to bring their own experience into it
is actually to trivialize what is a serious experience
into what is just like an everyday experience.
So instead, an adequate response it to desire
to understand more.
Just to listen and acknowledge what's being said.
So let's say I'm talking to another autistic person
and they're sharing about their crippling social
anxiety saying you have no idea how hard
it is to desperately want to leave the house
and feel like you can't, alright.
I can only image what that must be like.
I haven't had that experience firsthand,
that must be really tough.
I would like to understand.
I would like to hear more from you
and try and understand your experience
and connect with you.
Okay so lastly, this whole idea of being a little
bit autistic eventually ends up in the accusation
that I am only a little bit autistic
and what that does is completely invalidates
my experience of trying to explain
my difference to others and not being believed,
and when people don't believe my difference
I can't even ask for help.
I have a friend of mine who found out she was
on the spectrum after her daughter was diagnosed
and she was a full-time parent at home
with two young kids and she was having serious
trouble getting the housework done, right.
Now that might not sound too abnormal
but in her case it wasn't just oh this is hard
there's a lot of work to do and I'm not really
getting on top of it, it was crippling anxiety
looking at a to-do list and just being
incapacitated and unable to start because
of the thought of all the things that she needed to do.
So it was hard to get help because it sounded like
oh yeah yeah, every parent at home has that issue.
Kids are demanding, yeah yeah, we get it.
Actually no, they didn't get it.
The solution to her problem she eventually found
was to have a visual schedule with a picture
of a vacuum cleaner for example and for some
reason seeing the picture didn't cause that same
anxiety and she was able to see what she needed
to do and just get it done and all of a sudden
problem was solved.
This is not your typical I am just busy,
I've just got kids and housework is difficult.
There was something significantly different
behind that, and if people don't see that difference
then you can't even ask for the help that you need.
So, I guess my final point is that autism is real,
it's a real thing.
Even autism that you can't see is a real thing
and this is especially an issue for women
who are very good at masking.
Don't dismiss us, listen to us instead.
In order to include me, my difference needs
to be acknowledge.
So, please believe us.
Especially we go to a lot of trouble
and some people go to a significant expense,
to get an official diagnosis
just to prove that we're not crazy.
So, please believe us.
Please stop saying you're a little bit autistic,
and making fun at our expense, that's not very nice.
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So I hope you've enjoyed this video,
thanks for watching and I'll see you another time.
Bye.