Read on Twitter
A very autistic and very educational thread
I am constantly being asked āwhy didnāt you tell anyone before the age of 25ā and told āyou honestly canāt tellā Iām gonna explain the issues with both of these.
I was diagnosed at five years old. The doctors who diagnosed me told my mom I was caught āearlyā enough to allow me to be able to āblendā into society ānormallyā.
The idea was to basically teach me to suppress any traits of autism in me that would perhaps stop me gaining employment, friendships, love, stability ect. To teach me to be the blueprint I was āsupposedā to be. Now, Iām 5, and I now now Iām autistic.
I also now know, autism isnāt good. We shouldnāt talk about that. We must change that. Your imagination, quirks, communication methods, all that is natural to you.. is wrong. Weāre going to work on you to change it.
This started with therapies that would stop me using stimming behaviours in public. Stimming is basically brain stimulation in a physical form. Some autistic people shake, move their hands, spin objects ect. That was told to stop and my parents were told to stop it.
I now associated a thing my brain NEEDED with something that was embarrassing and strange. I was told to not do the things my brain NEEDS. Including being taught to sit on my hands. This started to work. So then they added Prozac into the mix at 7.
7 years old and on medication. No teachers, friends or friends parents are aware Iām autistic. The only people who know are me, my mom, my dad, my doctor. This was for fear of bullying and encouraging me to become āundetectableā.
Once I was showing progress of becoming undetectable. Friendships came, school work improved, communication improved. Bingo. Itās working. But it wasnāt working, I was riding a unicycle and being told it was normal. I didnāt feel safe. Comfy. Myself. I was 9.
By high school you have an autistic teen who nobody knows is autistic. All behaviours needed have been suppressed. Depression followed and at the age of 12 I made my first suicide attempt. Lights, fabrics, sounds burned out my brain but I was getting on with it.
Every trait I was meant to have was being shoved down into my soul to make me ānormalā. Then came the realisation of why. People are cruel. As an autistic person in disguise Iāve been a fly on the wall my whole life. Seeing the bullying. The slurs. The hatred.
Shows like little Britain became quotable to my friends. My condition because a joke. The realisation of why the suppression was needed, was clear. Self hatred ensued. No traits on show, I dropped to 6 stone in weight.
Shows like the undateables came up on tv. People laughing at us. People making fun. Parents quoting shows. This is funny. Those people are disabled and thatās funny. This isnāt a world I wanted to come out to. So I just pushed it down and down and down and down.
18 I started drama. Release. A place to live out the worlds in my head. I became a theatre nerd. Iām now an actor and theatre writer. I used this as a vessel to allow my brain the stimulation it needed. I got a job at Disney.
Things were going well but the discrimination of people was all around me. But now, I realised real life isnāt as easy to blend into. My traits started leaking. Because nobody knew, I became judged for them. Rude. Harsh. Lazy. Not listening. Anxious. A liability.
I tried to tell a friend. During that conversation just before I told them they said ābut first let me tell you about this absolutely autistic thing that happened at work todayā I never told them. Go figure.
On top of this I was dealing with sexuality issues that are mentioned in @CallumHeinrich ās amazing tweet. So I wonāt go into that because please see his.
I left my job and worked for another company. By this point Iām so depressed I can barely breathe. No traits on show, hands tied, not allowed to stim, medicated to the eye balls, (by this stage Iām on 4 pills at once including sedatives)
I was doing really well. Learning and adapting for everyone elseās benefit and because the world told me autism is funny. Itās weird. Itās dangerous. I was exposed to the opinions of anti-Vaxers who make their kids drink bleach. I wasnāt gonna tell anyone about it. No way.
Someone I know lost their job for mental health. It was deemed by their company (not mine) that they were unfit for the role because they couldnāt cope. They said they could cope. Didnāt matter. Mental health = not good. You lose jobs over that.
Kept suppressing. Kept suppressing. Fell in love. He was an oasis. He was incredible. He was a release. He was my best friend. My first ever love. I never told him. I thought of the undateables and cruel words Iāve heard my whole life. I couldnāt lose him.
I made him swim upstream. By this point my autism was leaking like the titanic. I couldnāt hold it in. He didnāt know what I was dealing with. He didnāt know what a breakdown and burn out look like. He didnāt know. I didnāt tell him. It wasnāt his fault.
So I lost him. The best thing that ever happened to me and I lost him. I quit my job. I lost weight. I wasnāt ready to be honest with him and that was unfair. I have a lot of regrets about that. That canāt have been easy to fight a battle daily you donāt know youāre fighting.
Then a pandemic hit and I started to watch everyone struggle. People started to struggle to change. To adapt. To be in the new normal. Suddenly everyone else was me and I was watching my own life happen in other people.
I told everyone. Everyone was shocked. Nobody guessed and I lost friends as I knew I would for being open about being autistic. My life told me that. People said āwhy didnāt you tell usā and I said āyouād never get itā maybe now you will.
People said āIāll still treat you the sameā and didnāt get it. Donāt treat me the same. Treat me equal to you but adapt to me like I have for you. We should all adapt to each other and not encourage autistic people to suppress themselves. You need to treat us as we need
You canāt pretend Iām like you anymore and I never felt more powerful. I got to stop, drop and be myself. Universes exploded out of me. I felt so good. I put on weight. I felt whole. I felt myself. I felt like I could give to people. Like I could just be ME
Research autism and therapies that try to suppress it. I am living proof it doesnāt work. It just makes very sad, lonely, angry monsters who hate themselves. But I have universes of love in me. I want to help make sure this never happens to another child.
I want to make sure we talk about this invisible illness: I wanna teach people we are hot. Funny. Clever. Intelligent. We are not a slur. We are not a little Britain joke. We are not weird. We are INCREDIBLE.
The people Iāve met since have told me this story. They told me my story a million times over. A story of trying to create robots of galaxy holding people to fit in with a world. Well bollocks to that, the world can find a place for us to fit in.
The people I have met are beautiful. I am so whole. Never ever let anyone condition you that youāre unloveable and unemployable and embarrassing. Ever. Let your god damn light shine and stand tall and demand change in your industries. Demand change in your friends.
Be kind to one another. Contact me. I wrote a whole play on this. Showcasing our suppression and how thatās meant to be GOOD but what is so much more beautiful is when we STOP Supressing and shine out for all our superhero traits we have.
Educate. Be kind. Love each other. Research. Learn. Talk. Adapt. Laugh. Love and be kind. Be understanding. Fight prejudice. Support autistic business owners. Support schools. Support charities. Treat us as your equals and have that ādifficultā talk with us.
It isnāt a difficult talk for us. We wanna tell you and show you how beautiful and capable we are. Because we are. Theatres cast diversely. Employers employ diversely. Listen to US. Watch us shine.
Bless you all for reading. Reach out if you want to. Be proud of yourselves, Iām proudly autistic and my god Iām gonna make the world know it.
Also. Lastly. Donāt be fooled. I wonāt use this ever as an excuse. But you SHOULD excuse me if I tell you something to with my autism caused us an issue. Donāt expect YOUR communication from ME. And never. EVER underestimate me or anyone like me.
Iāll be kind to you, but I understand when youāre being unkind to me. Iām autistic; Iām not stupid. Donāt ever confuse those elements. I have an IQ higher than Einstein. I donāt understand social ques so I learned them like SCIENCE. I am SO aware.
Bless you all once more! Come see my play when itās open! Weāll have all autistic actors & itās gonna be this thread on stage in a world of colour and love and comedy and beauty and Iām gonna make it FLY for everyone like me and we will fly it HIGH.
