#Thread

A-Z of autism from a personal autistic perspective.

‘V’s Virtues, values, and validity.

#AutisticPride
#AutismAcceptance
#AutismAcceptanceMonth

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We often hear about negative autistic traits and characteristics.

So-called ‘symptoms’ and ‘deficits’ are constantly being discussed.

But we hardly ever get to hear about positive autistic virtues.

How desperately sad that is.

#autism
#AllAutistics
#ActuallyAutistic

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A common autistic virtue is veracity, the quality of being true, honest or accurate.

Veracity encompasses highly-prized attributes such as exactness, sincerity, rightness, fairness, precision, reliability, trustworthiness, and candour.

An admirable characteristic.

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And yet, in spite of having a marked tendency towards truthfulness, autistic people may be suspected of deception.

Why does this happen?

Because neurotypical people sometimes use unreliable indicators of dishonesty, like gaze aversion and fidgeting.

4/ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-021-04963-4

How unfair!

We’re probably being more honest than a ‘typical’ person, yet we get treated like we’re attempting a scam.

No wonder we find social interaction so challenging.

And it’s hardly surprising that some of our natural characteristics get suppressed or camouflaged.

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Another virtuous quality I’ve noticed in autistic people is valour.

‘Strength of mind in regard to danger; that quality which enables a person to encounter danger with firmness; personal bravery.’

The challenges we’re faced with can be enormous.

We’re often quite valiant.

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Autism is still stigmatised, and seen as something to be treated or cured.

It’s brave to be openly autistic in spite of such prejudice.

Some people would like to prevent us from existing completely.

We respond to them by asserting our #AutisticPride and our #AutisticRights

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Autistic people are often prepared to voice unpopular opinions in situations where the truth needs to be told, and no one else will do it.

We may be portrayed as vindictive or vexatious, and get victimised for it.

But we’re likely to be vindicated, if the full facts emerge.

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Almost every organisation makes great claims for its values.

And yet, when we deal with services, we often feel the absence of basics like ‘respect’.

Values come into everything.

The way appointments are made, language is used, our views are sought, and records are kept.

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I was an undercover autistic for 58 years.

Not knowing I was autistic
I worked in criminal justice, mental health, homelessness services, and higher education.

I saw the way autistic people got spoken about and treated.

Often this meant they were invalidated, or excluded.

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‘Traumatic invalidation occurs when an individual's environment repeatedly or intensely communicates that the individual's experiences, characteristics, or emotional reactions are unreasonable and/or unacceptable.’

This sounds like what happens to autistic people routinely.

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So many of our experiences are different and therefore not ‘validated’ by other people.

The same thing can happen with our values.

We can end up feeling slightly out of step with the rest of society.

And yet, the autistic way in which we process things is perfectly valid.

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Positive autistic characteristics get twisted into negatives.

Articulacy becomes verbosity.

Steadfastness becomes rigidity.

Vigilance becomes wariness.

Accuracy becomes pedantry.

Honesty becomes naïveté.

Deep empathy becomes over-sensitivity.

A different perspective.

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I’ve reached many impasses in my life.

Each time I made a fresh start I wondered if everything that I’d done before had been in vain.

Eventually I came to realise that all the ‘vagaries’ I’d been beset with hadn’t been wholly of my own making.

I was not their sole author.

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Society values external factors more highly than development of self.

So I lost confidence in the purpose of my life if my career or relationship floundered.

I felt like I barely existed without a job or a partner.

Scarcely visible.
Dragged down into a vortex of despair.

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I lost touch.
‘Somewhere, right at the bottom of one’s own being, one generally does know where one should go and what one should do. But there are times when the clown we call “I” behaves in such a distracting fashion that the inner voice cannot make its presence felt.’
C G Jung

When I was at my most vulnerable I was forced to confront the fact that all I could rely on was my self.

When everything else was stripped away that was all I had.

So amidst all the vacuousness of life, it was vital to work out who I really was, and what my values were.

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The world can be a vicious and violent place, especially for someone who is autistic.

Acts of aggression can affect me very deeply.

And so can cruelty towards any living creature.

I have validated and accepted my empathy and sensitivity.

I do not want to “toughen up”.

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I don’t want to go anywhere near anything unethical.

Nor do I want to relax my values.

It’s far too dangerous for me.

The pull of an integrity vacuum is so strong it could easily drag me in.

This isn’t about ‘virtue signalling’, it’s about being able to live with myself.

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If I had the strength and courage of a virago I’d take the fight right to the truth twisters.

But I’ve been dragged across the line before, which is why I’m staying well clear.

Make no mistake, as autistic people we have to fight for our rights.

Victory means survival.

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I don’t believe in a separate female autism.

But being a woman can result in more negative reactions to behaving autistically.

My autistic outspokenness violated the expectation that women should be quiet, and submissive.

I experienced additional vilification as a result.

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For autistic girls of all ages:

‘Here are girls like lions,
here are girls like howling wolves.
Here are girls with such big teeth!
Here are girls who’ll play tug o’ war
with your heart or your wishbone
Or your throat, oh.’

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‘Oh, here are girls
with cold bright eyes and claws
like dragons. Here are girls who
can’t breathe air, only fire.
Here are girls who carry kindness
And katanas in their rucksacks
because they never know which they’ll need.’

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‘How do you tame girls with wildfire limbs?
How do you hold down girls with hurricane hands?
Oh, you can’t. Humble hungerer,
you’ve just got to help them rise.’

[Here Are Girls Like Lions, Elisabeth Hewer]

#AutisticGirls
#AutisticPride
#AutisticWomen

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All autistic voices matter, but especially those of people who are additionally marginalised, oppressed, and silenced.

‘You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.’

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‘Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.’

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‘Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.’

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‘You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?’

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‘Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise’

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‘Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.’

[Still I Rise. Maya Angelou.]

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