Hearing someone say 'autism is an excuse' really made me feel uncomfortable and invoked a strong urge to defend myself and others struggling with this reality and the difficulties faced when trying to be true to self, in a world lacking understanding of what it all means.
Then realising that maybe it is they that are still using ignorance and mean spiritedness as an excuse to still behave poorly with no accountability on their part for contributing to the difficulties someone under the spectrum goes through trying to fit in, especially when the person trying to fit in had no idea they were autistic and always with zero intention of setting out to hurt anyone!
Bad form in my opinion whatever their excuse is for saying it.
If you think anyone is using Autism as an excuse, then what is your excuse for behaving poorly? And do expect people to offer you love, compassion, understanding and tolerance when you have behaved poorly? Of course you do, we all do.
As someone recently diagnosed as an adult, after decades of struggle and strength, I challenge anyone to say to my face it's an excuse. Years of anxiety and depression and not understanding why. Unable to twist truth to satisfy others ears. Seeing and feeling all the things that are unsaid by others and what they thought went unseen. Years of my inner voice screaming at me 'what is wrong with you'. So many times wanting to step off this god forsaken planet because of people, concepts and constructs they live by and not understanding at all how they treat one another. The sensitivity to senses and input overload from birth. Any shifts and changes triggering uncertainty and anxiety. The innate urge to directly question or challenge even if just for clarity sake. The list goes on and on. Then add to an already challenging way of being, long stories of trauma and sexual/physical/emotional/mental abuse and it all makes sense.
It is not an excuse. It is truth.
The wounded, ignorant me (cannot know what you do not know) absolutely had an impact on my words, actions and deeds. It has not been perfect, harmonious or sometimes even nice over the years. Have your words, actions or deeds 100% been perfect, harmonious or nice over the years? Or are you human like me and fuck up sometimes?
Most humans now suffer PTSD or CPTSD that in itself fucks anyone over. Destroys connections and ruins relationships, destroys your health & functionality if undiagnosed and untreated. Yet we expect perfection from each other and point the finger and yell for everyone to hear how bad a person they are for not being the person we wanted or thought them to be, and are how inadvertently we are hurt by that.
All the time I thought that that was going to be my life experience. But since diagnosis, my inner world has flipped. My outer world makes more sense. I feel more at peace now with myself and the world then ever before in my life, that is saying something for 57 years old.
I can honestly put my hand on my heart, look each and every one of you in the eye and say it is not an excuse but finally a reason WHY.
Yes the victim is real. Yes I may have hurt you. Yes I absolutely do apologise for my part in all relationships and connections that ended painfully or spectacularly bad. Was that my intention going into connections and relationships? Hell no. And on the other side to that coin, yes my victim is real, yes I've been hurt to the point of breakdowns, yes I've pointed the finger, more than once. But wallowing in the victim has not been an option for me, for my spirit drives me to know WHY, my desire to grow compels me to dig deep and seed universal truths and spiritual lores within and an innate urge to be the change I wish to see in the world.
It is with deep gratitude that I give thanks that I have walked a path, digging deep, healing trauma and abuse, researching, listening, reading, experiencing so many modalities, tools, teachings, sacred plant medicines, ceremonies, gatherings, difficult scenarios and people, expanding myself, challenging the social 'normaties'... all in the hope of healing, growing, evolving, understanding this thing called life and being a human doing BEFORE diagnosis.
Now with what feels like this final piece to the puzzle I can go about doing something different. For this final piece to the puzzle has completely changed the picture I thought it was going to be. With this new knowledge I can embody new tools and practices that fit more with all of me.
So if someone presents to you a little or a lot unconventional, direct and blunt, curious and questioning, take a moment to adjust that that person may just be under the spectrum and may require from you a suspension of your neuro-typical ways to learn and be more aware.
So much love.
Mim WhiteWind, The Autistic Mystic
Xx
I read a bunch of whining about people without autism not understanding you…well tough shit, get over it and learn how the world works. Nobody cares, if you can’t keep up then step off the planet