Mental Disability

I’m trying to think of a term that describes autism. At my doctors it was referred to as a mental health problem. I don’t like this term. I’m not ill, I was born this way. You wouldn’t described someone who was blind as being ill, even if they became blind during their life. Mental health implies you have an illness that is curable. I know people are looking for a cure, and sometimes I read stories about people who have been cured. I don’t disbelieve these cures but hey only seem to work for a few people. The National Health Service doesn’t offer a treatment anyway.

Actually the National Health Service hasn’t offered me anything. My GP sent my report off to my local Mental Health team in October and I haven’t heard anything. Maybe they have a backlog of cases. I read a book recently, A Short Introduction to Autism, I think it was by Uta Firth. She argued that the increase in cases of autism is due to better diagnosis, but also added that clinicians were diagnosing people with autism so that these people could have access to better services even when they thought they didn‘t have autism. I asked myself where are all these services? I haven’t found them. I’ve spoken to parents of autistic children. I know how difficult it is to get help and why would anyone want to label their child autistic if they weren’t?

I like the term ‘Disabled’ although I’m not sure physically disabled people would like someone like me having the label ‘disabled’. I am though. I have little social contact as a result of my autism, finding a suitable job is proving very difficult. Despite being intelligent and hard working, my standard of living has been severely affected. I’m not arguing that I should be able to drive around with a disabled badge in my car, but being able to say I’m disabled and have people accept it would make life so much easier. The problem is that although most people have heard of autism they don’t understand what it is.

The problem is I look ‘normal’. I can have a conversation with another person; talking to people is hard work for me but I can and do, do it. After spending a bit of time with me people figure something is a bit wrong, that I am a bit strange but they can’t put their finger on it. Partly this is because I work so hard to appear ‘normal’. It takes a lot of mental and emotional energy trying to be something you’re not, it’s certainly not a ‘healthy’ way to be. But I’ve done it for so long, sometimes I’m at a loss how to behave.

The only way to overcome this it to talk to people about it. I didn’t like doing this at first but it’s getting easier. I’ve put it on my CV. As soon as I get friendly with someone I tell them. They tend to have lots of questions. I’ve noticed that this tendency to not talk about illnesses and disabilities is common in most people.

I worked with a man who I think had Tourettes. When he got nervous he had lots of twitches and stammered. We became friendly and I told him I had Autism. He asked me questions, I think he was genuinely interested to know. I explained the problems I have with language, my lack of social imagination, my problems with understanding emotions. He was genuinely I expected and wanted him to tell me what his own problems were but he didn’t. He thought it strange that I was apparently so happy to be called autistic. He suggested that such ‘labels’ limited what a person could become. I said it wasn’t just a label, it was an actual condition, and yes it did limit what I could be in this life but that there wasn’t any point denying it.

I wish people could see inside my brain. I would love to get a brain scan done. I would show people a picture of a normal brain and then what mine looked like and say - See! This is what I have to work with! What would you have achieved in your life if this is what you were given?