Alex
Thank you so much for taking time to look at my project, here is my own story -
Hi, I’m Alex and I’m Autistic. I was late-diagnosed, like many girls and women, at the age of 16. As a teenager, I vowed to keep my diagnosis as a closely guarded secret, afraid of the compartmentalised reaction I would receive from my peers if I ever disclosed my autism. Since attending university, however, I made an amazing group of friends, and suddenly found myself with the courage to be open about my autism; I often found myself encountering remarks such as ‘you don’t seem autistic’, ‘i’d never have guessed’, ‘you don’t like like someone with autism’, but what does autism look like? What does autism act like? I think this notion was key in my late diagnosis - I didn’t fit the pervasive and often damaging stereotypes of the autism narrative perpetuated in the mainstream media; I’m not Rain Man, i’m not a savant with an incredible mathematic ability, nor am i someone that requires lifelong care or assistance - and the problem with the exclusivity of these stereotypes is that when we don’t fulfil them, nobody sees us. As a confused, ‘volatile’ kid, I fell through the vacuum of space between these opposing cliches, into an isolating space of invisibility, where the perpetual companionship of isolation as a confused teenager in a world built for the neurotypical mind, rendered me as one of the greatest social disappearing acts the universe had ever witnessed. The problem with isolation is that the closer and more familiar it becomes, the further away everything else seems, and when you’re treated as invisible for long enough, you also, start to lose sight of yourself. Contrary to popular belief, autism isn’t a linear scale from mildly autistic to very autistic, its more like a kaleidoscope of fluid colours. I'm often told that I must be ‘mildly autistic’ but in fact, this just means that the world experiences me as mild; the life I experience has never felt mild to me. Despite the struggles associated with being autistic, autistic people aren’t broken or defective, we don’t endure suffering because of our autism, we endure suffering from the way in which the world treats and receives our autism. The kaleidoscope constellation of my diagnosis is an intrinsic part of me, and although autism has undoubtedly come with its own struggles, it also has enabled me to possess a unique strength, passion and focus. I have the ability to dedicate myself passionately to a subject, and express a pure enthusiasm that I have only ever witnessed elsewhere in my autistic peers. I have been autistic my entire life, not just since my diagnosis at age 16, and as I think about the invisible girl I was, lost between the vacuum of savants and the neurotypical, I feel an intense desire to expand the minds of what people think it means to be autistic, and reveal the true breadth of the spectrum, so that one day, the gap into the invisible will be eliminated and the stigmatisations silenced. ‘Spanning the Spectrum’ will celebrate our diverse differences and strengths, and provide VISIBILITY to our (past, present and future) autistic peers.