Autism Isn't the Problem, Your Attitude Towards It Is

Saying that I suffer from autism is wrong. In fact, I suffer from the fact that our world is not set up for the neurodiverse and a society that is so scared of variety. I suffer from the fact that people won’t accept me for my differences. I suffer from the fact that I’m just not "normal." When I was diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum, I very quickly learnt that in order to thrive in life I need to make adaptations. I'm never going to wake up for the autism to have disappeared in the night and I can't avoid the things that I struggle with forever. That's why adaptation is so important, so I can thrive despite my difficulties. So I can manage in world that is not set up for people like me.

Unfortunately, we live in a society where difference is not embraced—in fact it's mostly frowned upon, which really just comes from fear. Everyone in society is forced to “fit in" but those of us on the spectrum generally find this harder. People will pick at our little quirks and bring us down for it... and when I say bring us down, what I actually mean in a lot of cases is intense bullying. Because of this we often feel we have to hide our differences (this is mainly in females, I must add) in fear of being labelled and rejected. Not all of our difficulties can be hidden, though, and they’re often picked out by those around us. Yes, those of us on the spectrum find communication difficult. You may need to explain things to us differently, you may have to prompt us in social situations. Yes we have "strange" repetitive behaviours to you. Yes, we may hate certain conditions and environments. Yes, we may hate change and want everything to stay the same. Putting it simply, we just react differently to the world around us. The world is not suited to us. People are not suited to us. The problem is we autistic people are living in a world only suited to the neurotypical. The neurotypicals can thrive, while we can get a bit left behind.

You shouldn’t just write us off and assume we’re not worth your time. We’re not "broken" and you don’t have to "cure" or "fix" us. We need acceptance and adaptation. We need to be embraced. Just because we struggle to fit into our society it doesn’t mean we’re worthless. We just need adaptations in order to thrive! We see the world from a different angle to those not on the spectrum—that can give us a big advantage! We can see things others can’t, form ideas and solutions others may not be able to—we are filled with knowledge! It’s just society won’t accept this—because we’re different. Stop giving us a hard time. We have so much to offer. We don’t need to cure autism. We need to cure ignorance.