Autism Myths: Autism is a superpower

Autism must be a superpower – Greta Thunberg said so, right? Well no, she didn’t actually. What she said was that “given the right circumstances – being different is a superpower.” Note that conditional: given the right circumstances. Given the wrong circumstances, being different is an absolute nightmare and can be fatal. But there are certainly advantages that come with being autistic… so do they constitute a super power or is that something people just tell themselves to feel better?

Being autistic is part of who I am – it always has been and always will be. I wouldn’t stop being autistic if I could – I wouldn’t be me anymore. Well, let’s qualify that (autistic people often need to be precise and honest); the times when I would get rid of my autism are the times when I’d rather not be me anymore, and those are not good times. But if autism is a big part of me, how can I possibly tell whether I’ve got a superpower relative to everyone else, since I’ve never experienced being anyone but me? I think it helps to unpick the things about the idea of a superpower that are potentially problematic and work out how they might be being used emotionally by particular groups of people to deal with autistic family members, friends and colleagues.

Wishful thinking

There’s an idea in society that blind people develop heightened other senses that “compensate” for their inability to see and its even a bit true. But you can easily see that it’s a very seductive idea for the loved ones of a disabled person to think that their child or sibling isn’t actually disadvantaged, doesn’t actually suffer from a problem, because their body has somehow “compensated” for the disability.

And it’s pretty common for the parents of an autistic child to say that their child “has a superpower” or “my child isn’t disabled”. That probably provides a lot of comfort for the family – and possibly the newly-diagnosed child too – but it’s an emotional crutch we need to grow out of as we get older. If I as an autistic adult need reasonable adjustments in the workplace, I’m much less likely to get them if I say I have a “superpower” than a “disability”. The law protects me if I have a disability – if I have a superpower it assuredly doesn’t. And saying I have a superpower potentially blinds me to the help that might be on offer to deal with the less super aspects of my experience.

Inspiration porn

Society at large has a tendency to treat disabled people as a source of “inspiration”, which sounds nice, but is actually a bit of a problem. If I’m having a difficult life I’m having it because this is my life that I’m trying to lead, not because I’m trying to inspire anyone else. Having a physical disability isn’t automatically inspirational, and nor is being autistic. Objectifying a disabled person because they can “inspire” non-disabled people means valuing us for what we can do for society not for ourselves. And that comes back to the really bad idea that to be disabled is to have less right to exist – we don’t have to rebrand disability as “superpower” to make disabled people sound more worthwhile. We’re worthwhile anyway. So there.

Stereotypes

Rain Man has created a powerful stereotype of autistic people as savants with strange skills and abilities. Some autistic people certainly do have particular strengths and abilities – but that doesn’t mean we’re superhuman. I suspect a lot of autistic special abilities are the result of a really intense focus on building up knowledge or skill in a particular area, possibly as an alternative to socialising. Some of our intense interests are valued by society but that doesn’t make them superpowers – the fact that society values my intense interest in the plays of Shakespeare a lot more than it values my friend’s intense interest in plastic dinosaurs doesn’t make one of us better than the other. Again, our worth doesn’t lie in our value or otherwise to society.

Autistic Realism

Coming back to Greta Thunberg’s point, being different can definitely sometimes be a superpower. I am different and that gives me some advantages. I see patterns that others might miss, I have “out of the box” ideas etc. Sometimes. When a society is receptive to new thinking, new ideas and difference, being different can certainly provide some advantages. No-one ever became a great visionary by thinking the same as everyone else – leaps forward require someone to have the courage to be different. BUT, not every society is like that. Some societies punish difference through either formal structures or cultural forces. Anyone who’s ever been bullied at school knows that and I’ll be impressed if you can find ANY autistic person who wasn’t bullied at school.

So: autism isn’t currently a superpower. Calling it a superpower right now belittles the difficulties that I and every other autistic person faces, in a related way to saying everyone is “on the spectrum“. There will be times when belittling the difficulty will be the emotionally right thing to do to comfort a relation or newly diagnosed person, but those will be rare times. Given a culture that valued the possibilities of difference, new thinking, new perspectives etc – autism could be very powerful. The civil service is trying to build that culture as a sensible way of getting the maximum value out of its staff. But I’d like to finish by returning to what for me is the most important idea; whether I or anyone else have a superpower may be an interesting question, but it has absolutely no impact whatsoever on my or anyone else’s value as a human being.