They also serve…

The title of this post is taken from John Milton‘s sonnet On His Blindness which is about his frustration that his disability prevents him serving God as he wanted. By the end of the poem Milton accepts that as a blind person, what he can do still has value. (Apologies if this is ropey literary criticism btw – A Level English is a long time ago!)

Milton died in 1674 but there’s still a pervasive narrative even now that disabled people are a drain on resources, that we have little to offer. In reality throughout history disabled people – including autistic people – have made immense contributions to society. It’s problematic to “diagnose” historical figures as autistic after their lifetimes but you only have to Google “famous autistics” to come up with long speculative lists of people who have or had autistic traits. But the stigma of being little use continues to attach to autistic people even so.

At work, it’s all too easy for an autistic employee to become the “problem person”. We’re different, but the disability doesn’t show visually, so it’s easy to forget it’s there. Surely if we just pulled ourselves together we’d be like everyone else? Getting upset about a minor rejection or perceived slight, being blunt to the point of rudeness, fidgeting, dressing differently, having an odd mode of speech – these are all ways of being difficult aren’t they? And of course once you’re identified as the “difficult” person, then whatever you do or say can be the subject of suspicion. Why is she asking for that reasonable adjustment? She’s only doing it as a way of slacking off. Why won’t she just eat what she’s given? It must be to get attention…

That narrative that you’re the problem can be so all embracing that it devalues all you do at work. Your request for clarification becomes disrespect or undermining authority. The slight slip up that wouldn’t have mattered at all if you were viewed favourably becomes a huge deal. The benefit of the doubt is definitively withdrawn. And in those circumstances it’s hardly surprising that people underperform. On the occasions when I’ve found myself located as the “problem person” I’ve had that sense that there was nothing I could do that would be right, and that the tiniest mistake would be final proof that I was useless. My attempts to communicate became ever less effective as my failures to mask effectively were expanded on and misinterpreted and layers of misunderstanding built up.

But disabled people in general and autistic people in particular don’t need to be “the problem”. There are lots of ways in which having a variety of perspectives can be helpful, and getting the right reasonable adjustments in place can unlock huge amounts of talent. Unemployment rates are quite low at the moment which means getting more disabled people into the workforce could help fill job vacancies. There’s historical precedent for this – after WWI when so many of the world’s able-bodied young men had been killed or injured – others came in to fill their places in the workforce including women and men with long-term disabilities.

Society needs to get to a place where it regards disabled people – and particularly autistic people – as an untapped reservoir of talent rather than a drain on productivity. Given only around 22% of diagnosed autistic adults are in work, there are clearly plenty of us who might be able to do more than we do. But, to return to the Milton poem, productivity is not the only measure of worth. There will always be people who can’t work because of their health or disability. That doesn’t mean they have no value. Let’s empower those who can to get out into to society and improve the world, but not forget that they also serve, who only stand and wait.