Language – Autistic Civil Servant

Autistic Birthdays…

Birthdays can be tricky things for we autistics. In broad brush generalisation terms (every autistic is different!) we like pattern and consistency. So one day following a similar pattern to those around it is helpful, and exceptions and special days can be stressful. Christmas, for example, can be a bit of a trial. There are different sights, sounds, activities, people, settings, times and rhythms for doing things – and any one of those changes could take an autistic person out of their (limited) comfort zone.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s very nice to get presents and attention and feel loved – of course it is. But the pressure to respond “correctly” and handle complex social situations can be quite intense. There are so many conventions to remember and handle – such having to invite people you don’t like to your party, or thank people for gifts that you don’t really want. It’s basic good manners, but it’s also extra reminders of how the world doesn’t make sense to your autistic brain and how you constantly have to “perform” the role of not being autistic in order to fit in.

Working can be talking

Pottering about chatting to people doesn’t feel like proper “work” work, even if it takes some effort. My autistic brain is absolutely determined that sitting at my desk churning out written work is proper work or – at a pinch – attending meetings. Casual chats aren’t immediately productive so they can’t be work, can they? Well yes, they certainly can. And that makes them important and a sensible use of time.

An Epiphany

The Epiphany in the Christian Church is when we remember the visit of the wise men (or “Magi”, or Three Kings if you’re thinking of the carol) to the baby Jesus. The wise men were philosophers from abroad who had followed a star, travelling from the East. The significance of this day is that God was revealed not only to his own people (such as the shepherds who visited the Holy Family at Christmas) but to foreigners too – and thus the whole world. We use the word “epiphany” to refer to any great revelation or realisation about the world or ourselves. For me, realising that I was autistic was emphatically an epiphany, and that is quite a common experience. It’s possible that someone reading this might have been wondering why the experiences of autistics seemed to chime with something within them. This might even be the moment of epiphany when they come to realise that actually it’s not that they’ve been a bad person their whole life, but that they’ve had a differently wired brain.

An Autistic New Year

I would like to start 2023 with the assertion that “autism” is not and must not be a dirty word. It is not a shameful thing to be autistic or to have an autistic family member. It is hopefully becoming a normal thing to have autistic employees and, quite possibly, managers and leaders. Autistic people can be clever and strong and brilliant or complete and total prats, just like anyone else. We don’t have superpowers – we are people who have strengths and weaknesses just like all other people. Some of us need round the clock care, and some of us need holding back from annihilating crass people on Twitter with our wit (Greta, I’m looking at you). Most important of all – we are everywhere. If around 1-2 people in a hundred is autistic, then you know a lot of autistic people. Everyone does. Some people are autistic. I hope to spend this year helping the world get over it.

Working in sprints – an autistic phenomenon?

What do you do during a working day? Do you do approximately eight hours of work fairly steadily? By which I meant to say, do you achieve roughly the same amount of stuff during each hour? Or do you sit around apparently fidgeting for several hours then have an attack of productivity and get a day’s work done all in one go at very high speed and then go back to apparently doing nothing? I do the latter, and I’m rather embarrassed about it so it’s difficult to write about. But I’m coming to realise that it may be a brain-wiring thing rather than a “being a dysfunctional idle pillock” thing. Incidentally, if you were expecting this blog to be about the kind of Sprints in Agile, well, I’m really sorry, and you may be reading the wrong blog…

What I don’t want to hear…

I talk about autism carrying a lot of stigma but I don’t often spell out what that means and I realise I probably should. There are lots of turns of phrase in our language that aren’t great for autistic people ranging from the well-intentioned mistake to fairly naked prejudice. What follows is a collection of ones I’ve personally encountered in the last five years in a range of settings. These are the kinds of things I really don’t want to hear.

“They also serve…” (Remembrance)

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.

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 disabled people even so.

The importance of being autistic-led

All the time the narrative about autism is led by neurotypical people, there is a danger that hiding autism will be valued – we autistics will be rewarded for how well we fit into the neurotypical world and avoid making neurotypical people uncomfortable. I happen to be comparatively good at doing that – but that doesn’t mean I should be rewarded, or someone who can’t do it should be ignored. It’s always going to be difficult to be autistic in society – we’re always going to be the minority and the ones who have to adapt and fit in or be judged. But there are ways in which we can reduce the amount that the autistic people have to adapt. Visible autistic leadership is part of redressing the balance away from there being autistics who can (and should) fit in and stop complaining, and those who need to be hidden away in residential care (the high/low functioning false model). We’re all autistic and some of us are leaders, and that’s OK.

Shall I compare…?

How do you know you’re enjoying yourself? What if you’re doing what everyone else thinks is fun but hating it? Or you’re doing something you love but everyone else thinks you’re a total sad act? If you’re not particularly psychologically robust – which might be because you’ve spent most of your life undiagnosed autistic – then you might struggle not to make comparisons between what the world considers “right” and what you actually do. Which leads on nicely to the fear of failure and not being a “proper” person that can come so easily to an autistic. I’ve wrote about this yesterday in relation to birthdays – do you do what society thinks you should or make your own life easy but fear what you’re missing? Or do you lament not what you’re missing but the fact that you don’t actually miss it?