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Dec 17 2022
Queerness and me

Queerness. It’s a word that I hid from for over 30 years, and yet, as I type it, I find myself feeling a deep comfort. I have long known that the space between myself and “typical” society is far greater than the purported six degrees of separation. I have at times considered that gulf to be one of existential orders of magnitude. The concept of “alone in a crowded room” is not alien to me. Nothing much is alien to me, except perhaps (at times) myself.

Being Autistic is a core part of my sense of Self. I understand myself through the lense of Autisticness, I embody my neurology unapologetically. Of course, there is far more to my experience than being Autistic. I am also Schizophrenic. Some might pity me, offering me sympathy for my mental illness. Illness is a word that does not sit right with me.

Schizophrenic, yes. Unwell? If I was unwell, should it not be quantifiable? A value that can be measured by a body that lacks the homeostasis that allows it to function properly.

No, I am neurodivergent. That doesn’t mean I don’t suffer, but I believe we must externalise suffering into the environment. Suffering does not arise in the Self, it is a function of inhabiting a space that was not meant for you.

So where does queerness fit into this?

I have come to understand that there are boundaries between the typical and atypical bodiment of the self. These boundaries are man made structures. Social conventions waiting to be transcended. Much like the way I transcend the convention of neurotypicality, delving into divergent neurology, I find myself openly subverting all expectations placed upon myself.

Queerness, to me, is not about who I love. Who I feel attraction to is such a small part of my queerness. In my universe, queerness is the subversion of a reality that has been imposed upon me. If experiencing psychosis has taught me anything, it’s that reality is not a fixed point. While being Autistic has taught me that society’s truths about what is and isn’t “normal” are closer to the machinations of a propaganda machine than anything objectively true.

No.

I am Queer because I do not belong in normative society. My neurology has made it impossible to assimilate. My queerness manifests from the urgency of an existence that requires me to carve out and defend a space to exist in. The boundary I push is the need be contained. I permit myself to take up space. I permit myself to experience my reality.

In many ways, My queerness or perhaps, my neuroqueerness, has allowed me to bookmark a place in my own story, one in which I can let go of the self-hatred for my bodymind’s tenuous relationship with reality.

It is okay to feel what I feel. It is okay to think what I think. I am no more defined by the intrusive nature of my traumatised thoughts, than I am by the colour of my hair. They are a small part of a wider human structure. It’s okay for me to admit that my sense of Self is constructed from interactions with others. We all build ourselves from the words uttered about us and to us.

Queerness doesn’t feel strange to me. It’s a liberation from the chains of normative violence. It’s freedom to think and feel without the moral judgements imposed by society through me. It is freedom from policing my own existence. It is existential liberation.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Nov 24 2022
(Mis)perceptions of reality: Autism, psychosis, and my quest for objective truth

For as long as I can remember, I have been preoccupied with the difference between truth, and mistruth. Long before my psychosis began, I wanted to know how the things we held to be true could be proven as objectively true; it seemed to me that truth was in the eye of the beholder.

Six months after my 18th birthday, I discovered that my reality was a shifting and changing experience.

The problem with psychosis is that you don’t know it is happening. You literally experience an alternative reality. What this taught me was that things I held to be true were entirely subjective, which brought me to the realisation that everyone’s interpretation of truth was subjective.

Consider the boundary between truth and mistruth. It is abstract, a non-entity. Said boundary is entirely built from the collective experience of humanity, an experience which is in itself subjective.

Where those experiences intersect and agree, we label it objective truth. How then can we construct truth from a mind such as mine? One in which reality is a malleable and fluid thing. My Autistic Self has been preoccupied with this for many years, and truthfully I am still searching for answers.

Perhaps, then, it is reasonable to argue objective truth in terms of Descartes? “I think, therefore I am”. Of course this is made more complicated by the after-the-fact functioning of consciousness; and yet, I have often found myself drawn to a sort of solipsism during times of crisis.

Thus, we are left with the only thing I can hold to be objectively true from moment to moment. That my sense of identity, my experience of Self, at any given moment, is the only thing I can hold to be true. An identity that itself is constructed from interactions with my (mis)perceived reality.

So, when I argue the importance of community-connectedness, I am going beyond minority stress models, and beyond social reciprocity. For me, the communities I interact with, and the individuals that I speak with, are directly constructing my truth.

That is why the Autistic community is so vital to me. They have built the only thing that I know to be true.

David Gray-Hammond 3 Comments
Aug 28 2022
Spirituality and my Autistic experience

“Picture a wave in the ocean. You can see it, measure it – its height, the way the sunlight refracts as it passes through – and it’s there, you can see it, and you know what it is, it’s a wave. And then it crashes on the shore and it’s gone. But the water is still there.”

Chidi Anagonye, The Good Place (Season 4 Ep. 13)

When the average person considers the word “spirituality”, they probably picture traditional places of worship associated with the major world religions. For me, however, spirituality is about a lot more than worshipping am unseen entity, and its arbitrary (and often outdated) models of morality.

When I consider my own spirituality, I think about my place in reality. I consider the interconnectedness of all things, and the beautiful tapestry that is our universe.

Humanity so often considers itself the pinnacle of existence, we are the “dominant” species on our planet. However, we are observably insignificant compared to the scale of our universe. It is, in my opinion, our connection to our universe, and how we influence it that makes us significant.

We are constantly altering our environment, which has knock on effects for all living beings within it. The actions of those living beings, in turn, effect us. Everything we do effects everything that exists in some way, even if to slight to be noticed. We have a responsibility to ensure that our existence does not leave the universe worse than it was before our existence.

This, perhaps, is why the following quote (that I have referenced a few times) has become a mainstay in my own form of spirituality. I use it as a guide for my actions, even if I do so imperfectly.

“To be is to be perceived, and so to know thyself is only possible through the eyes of the other. The nature of our immortal lives is in the consequences of our words and deeds, that go on and are pushing themselves throughout all time.”

Revelation of Sonmi-451, Cloud Atlas, Written by David Mitchell

The actions that we make in our lives will forever change the course of history. The things that we do are writing the future that those who come after us will have to live with. I’m not just talking about humanity’s collective actions. The things we do as individuals ripple out, contributing to huge changes.

We are the multitude of droplets that create an ocean.

In this sense, my work advocating for Autistic people is a spiritual practice for me. I am trying to leave the world a better place than when I found it. Spirituality, for me, transcends the boundaries of religion and such practices. It is a way of enacting good in a world that so often rejoices in the dark.

Another aspect of spirituality that is important to me is the exploration of the self.

The truth is that our entire concept of the self is built upon rules and structures that have existed long before we did. To truly know the self, we have to understand the effects we have on the universe around us. We have to understand how our actions influence our shared existence. We have to embrace the fact that we are imperfect, and that some times our actions will do harm.

When this happens, we have to be open to the process of accepting what we have done, and trying not to repeat our mistake. We also have to respect the fact that once something happens, it cannot unhappen. Every action we make has a permanent impact on the world around us. To put it another way, what is done cannot be undone.

Spirituality does, and should, look different for everyone. Our experiences of reality are subjective, and I believe this is where mainstream religion fails. It tries to box everyone together into a shared and objective reality, which in itself is an impossibility.

We have one life on this earth with which to do good. We can’t waste it trying to fit into someone else’s reality. We can only be ourselves.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
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