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Intergenerational trauma and the perpetuation of harm

“Mother is God in the eyes of a child”

William Makepeace Tackery

The above quote, whilst pertinent to this discussion, is only half of the picture. Adults control most aspects of a child’s life, and whether or not we realise it, we do this by being the people they depend upon to survive. I often wonder if those who abused me stopped to realise quite how severely they failed me in constructing a child for whom a feeling of safety was a rarity.

Children, like all of us, are socially constructed. The Self is an amalgam of the relationships and experiences afforded to us by the environment. This proves particularly problematic for children in abusive situations. Extensive and prolonged abuse creates a rocky foundation for Self-actualisation and scaffolding of one’s identity.

Much as the child who grows up seeing nothing but shadows does not realise there is a person who casts them, the child who is consistently and extensively mistreated does not view their abuse as out of the ordinary. This is how trauma passes from generation to generation. The normalisation of inflicted pain allows for it to be passed on.

There is a greater complexity to this matter than simply the way our parents and other family members treat us. Services and professionals who are meant to support us often compound the pain we are experiencing. When one is more concerned with the law than with ethics, you are almost definitely contributing to pain.

So, now we have a world where harm comes from all directions. This harm is so consistent and resilient to change that we do not realise its lack of acceptability. We are constructed into adults who believe that things should remain the same because “we turned out fine”.

We didn’t.

It’s not okay.

Our colonial society has taught us that normative violence is the pinnacle of love, and yet so few of us have actually known what real love feels like. We are hurt people who are hurting people. Not because we are fundamentally bad, but because the inflicting of pain in our world is taught to us as a second language.

We have become masters of our own torture.

It is necessary then to explore ways of moving away from this world of normative suffering. We must queer the expectations of human experience in order to build a new society where abuse of the Other is as unacceptable as any other crime against humanity.

We deserve a world where our fundamental human rights are not trampled daily, and more so, our children deserve the opportunity to construct themselves in love and not the crucible of pain.

Reclaiming Neurofuturism: The identity problem

Identity is of importance to most people. It’s how we describe and define our experiences and relationships with the wider environment. Some may argue that it is how we relate ourselves to the world, I would argue that it is the visible surface of deep metaphysical structures within our conscious being.

The rise of social justice and civil rights movements has created a great many identities. You can be Gay, Straight, Bi, Pan, Ace. Black, white, indigenous. Autistic, neurotypical, neurodivergent. This is far from an exhaustive list of some of the identities that we commonly find in our wonderfully intersectional communities.

The problem is that identity has become a tool to politicise existential matters. In order to establish your identity, one must first distinguish between those like you and those different to you. To give you an example, neurodivergent people know they are neurodivergent by relating themselves to others who share that identity and seeing difference with those who identify as neurotypical.

So now we have not just the Self, but the Other.

Having outsiders as a prerequisite for identity is problematic. When one identifies someone as different, there is a risk of dehumanising that person who is the Other. Perhaps it may not go that far, but there is usually an element of moral judgement. Humans seem to be intrinsically drawn to the belief that they hold a moral high ground.

Fundamentally, we are all linked. At a primal level, we are one in the same. Not just as humans but as facets of the same universe. We are all made of the same matter, the same basic building blocks. Yet, we are drawn to differentiation.

This has given rise to significant power imbalances in our world. The belief that one group or another is somehow in possession of higher morality means that the outsiders of the dominant identity are experiencing oppression. The fact that some have access to epistemological control of the population means that most people are expected to conform to a reality that is subjectively painful.

This control of knowledge production and dissemination results in a great deal of epistemic injustice.

In moving towards a post-normal society, we must start to consider ways of describing our relationship to the world that does not empower the idea of gatekeeping and structural oppression. It is vital that we expand our identities in a way that does not uphold the robust power imbalances that already exist within our world.

What it feels like to be Autistic

Three years ago, I asked the question What does it feel like to be Autistic? By the time I wrote that article, I was quite confident in both my Autistic identity and my blossoming advocacy work, but in the time since writing it, I have learned and grown at an exponential rate. So now I feel it’s necessary to revisit this question and explore it further.

So, what does it feel like to be Autistic?

I’ve always been different. Some of my earliest memories are hazy recollections of feeling distinctly different from the expectations of what a person should be. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was being conditioned by society and its normative values. I was effectively being indoctrinated into the cult of normality. This probably explains why I spent a lot of my twenties despising who I was and wishing I could change it.

Our identities, our conscious sense of being, is a social construct. We internalise the experiences afforded to us by our environment. Autistic people often experience Self-hatred and internalised ableism because hatred and ableism is what we experience in the wider world. The building blocks we are given to construct ourselves are born of normative violence.

There is a fundamental issue with me telling you exactly what it’s like to be Autistic; there is a solipsistic asymmetry in my experience. I have never not been Autistic. I have no point of reference in an experience outside of my own. What I can speak to are the experiences that I have had.

Even calling myself Autistic has, at times, felt strange. It was an identity given to me by the world. I exist as David. Others describe me as Autistic. I have internalised and related that description. It has become a facet of my identity, but it is a surface feature of my deeper Self.

I have at times doubted my Autistic identity. I have been so adept at concealing parts of myself that I have doubted their existence. This is all-the-more complicated due to the abstract nature of autism. It is not a natural kind, it is a social descriptor that existed originally to segregate my mind from those who can perform neurotypicality. For this reason, my Autistic experience is often one of Self-doubt and imposter syndrome.

For me, to be Autistic is to bear witness to the detailed connections between all things at all times. I am Chronically overwhelmed because I can not filter out the complexity of the world. I experience the whole, and not the aspect.

Of course, my experience will differ from another’s because Autistic identity is not my sole identity. I am Schizophrenic, I am ADHD, and I am in recovery from addiction. However, my identity is not a maths problem that sums up to a whole person. The distribution of identities onto my person gives the illusion of multiplicity when, in fact, I am a singularity. I do not exist as many, but as one singular experience that ticks many boxes.

So, what does it feel like to be Autistic?

It feels like being me.

Drug use, addiction, and neuroqueering

I have extensively explored my Autistic relationship with addiction thus far. I have considered and lamented the inappropriate treatment services, the suffering, and rejoiced in the moment that I came out the other side. I have listed numerous reasons that contributed to my active addiction, but what I have not done is really drive home the core point of why I kept coming back to drugs. I need you to know what gave me that drive to persevere with something that could have very well cost me my life.

I was undiagnosed Autistic for the first 26 years and 7 months of my life. I know that many, if not most of you, will understand the isolation and alienation that comes with such an existence. It seemed as though everywhere I turned, I was met with condemnation and assertions of my inadequacy. It extended far beyond bullying. It was more than abuse. The world taught me that who I was, the very essence of me, was only as valuable as my ability to assimilate into the culture of my local environments.

I had never wished to enter into the culture of normality. I felt that my lack of desire to fit in reduced me to a non-person. In a world where I could be anything, I would give anything to not be me. My fluid identity was more akin to vapour at this point than it was to any tangible form. Society constructs our sense of Self through our interactions with the environment. My environment rejected me like a gangrenous limb.

Perhaps then you can start to see where the twisted beauty of drugs seeped into my life. Not only could I alter my perception of the environment, but I could also alter the way those in my environment perceived me. Different drugs allowed me to put on and take off identities like clothes. They allowed me to explore the inner workings of my mind. I could manifest the Self in whatever way I saw fit.

Much like the sculptor trying to free the art from its marble prison, I was able to shed the constraints of human thought. Drugs allowed me to rewire my bodymind. I was no longer the necrotic manifestation of the universe, but instead the explorer. I was attempting to neuroqueer without even knowing it.

Sadly, this lifestyle was not sustainable. In order to explore the fluidity of one’s identity, it is necessary to be at some level of peace with your Self. At least in my experience. My attempt to neuroqueer my way to peace was fundamentally flawed. I wanted to subvert myself, not normative attitudes. I was trying to diverge into neurotypical performance.

Perhaps that is why I kept returning despite the dangers. Neurotypicality was a performance that I could never manage. What is it they say about try8ng the same thing over and over and the definition of insanity?

The irony in this story is that at almost seven years of tee total sobriety, I can now see that my journey through that time has actually made assimilation not just less possible; The thought is abhorrent to me. For my safety now, I steer clear of “recreational drug use”. My days as a self-confessed psychonaut are over, and quite honestly? I’m okay with that.

Some people falsely believe that addiction is an illness. Personally, I believe that given the right environmental ingredients, it becomes an inevitability. For me, addiction has been a necessary evil. It was necessary for me to deconstruct the Self that had been built on the rotten foundation of subjugation and childhood trauma. That deconstruction allowed me to make space for the infinite possibilities that lay within my neurology.

The world needs us to regularly deconstruct that which society has built. It’s often a violent and painful process, but necessary as we explore what it means to be neurodivergent. Perhaps more so, what it means to be human.

If I could ask one thing of you, dear reader, it is this; when you see a person suffering, do not offer them vague pity and generic platitudes. Offer them your hand to place a new foundation, upon which all can stand to explore the fluid nature of human identity.

The infinite and I: Exploring my Neuroqueer Self

Of recent, I have been somewhat hyperfocused on how people understand their own identity, and our individual sense of Self. I have discussed in my book The New Normal how the Self is socially constructed from our interactions with others and our wider environment. I think, however, it’s time to really zoom in (or perhaps, out?) on what the Self really is to me.

If being multiply neurodivergent has taught me anything, it’s that the variation of the human mind that exist are as numerous as the people on earth, but what of the Self? How many variations of me are possible?

First it is necessary to consider how my Self came into existence. It was constructed and scaffolded, not just by the people in my immediate environment, but by the conditioning that I have been exposed to in wider society. Society has given me structures based on false binaries, which I have had to deconstruct.

What has become clear to me is that I can become whoever I want to be. The Self is not a fixed point, it is a fluid and moving substance, more akin to a liquid than a solid. The Self that I am now, is not who I was 10 years ago, and is not who I will be 10 years from now. All things change, including me.

In that sense, each human life represents infinite possibility. Each person that exists has unlimited potential. By inflicting normative violence and attempting to mould another to who we believe they should be is to perpetuate trauma. We have to recognise that each time we hold something to be “normal”, we are likely projecting a piece of our own trauma onto another.

Conformity and assimilation has been weilded under names such as “unity” by those in power; but the true unity is in the radical queerness of subverting the social construction of reality. All things in human knowledge are socially constructed to some degree, we have a responsibility to constantly question what we hold to be true. There are infinite variations on the truth because the normative version of truth is in fact a mistruth.

We have been told that who we are, how we think, and how we express ourselves, needs to be in line with a collective truth. This is untrue, we are physical manifestations of infinite possibility. The oppressive structures of colonialism and normative culture rely on us forgetting that. Of course, because how do you control a population that knows it’s own endless possibility?

So, how do I understand my Self?

I am whatever I want to be, I am an ever changing and flowing river of possibility. Like any flowing substance, I calve a path through the landscape. That is why I have to be responsible with the course I take through life. It is not my right to cut through others and their landscape. I must calve through the oppressive structures of my own landscape, while elevating the voices of those for whom the landscape and structures are different.

We are multitude of drops forming an ocean, and we owe it to each other to create the tidal wave that washes the old world away.

Neuroqueer: Dismantling our internalised ableism

This article was co-authored by David Gray-Hammond and Katie Munday

Trigger Warning: This article contains references to systemic and structural oppression, multiple marginalisation, and negative wellbeing and identity.

Ableism is prevalent in the wider world, but something that we often don’t consider is the ableist views we hold about ourselves. It is inevitable that after spending our lives surrounded by normative culture, we become conditioned to view ourselves as broken, deficient, or less than. Despite being able to share compassion with others, we still harbour overtly bigoted views towards ourselves.

We internalise the harmful things said to us by our peers and professionals – sometimes even partners and friends. We take them all in and think less of ourselves and we begin to believe that there is something wrong with us.

It is clear that our interactions with other people play a significant role in the development of our sense of Self. Our identity is constructed by interactions with people in our environment, as noted in the golden equation from Luke Beardon:

Autism + Environment = Outcome

When Autistic people are in an environment that constantly belittles and mistreats us for our Autistic embodiment, the materials that we can access to construct ourselves are often self-deprecating.

How does one dismantle a lifetime of criticism and negative views arising from those experiences? First we have to understand the impact that said criticism has had on our psychological wellbeing. We have to recognise the neutrality of human thought, we have to learn that not all thoughts we have are reflective of who we are. It is possible to have negative thoughts without judging them as an indictment on our character. Once we begin to do this we are able to replace the criticisms with authenticity; a refusal to be ashamed of our embodiment. Perhaps, then, this is where neuroqueering comes into play.

It’s important to note the privilege at play when people are safe to queer their neurology. Authentic embodiment of Autistic experience can cost people their lives and their freedom in the wrong environment. Whether we care to admit it or not, not all Autistics are born equal in this society. Many Autistic people are multiply marginalised, and experience more than “just” disability discrimination.

One might ask whether or not neuroqueering is a physical act, or something that can be achieved in the mind. Many of us are at peace with ourselves whilst not openly confessing our Autistic experience. This reflects more on the environments that we inhabit than how we feel about ourselves. We can be proudly Autistic whilst understanding that not all environments are safe to authentically embody those experiences.

We also have to consider the role that the pathology paradigm plays in the existence of neuroqueering. The pathologisation and medicalisation of Autistic experience is the driving force behind most (if not all) of the ableism that we experience day-to-day. The idea that people who do not fit cultural standards of “normal” are broken, has not only created the mistreatment we experience; it also necessitated the existence of a counter-culture- neuroqueering.

How does neuroqueering change our perception of ourselves?

Neuroqueering can involve leaning into our weirdness, regardless of other’s opinions. It can also be radical self-acceptance and showing love to the parts of our Self that others have mistreated and abused. Not only does this allow us to reclaim the narrative surrounding our existence, it also gives us permission to take up the space that we have been conditioned to believe we are not entitled to.

Neuroqueer theory teaches us that assimilation denies us access to ourselves, and thus, denies access to the communities (or environments) that will help us meet our need for connection. Only by being our authentic selves can we find similar others and share in reciprocal validation. Neuroqueering dismantles internalised ableism, and the oppressive structures that have been built in our minds by others. It is a practice which champions diversity whilst appreciating that many of us still need support.

Neuroqueering politicises the nature of disability, centering us as the individuals in control of our own lives. Control that many of us are denied for being authentically Autistic. It allows us to appreciate the aforementioned neutrality of our existence through the lens of pride, and the refusal to be ashamed. It recognises that reduced wellbeing is the result of systemic oppression, and a chronic lack of access.

Not all who wander are lost: My search for my Self

Over the course of my life, I have been on quite the journey. From infancy to adulthood, many aspects of my life story would both compel and terrify those willing to hear it.

I have always felt that I am searching for something, but never sure of what that something was. It has been as though I was wandering from place to place, never sure of where my destination would be. Even today it seems as though every time I find my “place”, it transpires that this is not my destination.

What I have realised is that the journey I am on does not have a fixed destination. I am on a journey into my Self. I am exploring my own experience of the world, and ultimately searching for my true Self. This is where it gets complicated.

Human beings grow and change over time, I am not the same person that I was ten years ago. In the same way, the journey into my Self has changed me. I am forever in a foreign land, because the land changes as I journey through it. My experience of learning the topography of my inner world, changes my inner world.

In this sense, the Self is not a fixed entity. It is not a quantifiable objective experience. The idea that we alter our inner worlds, by exploring the inner world that exists most likely sounds akin to what the old world would have deemed lunacy. However, it is necessary to acknowledge that we are not a fixed point.

When considering what the Self is, I believe it is necessary to consider it more as a fluid and flowing stream. We form around the environments that we exist in, and by necessity alter our course in order to explore where we have been.

Some might ask if I see myself in my child. I would point out to them that my child has their own Self, still taking shape in the environment. As a part of their environment, I alter the course of their Self, but they will never be the same as me. Any attempt to force them into my inner experiences of the world would do them an injustice.

Indeed, it is necessary to consider that each of us will experience our Self in a unique way to the other.

So, what is the destination on my journey?

In truth, their is no ultimate destination that one can fathom. Much like the wave that breaks on the shore and returns to the ocean, so too will I return to the ocean. The ever-changing Self is a fleeting experience, and that is a gift I must learn to be grateful for.

The journey is the destination. Now it is on us to ensure that our journey leaves the world better than how we found it.

Positive self-identity and Autistic mental health

If there is one recurring theme I come across time and again in my work, it’s that reduced psychological wellbeing in Autistic people is inherently linked to our sense of identity. As Autistic people, we consistently treated poorly by wider society, and we internalise the attitudes that are projected onto us. These internalised negative attitudes, in turn, drive many of the experiences we have that are labelled as “mental illness”.

Of course, I must admit that I have a complicated relationship with the concept of psychiatric malady. I have for some time now advocated for the depathologisation of mental health and recognition of such experiences as the neurodivergence that it is. To read more about that, click here and here.

I am not just Autistic (I’m not even just AuDHD for that matter). I am also psychotic. Not always actively, but due to the nature of my neurology and psychology, certain triggers can result in me losing touch with reality. It can be difficult to ascertain the difference between truth and delusion. This in itself can affect my sense of identity.

Thus, it has been necessary to take time, and use my privilege of good insight, to deconstruct my delusional thoughts and consider their origins. On the journey to understanding the origin and nature of my delusions, however, I have stumbled upon some truths that may be somewhat universal in the world of Autistic Wellbeing.

I know of very few (if any) Autistic people who do not have what a psychiatrist might deem “mental illness”. This is not because there is something fundentally wrong with them. They are not broken. They do not need to necessarily change anything about them. In fact, it is my fundamental belief that labelling us as “disordered” (in the psychiatric sense of the word) incorrectly centres the problem on the individual, when instead we need to consider the environment that the person exists in.

Autism + Environment = Outcome

Back to the point; our sense of identity is largely constructed through our interactions with our environment and the people within that environment. If we wish to give an Autistic person the opportunity to have a positive self-identity, we need to give them an environment that is providing positive interactions.

So, when considering Autistic people who struggle with their sense of identity, we have to take the approach of deconstructing the interactions they jave had with their environment. What are the narratives they are being given? Is their communication with people in that environment allowing them to think positively of their authentic Self?

Once we have deconstructed those experiences, it then becomes necessary to construct a positive identity.

The most vital part of this process is access to neurodiversity-affirming communities. Autistic people need other Autistic people who will help them understand themselves outside of deficit-based models, and outside of medical setting that centres the problem in them.

For me, having access to such communities has been the single most important part of recovering my wellbeing. Research such as that by Monique Botha (2020) has shown that significant importance of community connectedness in the reduction of minority actress, and improvements in our wellbeing. Beyond academic models however, we should be taking humanistic approaches that allow people to feel comfortable in who they feel they are, and not what society wants them to be.

Autistic people, sadly, often do not have access to such spaces. One of the issues with being deep in the Autistic community is that we are blind to the fact that a huge number of Autistic people don’t even know we are here. That is why we have to make our voices heard, and be visible (where we are safe) to wider society. We owe it to the Autistic people out there struggling, we owe it to the Autistic people yet to come.

Neuroqueer: Gender Identity and Autistic Embodiment

This article was co-authored by David Gray-Hammond and Katie Munday

Neuroqueering means to subconsciously queer yourself by way of your neurology. One’s neurology is queer and therefore so is one’s Neurodivergent or Disabled embodiment (Walker, 2021). So, what does this mean for gender?

There appears to be a large overlap between LGBTQ+ identities and being Autistic, including being trans, non-binary or otherwise gender divergent (see references below). Autistic folk grow up with our own distinct culture, language and communication. Perhaps due to this that many of us are disinclined to take up prefabricated gender identities.

Our understanding of gender (like many things) is queered by our Autistic neurology. We simply do not embody non-Autistic gender. If we are male, we are Autistically male, if we are female, we are Autistically female. Whatever gender we are (or are not), we embody this Autistically.

Even cisgender Autistics have a tendency to construct our own versions of our assigned gender. “Traditional” gender roles often make little to no sense to us, especially for those of us in same gender and/or polyamorous relationships. We extend the boundaries of gender, devising a path toward neuroqueerness (Katie Munday discusses this in their article on neuroqueer cartography found here).

Exploring gender off the beaten track, starts with us engaging differently in social learning. A lot of us take an anthropological stance, studying those around us so we can better shield ourselves, challenge norms, and live more authentically. Through this deep thinking, structuring and restructuring we find where we belong, or more typically we create where we belong. We understand structures as entirely malleable and make identities which make sense for ourselves, not for other people (see Doing gender the Autistic way).      

Some of us see the binary boxes of ‘male’ and ‘female’ and run for the hills – we are both, neither, in-between, some of us are spinning around in our own genderless galaxy. ‘Male’ and ‘female’ are strange arbitrary categories used to oppress those of us who are not men, or not considered masculine enough. So, many of us look at these categories of gender and throw them out the window – they are meaningless to us.

We are neuroqueering the very perception of the self.

References and further reading

Barnett, J.P., & Maticka-Tyndale, E. (2015). Qualitative exploration of sexual experiences among adults on the Autism Spectrum: Implications for sex education. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 47(4), 171–79. https://doi.org/10.1363/47e5715

Bush, H.H. (2016). Self-reported sexuality among women with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Massachusetts.

George, R., & Stokes, M.A. (2016). Gender is not on my agenda: gender dysphoria and autism spectrum disorder. In L.Mazzoni, and B,Vitiello (Eds.), Psychiatric symptoms and comorbidities in autism spectrum disorder (p.121-134). Springer.

George, R., & Stokes, M.A. (2018). Gender identity and sexual orientation in autism spectrum disorder. Autism, 22 (8), 970-982.

Van der Miesen, A.I.R., Hurley, H., Bai, A.M., & de Vries, A.L.C. (2018). Prevalence of the wish to be of the opposite gender in adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorder. Archives of Sexual Behaviour, 47, 2307-2317.

Walker, N. (2021). Neuroqueer heresies: Notes on the neurodiversity paradigm, Autistic empowerment, and postnormal possibilities. Autonomous press.

Walsh, R.J., Krabbendam, P., De Winter, J., & Begeer, S. (2018). Brief report: gender identity in Autistic adults: associations with perceptual and socio-cognitive profiles. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 1-9.

“Just get your sh*t together” and other ridiculous things I have thought

Life is full of ups and downs. My passion in life is helping people climb back from the “downs” into “ups” that often seem impossible at the time. In order to do this, I had to go through a personal hell and walk out the other side. People often tell me how inspiring I am, which I have mixed feelings about, they also ask me how I did it.

Sometimes I worry that people think my journey was straight forward, with a well defined map that I can pass on to those lost in their own hellscape.

The truth is that it has been very much a trial and error situation, with a lot of unwise decisions, and unkind thoughts about myself.

As the title suggests, a thought I tend to have when things are bad is that I just need to “get my shit together”. Thinking like this is wildly unhelpful. Not only does it not offer any concrete advice for myself to follow, it is inherently ableist. It doesn’t take account of the myriad ways I am disabled.

Another unhelpful thing I do when I am struggling is romanticise my childhood. I wish for my days of innocence, denying the fact that my lack of childhood innocence plays a huge role in my struggles as an adult. It’s easy to convince ourselves that the past is where we belong. It’s important to live in the present, no matter what it looks like.

Self-destructing is something I do when things get really bad. It ranges from pissing off the people close to me, to a literal urge to self-destruct. Infer from that what you will. It’s easy to forget that sometimes our most toxic influence is our own mind.

Perhaps the worst thing I do is hate myself. The truth is, I’ve come a long way since “the old days”, and when I am struggling, I forget that. I am my own worst critic. I convince myself that I am a harmful influence, and a generally shitty person. If you ever catch yourself doing this, it’s okay to ask for a little validation from the people closest to you.

We all need uplifting from time to time, don’t be ashamed for struggling.

I hope that these insights into my own self-critical thoughts are helpful to someone. There are times when I forget that I am a human being, and not machine, existing solely to serve the benefit of others. It’s something many of us do, but I want you to know, it’s okay to be human.

Just don’t let the shitty thoughts rule your mind.

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