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Aug 16 2023
AuSocial: Towards an understanding of Autistic social culture

In my book The New Normal: Autistic musings on the threat of a broken society I have a chapter about Autistic social nature. Autistic people have widely been represented as being asocial, which is patently absurd. Autistic people have a rich and diverse social culture that has been ignored for a long time.

“One of the prevailing misconceptions is that as Autistic people we are overtly asocial beings. It is taken as common knowledge that we are the friendless weirdos who don’t understand social cues but can recite every train we’ve ever seen.”

Quote from The New Normal

A brief look at the research

Upon perusing the existing literature surrounding Autistic sociality, there is limited research into the social nature of our community. I might first start by situating us within the remit of The Double Empathy problem.

“It is also vital to remember how the double empathy problem as initially conceived was heavily influenced by sociological theory and that such social interactions happen within a continually negotiated and mutually constructed context”

Milton et al (2022)

The double empathy problem within the context of Autistic communication essentially positions us as having a different way of communicating and relating to language rather than a deficit. This difference arises from cultural differences and the relationships we have with the world power structures.

Due to structural oppression, our style of communication is often centred as an issue to be fixed.

“The notion that autistic people lack sociality is problematised, with the suggestion that autistic people are not well described by notions such as the ‘social brain’, or as possessing ‘zero degrees of cognitive empathy’. I then argue, however, that there is a qualitative difference in autistic sociality, and question to what extent such differences are of a biological or cultural nature, and to what extent interactional expertise can be gained by both parties in interactions between autistic and non-autistic people.”

Milton (2014)

So we now have a position whereby Autistic people do not lack sociality but instead experience a different form of sociality. This is what I refer to as AuSocialility or being AuSocial.

Despite indications to the contrary, the emphasis is often directed towards teaching Autistic people to learn non-Autistic social culture, despite this being uncomfortable or even harmful for us. Some research has argued that this should be the other way round.

“We recommend teaching not autistic people but rather non-autistic individuals about autistic sociality, in order to lower the burden on autistic interlocutors in cross-neurotype interactions and socialization”

Keates, Waldock & Dewar (2022)

What does being AuSocial mean?

Autistic sociality or the AuSocial presence of Autistic people can be conceptualised by the growing cultural practices of Autistic people. We have our own customs, use of language, moral values, and even recognise what would be the cultural equivalent of public holidays in the existence of things such as Autistic pride day and the reclamation of Autistic acceptance month.

Such cultural practices as body-doubling (a firm favourite for AuDHD people) where we use video platforms such as zoom to be present and parallel with others while working on separate tasks are a key feature of Autistic professional culture and sociality. One might also look towards our differences in the way we understand and process language as the formation of a dialect.

A key feature of AuSociality is the cultural practice of moral defence of minority groups. While the Autistic community is far from devoid of bigotry, there is a general atmosphere of protectiveness towards the multiply marginalised that isn’t experienced within the non-Autistic cultural space.

In summary, AuSocial culture is a complex and highly developed set of communication, language, and socialisation skills that can only be witnessed between Autistic people. Rather than being deficient in our social exchanges, we often achieve a great deal and naturally fight to try and improve the world for our neurokin.

Conclusion

Autistic people, like most humans, are inherently social beings. Despite testimony to the contrary (usually by non-Autistic professionals and researchers) we have developed our own AuSocial culture that stands diametrically opposed to those who would label us as asocial. Such cultural practices as those within the Autistic community serve to diminish the burden of existing with in a systemically violent society and serve an important protective function for our wellbeing.

I invite people to add their own examples of AuSocial culture .

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Jul 26 2023
Why is the Autistic community so important for Autistic people?

Autism is often conceptualised as a condition which nullifies a person’s ability to socialise. Because of this, Autistic people are often viewed as asocial and devoid of community. Despite this, the Autistic community is a rich and vibrant place with a sociality all of it’s own making. As I discuss in my book The New Normal, Autistic people can be better conceptualised as being AuSocial than asocial, with a culture, language, and social customs that are far too often ignored by those who wish to paint us in a tragic light.

In terms of community, we know that humans are inherently social beings, indicating that the belief that we lack sociality and community is one of the many ways that Autistic people are dehumanised by normative society; but just what is it about the Autistic community that is so vital for us?

Community and wellbeing

Jose, Ryan & Prior (2012) indicated that in adolescents, there was a positive relationship between social-connectedness and perceived wellbeing. Across the domains of family, school, peers, and neighbourhood, increased connectedness improved the wellbeing within those studied. It is clear that being part of a community is positive for many people, but this is where it is complicated for Autistic people. We are a minority group that often finds themselves at the periphery of communities.

Due to perceived asociality, we find ourselves ostracised within the above mentioned domains due to the stigma associated with being Autistic (Kasari & Sterling, 2013). This extends to family with increased stress levels among the parents of Autistic people correlating to social isolation for the same reasons (Dunn et al, 2019). Loneliness has become such a feature of Autistic lives that national charities like the National Autistic Society are publishing information pages specifically about loneliness.

Loneliness can have a significant impact on our mental health, the charity Mind mentions the increased risk of depressive or anxiety issues, even indicating a relationship between our finances and loneliness. Lee, Cardigan & Rhew (2020) found that increased loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic has a causative relationship with increases in rates of depression among young adults. An interesting anecdote to mention here is the number of Autistic people who reported both a reduction in loneliness during this time as people connected virtually, and an increase in wellbeing that was as a result of the move to online socialisation.

Minority Stress

Minority stress is conceptualised as the increased social stress that minority groups experience through systematic exclusion and oppression within normative society (Botha & Frost, 2020). Issues such as difficulty accessing affirmative healthcare, social isolation, employment discrimination, and hate crime all contribute to minority stress (this is far from an exhaustive list). These individual factors come together to form a great deal of the negative and traumatic experiences that Autistic people have as a minority group.

What is interesting in the context of community is that Botha (2020) found that community-connectedness, that is, being a part of a community of supportive peers, actually decreased the effects of minority stress. This could be because of the knowledge of shared experience as well as increased self-advocacy, coupled with the ability to socialise AuSocially.

The Autistic Community

The Autistic community has provided a space for Autistic people to experience real community connectedness outside of deficit based models of autism. This is a space where we are less likely to experience discrimination based on our communication, and more likely to find shared experiences. Through knowledge exchange, we are able to push back against stigma and discrimination while learning how to advocate for our own rights.

I believe it is clear why this is so important to Autistic people who have historically had their narratives written for them by people with no lived experience of their identity. Giving Autistic people the power to form their own connections in their own time and space allows for the rewarding feeling of friendship and self-actualisation. Without this community, I believe our wellbeing would be significantly decreased. For me personally, it has been life saving, and has fundamentally changed the trajectory of my life.

This is why people exploring an Autistic identity need to be encouraged towards Autistic community spaces. It allows them to mitigate the minority stress that is so much more intense when we feel isolated from our peers. This is why it is important that members of the Autistic community are providing education around autism with schools and other professional environments. We are able to signpost Autistic young people towards helpful community spaces and mitigate the discrimination and social stress that they will inevitably experience.

Without this community, many of us wouldn’t make it. This is why it is important for us to make this a place that is accessible and welcoming to all, and not to gatekeep it from those who may have a harder time accessing it.

Our lives depend on it.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
Jan 5 2023
How “mental illness” disempowers the average person

Over the past decade or so, we have seen a surge in the awareness of so-called “mental illness”.

While the concept of telling people you are struggling has served a good purpose, the concept of “illness” has actually disempowered people who have these particular neurodivergences and the people around them.

Human suffering, as it stands, is a heavily medicalised field of study. It has become the realm of doctors and nurses, and this is where we become disempowered. When we experience suffering, we believe that only doctors have the responsibility to remedy that. The average person is made to feel as though they are “out of their depth”.

In fact, the responsibility for reducing human suffering is on all of us. Medication can take the edge off, but to see a true reduction in trauma that litters our society, we all have to do work. Doctors are not responsible for the environments and people we grow up with, and yet we assume they are the answer when we experience suffering as a result of those things.

Society is structured in such a way that we are likely to encounter trauma throughout our lives. It is important to move beyond normative standards of trauma and recognise the subjective nature of this abstraction. What is traumatic for me may not be traumatic for you. It does not make it any less valid.

This is why we need to listen to minorities about minority experiences, ot allows us to root out the traumatic experiences occurring in society, and not just those which we recognise. When we invalidate another person’s experience, we are contributing to the immense suffering that is currently happening in our world.

Perhaps then, it is pertinent for us to take responsibility for the role we each take in the suffering of others and ensure that we are doing good with the limited time we have on earth.

Our psychological well-being is far from being solely the realm of medics. We each play a significant role in other people’s worlds.

David Gray-Hammond 8 Comments
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
Dec 13 2022
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.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
Dec 12 2022
Has TikTok become a modern day version of the freak show?

If you are active in disability communities, you have almost inevitably come across disability TikTok. Providing brief insights into the lives of disabled people, it is the fastest growing platform available for the dissemination of information, but is there a darker side to the virality of video’s relating to disability?

From Autism, to ADHD, to Tourettes. We are giving people our emotional label to see the world through our neurodivergent eyes; for no longer than 10 minutes at a time.

For many of us, it is a place to relate to one another and feel less alone, but what of those that watch us as “entertainment”? I myself use TikTok, and have been surprised at the number of people who clearly aren’t there to learn. I stay for those who are, but itakes me uncomfortable.

Our lives are not your entertainment.

We are real, human people, worthy of dignity and respect. Our attempts to show you this should not be fetishized and mocked. If you come to disabled TikTok purely to laugh at us; you are the problem.

I don’t exist purely to make you feel better about you’re own identity. I’m not your inspiration, and I’m not a museum exhibit in a cabinet of curiosities. My life has value, a value that can’t be measured in the monetisation of followers, or the number of people that use my struggles to inflate their sense of superiority.

No.

If you come into disabled spaces sans disability, you need to be willing to sit and listen. My struggles are not an invitation for you to voice how grateful you are that you are not me. My strengths are not a source of income, or fuel for your secret desire that superheroes exist.

I’m not the concept of disability that you have in your head. I’m not a fucking concept at all. I’m a real person with a real life.

If you can’t treat me with dignity, then kindly stay out of our spaces.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Nov 30 2022
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.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
Oct 23 2022
Social constructivism and the making of ethical decisions in Autistic lives

TRIGGER WARNING: Mention of Do Not Resuscitate directives and the pandemic

Autistic people are subject to countless rules that are seemingly arbitrary in nature while having a huge impact on our wellbeing. It has been a source of much contention in our relationships with the non-Autistic people in our lives; and our questioning of these rules is used to label us as disordered and defective in a neuronormative society. When it comes to ethical decision making, I believe that Autistic people have a unique insight into the current state of society thanks to the recognition of the arbitrary nature of normative morality.

In the Autistic community, ethics and morality are based on community consensus, rather than the word of an individual or limited group. While we have no laws to recognise, I should at this point acknowledge that there are unwritten rules (although increasingly they are being written down through self-exploration in the form of writing). The ethics of our current unwritten rules are a further conversation to be had.

What I find particularly interesting is that the Autistic community takes a social constructivist approach to ethics and morality. We acknowledge the existence of normative social rules, but write our own based on the knowledge generated within our community. This has pro’s and con’s; the discourse in the Autistic community is dominated by privilege, I should acknowledge that I am far from the only cis-gendered white male to be publishing his opinion in this community.

Despite this, Autistic people seem to be in a unique position to recognise that ‘one-size-fits-all’ approaches to morality tend to fail marginalised groups. It could be argued that we recognise this due to our own marginalised status, but also because we have a strong sense of justice.

What is important about social constructivism is that it recognises that all ethics and morality is subjective. What is just and fair to one individual or group may infringe upon the rights of another. A good example of this was the implementation of ‘Do Not Attempt Resuscitation’ directives imposed upon the disabled during the pandemic. While it allowed for more resources to be freed up in medical settings, it was a direct middle finger to our communities right to life.

This is one of the biggest issues in socially constructed morality and ethics. Different people have different privileges, and we have been effectively taught that “more rights for the marginalised means less for the privileged”. This is abjectly incorrect; it is inconsequential to the privileged if the marginalised are treated equitably, they will still retain their rights.

Thus we have to recognise that morality in our own community is not an objective truth. There are many things that are considered morally right by consensus, that still fail to ensure the protection of marginalised rights. Many of us do not have Autistic as our only marginalised identity. The vast majority of us are in fact multiply marginalised.

We must identify how the subjectivity of our community ethics ignore the privileges that give rise to them. Until we do this, there will be imbalance in the ethics of the Autistic community.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
Jul 1 2022
I’m not Asocial, I’m AuSocial: Conceptualising Autistic sociality and culture

Being Autistic is a nightmare (sometimes, actually, a lot of the time). This isn’t because being Autistic is inherently good or bad, but rather because we are a minority group, and as such experience direct and indirect oppression from the privileged majority. Given that the world is designed by and for that majority, and doesn’t particularly give a shit about us and our experiences, it’s unsurprising that certain misconceptions are held about us.

One of the prevailing misconceptions is that as Autistic people we are overtly asocial beings. It is taken as common knowledge that we are the friendless weirdos who don’t understand social cues, but can recite every train we’ve ever seen.

This misperception of asociality feeds into the tragedy narrative that props up the pathology paradigm, therefore justifying our eradication as a supposed act of mercy.

The truth however is that Autistic people have a complex and satisfying culture that, despite attempts to the contrary, remains intact and keeps many of us alive. This culture comes with it’s own communication style (as evidenced by the double empathy problem) allowing us to lead social lives that are often more protective than those of an allistic neurotype.

The truth is, I am not asocial, I am Autistically social. I am AuSocial.

This AuSociality means that we have access to a community that can often be wildly supportive, and a true joy to be a part of. This community does wonders for our wellbeing, which we can see in the work of Monique Botha, looking at how community connectedness appears to have a direct and causal correlation with reduction in minority stress.

The obfuscation of our AuSociality is a good example of hermeneutical injustice, wherein a significant portion of our social experience has been obscured from sight through structural and systemic oppression and prejudice.

Of course, to admit that Autistic people are social creatures would threaten to undo decades of research. To consider that we have lives with friends and connectedness would mean that theory of mind and it’s associated phenomenon were akin to that which one might throw into a burning oil drum.

I leave you with this; should we maintain the status quo, and continue to be treated ad non-entities, beings of the void with no social value, devoid of feeling? Or should we dismantle the society that devalues and oppresses us, carving out a new society that treats us as the beautifully divergent human beings that we are?

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
Sep 26 2021
Autistic people and the social model of addiction

For the better part of a century now, addiction has been treated largely as a matter of criminal justice, with some focus on medical treatment. Unfortunately this approach leaves a considerable amount out of the discussion. Addiction is a complex matter, with a lot of it coming down to socio-economic issues. As an Autistic addict, I am keenly aware of the social issues that contributed to my addiction, and that is what I hope to discuss in this post.

Why do people become addicted to things? Scientifically, it is because certain activities provide a reward response in the brain, and essentially this is what people become addicted to. The development of that addiction, in my opinion, tends to be dictated by a set of falling dominoes that create an environment for such a thing to happen.

The first point to consider is this; I have never met an addict who was not struggling with some kind of mental health concern, typically it is trauma related. Okay, honestly? It’s always trauma related (in my experience). So we have to think about the environment that traumatised the individual. We know that certain groups face more challenges when it comes to meeting the needs of themselves and their children.

This is often painted as a moral failing, but truthfully it is a systemic failure on the part of a society that demonises and punishes people for living in poverty, after putting people into poverty in the first place. Even now, in 2021, huge swathes of the population rely on food banks and other social welfare to survive. Could this problem be mitigated by the system? Absolutely. Sadly, the people in charge of that system tend not to do anything about that.

We also have to consider that for Autistic people, they are much more likely to experience violence and bullying at the hands of their peers and family. Continuous mistreatment by peers and family members can create a perfect storm for the development of trauma related mental health concerns, and subsequent dependence on addictive behaviours.

Autistic people live in a social context that forever tells them that who they are is wrong. For me this amounted to wishing that I could exchange my social identity for one that could better assimilate. That new identity was one of a drug user, a person who regularly went out partying, and revelled in the hedonism of the culture he was trying to assimilate into. However, this soon was not enough.

To keep my mental health at bay, I needed access to appropriate treatment for my mental health concerns. Unfortunately, Autistic people have considerably less access to mental health services because of the prevailing belief that mental health issues are “part of the territory” of autism. This is obviously a mistruth, but it is a prevalent belief.

Without access to mental health services, my substance use began to spiral as I sought stronger and stronger relief from my suffering.

This leads neatly into the next part of the social context of addiction; crisis-driven intervention.

Western society in particular, will only intervene and provide support when a person is deep in crisis. For Autistic people this can mean that we are ignored for years, because we don’t present like a neurotypical person when in crisis. These types of interventions literally kill people, and I suspect that if more effort was made to identify Autistic addicts before they died, this particular intersection would be discussed a lot more.

We also have to consider that society as a whole is not designed for Autistic people. Even the simplest of tasks can lead to burnout and anxiety, driving people towards emotional outlets that could ultimately lead to addiction.

Autistic people are a socially vulnerable group, not because of a lack of social skills, but because of a system that is not only not designed for us, but actively penalises us for being Autistic. Until that system is fixed, Autistic people will forever be at risk of trauma and subsequent addiction issues.

Is it any wonder we get “hooked” on things that feel rewarding when society is doing its best to oppress us?

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
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