Living in Fear (Why Autistic Life Can be Terrifying)... Autism Life

Autism & fear walk hand in hand. Just BEING autistic, even if people don't know, can invite trouble on a daily basis. Is it any wonder that those of us who manage to mask ourselves well enough to pass largely unnoticed tend to hide in the shadows?
Is it actually the best thing for our community though? If we're all out of sight how do we go about being more accepted?

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[rednebula]

One thing that's strange about allistic people is that they'll sometimes praise and compliment our autistic traits when they don't know that we're autistic, but will start demonizing and infantilizing us when they figure out what our identity is.

[TheGoowolf]

Autism is one of those things where people have more sympathy towards the friends and family of an autistic compared to the autistic themselves. So a lot of people are pretending to be friends with the autistic in their group just for social points because they can pretend they care.

That was a big reason why I was afraid to come out as autistic. Because then it would make finding true friends even harder.

[CricketGirrl]

I never understood why I had a reputation as a troublemaker in school, because I followed all the rules. It never occurred to me that maybe I asked too many questions when the school didn't.

I lost my job twice after bringing unethical behavior of supervisors to management's attention.

This element of my personality always confused my peers--which in turn confused me, because they're RULES. I was just diagnosed last week, and it blows my mind that whistle-blowing could be an autistic thing!

[az-tlmh]

I am a 32 year old woman who was diagnosed with asperger's when I was 10 years old. My life has been pure hell I don't even know how I could begin to describe it. I have lived in fear all day every day for most of my life.

[shantaeforsmash]

I got in a lot of trouble in primary school for 'harassing other students' when I just was trying to be friends with other people

[LilChuunosuke]

I have been homeless more than 10 times between the ages of 18 and 25. I have slept on someone else's couch for anywhere from one night to multiple years, have slept outside, and have even shared a bed with a predatory man I did not feel safe with because it was supposed to be below freezing that night and I had nowhere else to go.
*Every* time I have been involuntarily vacated from housing, my autism was one of the main factors if not the only one.
My organic body language was misread by the people providing me housing as aggressive, defensive, and disrespectful.
My need for isolation was seen as a lack of empathy, love, or care for the people in my environment.
My strong sense of justice and inability to read social cues has caused me to stand up for my rights and the rights of people I share a living space with in ways that are deemed aggressive, threatening, and over the top.
My meltdowns and fawning responses were seen as emotionally manipulative ploys to get away with dodging responsibility in conflicts.
The worst part is: for almost all these stories, I was not even aware that I was autistic. I had no way to explain my behaviors, request accomodations, or reassure myself. I was being told that they had "no choice" but to kick me out onto the streets because I was such a terrible person, but was clearly too trapped in my own selfish head to fully recognize that fact and better myself. I had no defense I could make because I genuinely could not see how my behaviors were hurtful (and most of them weren't. I was just threatening status quo in a way they found intimidating).
I am unable to request accomodations at my workplace because I work with a few other lower-masking autists and I see how management and my peers treat them as less than human. The ones who are higher masking autistics get treated better (but still not equal) simply for insisting they aren't.
People have expressed sympathy for my parents upon discovering I am autistic, even going as far as excusing their ABA-esque parenting techniques, the physical violence, and death threats I endured as a child because "raising autistic children is exhausting."
Many people I care about, even if they don't outright state it, clearly believe I am not autistic. I do not fit in their narrow box of what autism looks like. I am told I would've been diagnosed as a child if my behaviors actually impacted my day-to-day life even though I was a quiet, book-loving girl in the early 2000s, a type of autist who was often seen as shy and well behaved instead of developmentally disabled.
My requests for accomodations with non-disabled friends are either refused outright ("why would you need us to do that? Its never been a problem before.") or I will be met with a sincere-sounding promise to be accomodated, only for nothing to change.
.
I recently recovered a traumatic memory of my early childhood. When I first realized I needed to mask as a child, I was overcome with depression and grief. I did not understand why everything I did was wrong and why nobody would just tell me what to do. I didn't understand why I would be punished the second I started acting like myself. Even expressing too much joy was punished sometimes. It became such a common part of my day to day life that the reason for my sadness began to...slip away. I began forgetting that I was losing my true self in the middle of grieving over her. Until one day I lied in my bed in a panic, realizing I no longer knew what I was crying for.
It took almost 20 years before I finally remembered that my entire sense of self was fake. A fabricated being that existed solely for the comfort of everyone else. At the expense of my own happiness and comfort.
I still do not feel safe disclosing my autism to employers, doctors, or landlords because of how much danger it can and has put me in. For now, I am taking baby steps disclosing with my peers.

[fleshtonegolem]

@10:47 how close to home these words are. "I got in trouble at school for being clever, and at work for being honest." Same boat my man, same boat...

[Ember_Green]

another brilliant video! being blamed for being correct or questioning adults was a huge part of my childhood, too.

[autiejedi]

Ah, the bullying 😔
The social hypocrisy is awful on a daily basis.
Thanks for dicussing this important topic. 💜💜💜

[victoryamartin]

A man in my Bible Study that I find myself frequently annoyed with on account of his judgmentalism has said that all mental illness is demon posession, and that includes Autism. That's when I chose to come out at the Bible Study and ask if he believes me to be demon posessed then. He did not back down. And nobody else rose to my defense. I am feeling less and less safe to be who I am there even as a Christian.

[quitmanlott]

I am openly autistic, and I'm well liked and well respected at work. In my transactions with others, I use behavioral engineering to achieve my desired goals. This is another way of saying that I play mind games. How careful I am when I do this depends upon my past experiences with the other person. This sounds evil, but most people do this without even thinking about it. We don't have that luxury; we have to think things like this through.
The thing I get ask most is "What is it like?" The answer "My thought processes are drastically different than yours. I'm like an Ai computer that has too many emotions and feelings, all contained within a human body, I see everything as a system, or part of one. And I have no preprograming, or behavioral instincts, so I have to program myself, and react as I have learned to." "We have to develop our intelligent and memory to live well, to do this we have to think deeply and often."
I've never seen a bad reaction to this

[JC-hihy]

Kudos to you! As a recently diagnosed 74 year old woman I am encouraged by, impressed with, and supportive of your message. We need thousands more like you! Thank You!

[sh]

I think we can turn the "You can't be autistic" response into something positive. People need to understand that we are proper human beings. The more times they get exposed to the fact that someone they respect or like is autistic, the more we can erode the stigma around it... At least that is one of the main reasons why I do it.

[paulfincher]

Wow. What a inspiring talk. I totally get what you mean. I disclosed to a couple of family members and they both said "but aren't we all a little bit autistic?" I think I should say "if only, then life would be a lot better!" Keep up the good work in increasing the acceptance and inclusion of all.

[xyou_little_gluntx]

I told my friend I was autistic and then like 5 seconds later she made fun of autistic people in front of me. She now won't speak to me. She also went around telling everyone I was autistic and now everyone else won't speak to me.

[OrthodoxChristian]

It's taken me a decade to come to terms with being autistic. I'm terrified on a daily basis and have been abused all my life. It's knocked years off my life. My health is failing and I can't face going to the doctors. There's just no point.

[Andres-islj]

We are in dire need of more people like you

[StateoftheMatrix]

the problem with awareness raising is that it never, NEVER works. There are always more ignorant people around the corner.

[rogerrodgers]

Another brilliant vlog many thanks.
My time at school was the stuff of nightmares
Short version I was often sent out of the class for doing something 'wrong'.
3 teachers banned me from their class permanently ( woodwork, art, literature)
I was sent to the library which was used as a sort of holding pen for any difficult pupils
I was often the only one there and I was delighted to be left alone.
Every day I read books and one year I read a complete set of encyclopaedias.
I would speak up in class telling the teacher when he was wrong about something
( geographical or historical facts) based upon my massive memory filled brain
which i still have to this day
Nowadays It would almost certainly be illegal to treat a pupil as i was back then
My last day at school I was separated from other kids and marched out of the building.
the school refused to give me a reference to help me get a job
"Happy Days"

[robertjohnburton]

As I listened I cringed with memories of my own experiences. Neurotypicals can be nasty. For over 50 yrs I have had a sick feeling in my stomach. Masking is a part of my life; however, as I get older the masking is collapsing. People now hate me because I will tell them unpleasant truths. I have no friends or interested family in my environment. I live alone with a cat, but I am not afraid either. Thank you for this important video.