Though I was diagnosed autistic as an infant, I was unaware I was different until second grade, when I was shuffled between special and regular education classes, when I decided, mostly on my own, that I would transition to mainstream school. While I was a great student throughout my scholastic years, I still regret that choice, given the torment I faced at the hands of neurotypical students, but I still tried to be “normal”–I was unaware then of the neurodivergent concept of masking–yet it never worked out. Said harassment would transition to the internet, where I endured unparalleled barbarism at the hands of never-ending cyberbullies who dehumanized me. I would come to accept I was autistic, yet embracing my identity came with a huge cost: being in constant conflict with others online and even my own family.
While I do agree autistics and neurodivergents need acceptance, I firmly believe that it’s a two-way street, since said conflicts have extended even to the neurodivergent community, especially online, with my experience with them, sadly, being overwhelmingly negative to the point where I would leave in-person support groups and online autistic communities. Similar to people of different races, many autistics still don’t accept neurotypicals as equals, with America’s biggest autism rights group, the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN), seeming to have this attitude bordering on supremacism, to the point where I’ve stopped caring about anything they say anymore, given their bow to modern political trends.
Regardless, the road to acceptance begins first with autistics, who need to be taught how to communicate with everyone, including neurotypicals and other autistics. I know it’s a radical idea, but given what I endured in mainstream education, I believe that neurodivergents and neurotypicals should be completely separate, since the former have a different mindset and unique talents, setting them apart. Autism is a spectrum, so while all of us have some unifying characteristics, such as social awkwardness and difficulty with communication, we are all unique and largely unfit for mainstream education that focuses on conformity and indoctrination, and thus need teaching suited to our skills–from each to their abilities, to each to their needs. More often than not, gifted and special needs students are one and the same.
Autistics should, of course, have practice interactions with adults and neurotypical students, who in turn need to be taught how to properly communicate with the neurodivergent community–family members included–which formal special education training seems to neglect. Bullies from all neurologies should be disciplined accordingly, but neurodivergent students can be especially vulnerable to verbal abuse, whose wounds take far longer to heal than those physical. Throughout mainstream education, I was given terrible advice to just ignore those who harassed me, and was never taught proper comebacks or to report them, if possible, in which case hall monitors in between classes are necessary. No student, neurodivergent or neurotypical, should ever have to suffer the way I did.
Neurodivergents need to be taught basic netiquette–something I never learned from my parents or schools, and thus I paid the ultimate price. Civility in conversation is if others are acting as such, but if communication turns nasty and autistics are hurt, they need to report it to admins if possible and block the harassers. Neurotypicals, as well, seem sorely devoid of netiquette, displaying a lack of empathy, a common autistic stereotype, and need to learn it as well. Sadly, even in certain online communications, site admins and message board moderators can be drunk with power. I remember one from a video game site I used to contribute to, called a film series I liked “terrible,” and I could barely function. As Hannah Arendt said, “The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism”–and that still applies today.
Well before the autism rights movement emerged and more were aware of neurodiversity, uninformed families of autistics exploited them, driving them into therapy and psychiatrists who can also exploit them, drugging them with medications having untold side effects, impairing their development as children. Even adults like me are vulnerable–my delve into psychiatry was largely the result of my parents harassing me about acting “weird,” even though I feel the same way about them–and even after nearly twenty years of psychiatric meds, which I have been trying to get off of, I never fully recovered from all the trauma I endured in education and on the internet. Families and internet interactions triggering autistics can cause never-ending relapses, yet many psychiatrists’ solutions are more medication instead of addressing the core of these problems. Autism and psychiatry are a very dangerous mix, and alternatives are preferable.
Unfortunately, most autism groups, ASAN included, don’t represent the entire autistic community or even those closest to them, and are perfectly fine with the mix of autism and psychiatry. Just as ASAN ignores the profoundly autistic–I worked with many in my brief stint as a substitute teacher–others like Autism Speaks neglect the higher-functioning neurodivergents. A few autistics like me see autism as a disability like deafness or blindness–impairing some of our senses while sharpening others, and they deserve adequate representation, as well as eligibility for disability benefits as major safety nets for if they cannot meet the demands of an evolving world and economy. Just as many autistics will say, “I’m a person, not a puzzle!” I say, “I’m disabled, not an infinity symbol!”
In the end, a lack of timely and respectful communication on everyone’s fault, neurodivergent or not, is perhaps the biggest problem in our world in every area: education, politics, and autism acceptance. As an autistic, I’ll admit I’m guilty of communicating poorly, but on the flip side, I’ve been subject to endless invalidation and gaslighting even when I respectfully expressed my views, even ghosting from those I talk to when I see them do other things on online social media. As well, the refusal of the autism rights movement to communicate with their critics and represent all autistics, I fear, will ultimately doom us, but society, overall, definitely needs to change, and acceptance is still a two-way street.
As Peter Kropotkin said, “Competition is the law of the jungle, but cooperation is the law of civilization.”
Mr. Gallen is an autistic artist and writer from Central Texas. He can be reached at (254) 238-3602 and jmgallen124@icloud.com. He also writes an online blog, which can be found at remygallen.substack.com.
