Back in January 2015, after a three and a half year wait, I was diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome (which is now recognised as Autism Spectrum Disorder). A label like this doesn’t change anything, and yet it changes everything. It’s just a word to describe people like me, but as soon as you say ‘I’m autistic’ out loud, it alters the way people behave towards you. The awareness – how others see me – is why I, as an autistic person, will not be supporting Autism Awareness Week.
Since the diagnostic criteria for the condition was created, autism has always been viewed as a ‘problem’ – something to be ashamed of, to be kept quiet, something to be ‘cured’. These days, the re-emergence of the (debunked) theory about vaccines has reared its head again. Harmful tropes surrounding autism and autistic individuals have also become something that is ‘normalised’ and disseminated openly on social media. And the same attitudes of shame and secrecy, the need to ostensibly ‘cure’, have become almost mainstream. This is offensive to me – I am not broken, nor a missing puzzle piece, vaccine damaged or injured. I am a whole human being, just like everyone else.