Bye Bye 2019
Well, that's it, the first week of the decade are over and done, the Christmas decorations are down, a new year has truly begun; 2020. This year will see my 40th birthday but it's not how I feel. I feel like a person out of time; I often wish time was not a recordable concept. Instead of recording days, months and years, I wish we recorded things by 'moons' or 'sleeps' or similar, whereby we weren't marking off the passing of years as we do. The vast majority of the population of the planet seems unified over one thing only, however, and that is what year it is!
Resolution
I don't make resolutions any more because I would have broken it by now anyway, if I had! It's not that I made an unachievable goal but more about how difficult it is for an Autistic person to exact change without appropriate support. When I was younger, in my teens, I would make a resolution but I haven't done so since I was about 15 or 16 because I would get upset with myself when I broke it which, as alluded to above, I always did within the first week.
One resolution I would make each year would be to lose weight, despite being stick thin already, because that's what everyone was doing and I desperately wanted to be like everyone else; to be accepted. Of course, I had no idea then why I was 'different' from my peers but I knew I was and it was painful for me knowing that but not knowing why or how it could change. Looking back, I know I was a pleaser, adults liked me because I was polite and helpful, well-mannered and well-spoken but I didn't understand that my peers despised me for the same reasons so trying to both imitate them but please adults too made them perceive me as someone who thought of everyone else as a lower lifeforms when, in reality, the opposite was true; I felt so inferior to everyone!
Confusion
To some extent, I still do feel a lesser being than everyone else. Although I try to come across as confident, I know sometimes I come across as too confident and haven't, apparently, 'respected' the seniority of the person with whom I'm interacting. That's not because I don't respect them, it's purely that I don't know how to show them in my interaction with them. In fact, if I'm interacting with them and appearing 'too confident' that will be because I respect them. Social interaction is, even at nearly 40, a huge bag of tangle and confusion! Don't take me personally; would you take it personally if I accidentally ran over your foot in my wheelchair? No? It's kind the same situation!
Sad Statistics
From a survey (2000 Autistic (or their representative) respondents) undertaken by National Autistic Society:
32% are in paid employment (compared to 47% of disabled people as a whole (From the office for National Statistics - UK 2016)).
16% are employed full-time.
77% want to work - 40% had never worked
"When we asked about the single biggest thing that needed to change to help autistic people get into work, over 50% said support, understanding or acceptance. And 60% of employers we polled told us they are worried about getting support wrong and they don’t know where to go to get information about supporting autistic employees."
Read more about it here - link opens a new tab to National Autistic Society webpage.
The sad thing about this is that for every five employers an Autistic person experiences, at least three of them will have got it wrong. Personally, I feel private sector employers have an awful lot to learn from some of the voluntary sector employers.
Wishes for a Decade
My wishes for the next decade are that Allistic people would have more acceptance of Autistic people. That the statistics above would improve for Autistic people. That if Managers are supervising an Autistic person they would treat that person with dignity and respect and not bully them into meltdown which most Autistic people will hold until they are safe at home; for an Autistic person to meltdown in the workplace is an indication there is something wildly amiss.
Finally
My final wish for the decade is that Allistic people would get behind the Autistic people they know and support them, help them find jobs if they want them, help them prepare for interviews and when the person is successful, help them contact Access to Work (here - link opens a new tab) who are a UK Government Department helping disabled people get the adjustments they deserve in the workplace and Remploy (here - link opens a new tab) who are the Access to Work Mental Health Support Service if the Autistic person needs adjustments to do with depression, anxiety or other mental health supports; Autism is not a mental health condition on it's own, however, Remploy offer good understanding and often have better knowledge of tools available.
Thanks for getting this far and thank you for wanting to understand more.
Please feel free to email if you have any comments or questions.
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