If you need help, support or just a chat, please find me at feelingtheworlddifferently@gmail.com or through my website http://feelingtheworlddifferently.co.uk
I want to write this today because I am scared that the answer is no.
Does that sound too negative and pessimistic?
As part of my MA in Autism Studies, I researched and wrote about this. My essay is available for free on Amazon Kindle called Can Society Ever Be Autism Friendly.
For some time now I have been writing and presenting and training and teaching all about being autistic, ADHD and living with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I have tried to be positive and even jolly. I have tried to include humour into my posts and videos. I want others to be hopeful that their differences will not disable them, but will be recognised by society for the amazing strengths and skills that come with different ways of feeling the world.
But it is incredibly disingenuous of me to sing and dance and make everyone think that being different is easy or even fun. I would like it to be. I work to challenge and change attitudes and environments. Just small shifts in attitudes away from the myths and the stereotypes makes a massive difference. I try to illuminate neuro differences from the inside out in the hope that society will one day say – congratulations you are autistic. Or any other neuro different way of feeling the world.
I have been working with an amazing group of people. We are all autistic and lots are ADHD also. We are writing a book of our experiences, especially the ways that we feel the world differently. Lots of books exist, but most are solo autobiographies, or compilations with words from academics, authors and advocates. Whilst valuable and vital, most don’t include the ‘ordinary’ people who are trying to survive in environments that they can’t control, and are facing attitudes that don’t understand them. Lots of these people probably don’t even understand their own difference.
So, I would like to change this. I have set up a company so that I can produce literature for better recognition and identification, and am mentoring and training in industry, hospitality, education and healthcare to enhance their awareness of difference and to encourage them to make small changes. Even just in attitude. And that is free.
I know that anyone reading this might say that they do understand difference and that their attitude is very welcoming and positive to difference. But a quick question about what people think that they think, is usually enough to demonstrate that at best there is a surface acceptance but genuine understanding is quite sparse. This isn’t their fault. Not enough of us are talking to them. We talk to each other and are often scared to try and reach into communities who themselves are very different to us.
I am going out on that wobbly branch and trying to cross to the other side. The neurodivergent communities say ‘nothing about us without us’, which is marvellous. But, I also say, nothing will change for us, without them. I don’t like the idea of an us and them. It is exactly what I want to change. I use the term here, because at the moment we do feel segregated and often isolated and rejected because we are us, and we are not like them.
I attended a Risk London Conference and listened to the neurodiversity ideas. For better mental health there were to be more social interactions and events. Had anyone asked their team? Did anyone check if this might in fact be detrimental to some members? We need to encourage others to recognise that we are not all the same and our needs may not be the same as theirs.
Different but equal; equal but different.
At the same conference a prominent speaker proudly announced that she recognised that there were people with Asperger’s on her team and that it was important to keep them happy. This was the neurodiversity talk! Asperger’s doesn’t exist in the medical manuals anymore and most neuro different folk don’t like it. I am not so bothered by labels. I prefer to see the person and the story behind them. But, a neurodiversity lead speaker should have known this. And she should not have spoken about these people like they were pets needing a ball thrown in now and then to keep their tails wagging. So as you can see. There is much challenging and changing to be done.
I work with groups who feel isolated and lonely. I support students excluded from school, or who can’t face going back into an unfriendly environment. Every day I speak with people who lives are affected by their autism, ADHD, CPTSD, anxiety, depression, OCD, borderline personality and many other neurological differences. Some we are born with, and some acquired through life and trauma, abuse or injury.
This is my introduction to explain why I am going to discuss some of the challenges that we all face. People have asked me to talk about the difficulties. I realise that if I jump around and declare life to be amazing, I am being hopeful, but not reflecting the way that is really is. For most of us anyway. Most of us are hopeful that difference will be seen and heard and accepted and valued. Most of us are hopeful that one day we can say something as simple as please can I have a different table, this is too busy for me, I am autistic. And the answer will be – oh yes of course, I totally understand. And they actually do.
My company offers workplace assessments of provision and attitudes to difference with various training, presentation and mentoring packages. I would love to help you challenge and change your environments and attitudes.
Can society ever be friendly to people who feel the world differently?
For fifty years I believed, naively, that we all felt the world in the same way, and presumed that I just wasn’t doing it well enough. I presumed that I was the problem. And since everyone around me told me that it was me, I had no reason to doubt it.
But now I know that it wasn’t me. Now I know that because I have neurological differences, I feel and see and hear the world in ways that are different to the majority. But because most environments are designed without neuro differences being understood or considered, I am constantly disadvantaged by my sensory experiences.
The truth is that I feel things intensely and in ways that are hard to believe and accept if you don’t experience them yourself. If there was a way for someone to be me for just a day, to feel the world like I do, then understanding might change for the better. Since this isn’t possible yet, the next best thing is that we write and sing and dance about our differences so that society knows we are different and not difficult. Are we disabled and disordered? Well most of us feel like we are because environments and attitudes often work against us.
So, with more voices we can challenge and change the stereotypes and the stigma. When we share our stories it will become clear that there are so many of us feeling the world differently and that it is time for the world to recognise that and include us as equal.
Different but equal; equal but different.
My short guide to feeling the world differently is available at cost price on Amazon.
Autism, ADHD and other friends. 
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