The Silent Sorrow of Unraised and Unheard Voices.
Having to Suffer Clueless Response
I found this meme on the Autistic Army Twitter page. Sadly, depressingly, this is an all-too common response that autistic people face when attempting to express their difficulties with the mundane and the everyday, let alone the big issues. This all too typical response causes people with AS to withdraw back into their silent space. There’s little point speaking when few listen and fewer still learn (as in a change in behaviour). I tell people to keep expressing themselves, regardless of the criticism that may come their way. That's nothing less than tough. The people who respond in this way simply have no idea the extraordinary challenges that ordinary affairs present to autistic people, and make it clear that they have absolutely no intention of allowing themselves be educated into having a better idea. Their presumption of a level playing – ‘it’s the same for everyone’ – effectively deprives autistic people of their voice, of their complaint, of their confidence. Not only do they have no idea of the struggles that autistic people ordinarily face when dealing with even the simplest of life’s tasks – let alone the difficult challenges – they have no idea how difficult it is for them to try to communicate their feelings, let alone express them clearly and forthrightly. To have plucked up all that courage to come out of your shell and seek public sympathy, recognition, even help by expressing your difficulties as best you can, only to be met with the bald statement “we all struggle with that” effectively deprives autistic people of their distinctive voice, arising from their condition and their experience. Confronted with that response, it becomes pointless giving voice to your needs, problems, difficulties, you may as well keep it all hidden within and buried deep – like your life. That response is the last thing that autistic people need to hear, and yet is more likely to be the first.
There are two responses back.
Either
1) You withdraw back into you silent shell and suppress your pain, internalise the trauma until it becomes a second nature that gradually eats you alive;
or
2) You tell the people who say this very firmly, without flinching, that they haven’t got a clue of the different order of struggles faced by people who live life always on hard mode, constantly overwhelmed by a flood of information through lacking internal filters and editors. No you don’t all struggle with that, nothing to like the same extent. Not. Even. Close. You tell them straight that there is no generic “we” here, and that people such as themselves don’t remotely struggle with anything like the same intensity as autistic people. They just don’t. And their assertions otherwise represent an attempt to deny and suppress the autistic voice.
Just think about it. If it is true that “we all struggle with that,” then what grounds could their ever be for autistic complaint? “It’s the same for everybody.” “We’re all on the spectrum.” Or, as I was told when showing my AS Report with respect to “reasonable adjustments” with respect to employment, “we could all do with some of that.” I took that to mean that you can ask, but you will not receive – so you may as well not bother asking. And you wonder why autistic people remain on the margins of society, struggling to survive.
I’ve had this response. I don’t get it a lot because I have learned not to make general appeals to people. I expect little from people and yet am still disappointed. People are wrapped up in their own struggles. My experience has made me leery of organisations, agencies, authorities, parties, clubs, all media that are remote, impersonal, abstract, at some remove from proximal relations. The people who are members of these kinds of bodies can do only what they can and no more. As Alexandre Dumas writes in The Three Musketeers: ‘Such as were only beautiful gave their beauty, whence, without doubt, comes the proverb, "The most beautiful girl in the world can only give what she has."’ Organisations can give only what they have, which is precious little in a society overwhelmed by crises and lacking inner content. Social relations themselves are failing, with the result that organisations and agencies exist as surrogates attempting to fill the gaps and cover the cracks. It can’t be done. Organisations and agencies can’t compensate for social absence, and individuals separated from collective media and subject to external forces and crises don’t have spare resources to either help or even sympathise, since such sympathy comes with feelings of guilt at the lack of help that is being offered.
Some people mean well, others don’t, others really don’t give a damn and want to deny, suppress, and silence the voices of those who possess legitimate cause and complaint. Many autistic people express feelings of hopelessness and futility when faced with this response. The situation may well be hopeless and futile with respect to those who have zero understanding and even less sympathy. But the most appropriate response is not silence and withdrawal – it is to tell such people bluntly that they are wrong and to persist in the effort to express your needs, complaints, and problems as best you can, regardless of others’ responses. Responses such as this may make you think that you and your experiences are worthless, causing you to withdraw into your own private, silent, space. But it is better and much healthier to express anger than to internalise and harbour the pain you have. That is to turn autistic traits into trauma. Don’t do it to yourself and don’t let others do it to you.
My advice is never to allow yourself to be cowed and bullied into silence by those who insist that “we are all on the spectrum,” “we all struggle with that,” and “we could all do with some of that.” The struggles of life may often be the same. What is different is the level of intensity, with autistic people facing challenges that are “above and beyond” the norm (as was explained to me in my assessment.) It’s not a message that those struggling will find appealing. Tough. They don’t have to like it. But they will have to lump it. Because I’m here to tell people to never ever silence their voice when put under pressure from ‘normal’ people. Such folk will happily presume that people are silent because they have no sorrow. This is wrong, and profoundly so.
