Autism and Unemployment
I want you to imagine the situation of autistic people, most of whom are outside of paid employment and, seemingly, consigned to a lifetime of unemployment. (I won't give the sources here, if you are concerned you will find them yourself - the facts and figures are easily obtained, and seem to have zero motivational power). That’s not merely bad, it is the abomination of desolation. I don’t need to be told that people with a disability can work: WE KNOW! Work is the very thing autistic people are after, so long as it takes note of their capabilities, needs, and requirements. My alarm bells ring as soon as I see the speed with which certain people, not least people working with employment agencies, claim that disability is used as an excuse not to work, on the assumption that everyone can work. The haste of judgement here gives the game away – there is zero concern with disability, it's all about the person adapting himself or herself to the job and not vice versa. It took me until I was well into my fifties before seeking help and advice with respect to my ongoing struggles with life, health, and work. I had taken the entire strain of 'adaptation' onto myself and my health was cracking. Even after the doctor’s suggestion of autism and Aspergers, it took me more than six months to ask for a referral. And even now, nearly two years on, with problems mounting rather than being resolved, I still haven’t pursued the possibility of disability – and no-one I have approached for help, advice, and support has explained to me the steps involved in obtaining an assessment for disability. I make this point to underline the speed with which those concerned with employment issues are not merely reluctant to consider the possibility of disability but positively hostile towards the idea. To be told that disability is used as an excuse not to work is revealing. Of course most everyone can work. But the possibility of finding work also depends on knowing people and adjusting to their needs and abilities. The attitude of employment agencies and advisers seems to be that the world of work is unchanging and unaccommodating and that you are not entitled to ask for special adaptations, however reasonable (and legal). And seeking disability is an excuse. I turned the clock back a couple of years there and imagined this conversation taking place with respect to the diagnosis of autism. I was being told, effectively, that there was no point to seeking referral and obtaining diagnosis, because it changes nothing, employers don’t care, and it’s an option taken by those seeking to avoid work. I’ve heard it more than a few times that ASC or Aspergers’ is the new ME in being a slackers’ excuse to avoid work.
I would accuse such people of ignorance, but the callous attitude goes deeper in being uncaring and wilfully uncomprehending. Do people really think that nearly 80% of people with autism are outside of paid employment of any kind through sheer lack of will? Laziness?
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has published new data that shows just 22% of autistic adults are in any kind of employment. There are similar studies showing the same thing. Unemployment and underemployment here is not due to laziness and lack of will.
Of course, it makes life easier for employment agencies and advisors to believe this. It is easier to work on the needy, the poor, and the vulnerable than it is to try to change structures and institutions in business and society. But it won’t work, will cost a lot of money in the long-run and cause a lot of misery in the process. That’s not a prediction, that’s recent history. I’ve come to the conclusion that everyone involved knows this and continue to go down this route because it is easier. The problem has been compartmentalized, and people simply focus on doing their particular jobs in their particular compartments.
There’s the famous story of the person who has lost their keys outdoors and is seen walking round and round in circles under the lamppost. ‘Is this where you last had the keys?’ they are asked. ‘No,’ they replied. ‘Then why are you searching here?’ comes the question back. ‘Because it is easier to look here.’
People in need trying to survive adverse circumstances are often told that they are the architects of their own problems, erecting barriers to successful outcomes, risk averse, and living in a comfort zone.
It’s not the unemployed, the disabled, and the autistic who are living in the comfort zone - I wish! It would be a dream come true! - it is the authorities and experts who prefer to ‘nudge’ the weak and the vulnerable in need of help and support into an unchanged social environment, indifferent to the challenges (and impossibilities) that this involves. It saves them the difficulty of having to actually change anything in the social world.
To put the point bluntly, people with autism are not lazy, demotivated, and stuck. If they seem to lack will, seem to be ‘awkward’ and ‘difficult,’ seem to be withdrawn and living in a world of their own, this is because they are exhausted after having spent a lifetime living their lives in survival mode. For the experts to come along and seek to remove their coping mechanisms as obstacles to change, without at the same time offering the help and support that is needed, is the plainest inhumanism.
The safe spaces and places that the vulnerable manage to put together to stabilize their existence is a huge creative endeavour and achievement. To dismiss this as living in a ‘comfort zone’ and seek its destruction to force people out onto ‘the market’ risks serious social and mental harm. I have seen enough over the years to be able to consider the ‘nudgers’ at work at various levels to be serious socio-paths. They pay zero attention to the needs that vulnerable people have. To have disability traduced as an ‘excuse not to work’ betrays such a lack of concern with the underlying problem as to guarantee its continuation. The result of such an attitude is that just 22% of autistic people are in paid employment of any kind. That’s on you! That’s on ‘the system’ and itsservants. Own it. You take responsibility for the problem and for the tragedy. You change your ways. Listen to the advice of the people who know about autism and take heed. We may then, possibly, at last, start to make changes for the better, with a little mutual accommodation and adjustment, with a little negotiation on either side.
Autistic people are not lazy and are not hiding in a comfort zone. Certainly, they seek to stabilize their existence and seek refuge and sanity in a safe space. That is essential for mental health and social survival. A condition which has you living without internal filters, editors, and brakes is exhausting – the entire world is present immediately at once, leading to sensory mixing and overwhelm. Remove that space without putting stabilizers in place is not merely destructive and dangerous, it is cruel and inhumane and hurls an autistic person into a total sensory immersion. The defence that various advisers and experts don’t know what they are doing doesn’t work – those people are being told, loudly and clearly, and are refusing to listen. And they refuse to listen in case they might learn something, particularly the very things they don't want to know. They are the ones taking the easy option. Life is tough and the weak go to the wall. There is a Social Darwinism stalking modern thinking. But, as certain comfortably off ecologists persist in telling us, there are too many people on the planet.
It’s that kind of thinking that is an excuse – an excuse for bad politics, llazy politicians, unmotivated place-sitters and caring 'be kind' people who really could care less. (I've spent a couple of years raising the issue in their presence, to absolutely no response – they have their pet causes and grievances, and real issues that require some serious commitment of time and effort on their part are anathema. I learned long ago not to take people by the positive self-image they present to the world).
These are the people who lean on the autistic people to 'induce' them into making all the changes, personally, that they rule out socially, institutionally, and structurally. The emphasis is on the person so as to protect the political. The big changes that are needed, the difficult changes that are decisive in making a difference, are not made.
I had expected some little change on the part of ‘society’ in light of the diagnosis of ASC. I have found none. I have approached employers and employment agencies and other organisations purporting to help those with certain health and disability issues. The ‘reasonable adjustments’ instructed at the back of the ASC Report are not worth the paper they are written on. I had, with justifiable optimism, thought that the report and its recommendations would finally offer a path out of a lifetime’s impasse dealing with a condition no-one knew about, including myself. Instead, all I have found is the same old ‘advice’ with respect to writing CVs, interview techniques, and making yourself attractive to employers I have been given in the past. Nothing has changed. The Report changes nothing, leaving autistic people with the same struggles they faced before diagnosis.
This puts all the onus upon the person seeking help to adapt and fit themselves to an unchanged environment, to continue to distort and bend their personalities by masking and blending-in, to continue to suppress their needs so as to accommodate themselves as best they can. Some can just about manage it, but many can’t. Hence the appeal for help. That help comes only in the form of 'advice' that requires that you, the person in need of help, make all the changes. An autistic person has spent his or her entire life adapting to the world around them, merely to survive the chaos and confusion. It takes Herculean efforts for an autistic person to cope and survive what are basic everyday demands. To be told that there is no help and support is to be told you are on you own again, as usual.
Back to masking and mirroring in the buried life.
My advice is firm and forthright – do not be accommodated.
It is right and just to demand changes on the part of others and the social world.
