When people search for autism support, they’re often looking for something practical such as a strategy, service, professional, or programme. Something to make things easier, calmer, safer.
All of that matters. But there’s a layer beneath practical support that too often gets missed, and without it, even the best-designed autism support can quietly reinforce the very struggles it’s trying to reduce.
That missing layer is identity.
Real autism support doesn’t only help people develop coping strategies or behavioural tools. It helps Autistic people build a positive Autistic identity; one grounded in self-understanding, dignity, and connection.
If the story someone carries about themselves is “I am broken”, no amount of surface-level support will ever truly feel safe.
The Story Beneath The Support
Many Autistic people grow up absorbing narratives shaped by deficit models. The language of disorder. Impairment. Dysfunction. “Needs”. Even when support is well-intentioned, it can centre on what must be corrected rather than what must be understood. That does something to a person.
It teaches them that autism is a problem to manage, not a way of being to understand. It frames difference as failure and subtly tells them that belonging is conditional on performance.
Autism Support That Ignores Identity Risks Reinforcing Shame
Autism support that honours identity helps develop our ability to cope in a world not made for us.
Positive Autistic identity is not about pretending there are no challenges or denying sensory overwhelm, burnout, or social fatigue. Instead we locate those experiences within context; within a world that often misunderstands Autistic ways of processing, connecting, and being. As part of an ecosystem that is overtly hostile.
When someone understands their neurology as difference rather than defect, self-criticism softens, boundaries become easier to hold, support becomes collaborative rather than corrective.
Rather than abstract philosophy, identity building provides practical mental health protection.
Why Identity Is Foundational Autism Support
There is growing evidence that Autistic people who feel connected to a positive Autistic identity report better psychological wellbeing. Identity buffers against stigma and community-connection buffers against isolation. We close the double-empathy gap and reduce self-doubt.
In other words: identity is protective.
When autism support includes space for narrative development, “Who am I?” rather than “What is wrong with me?”, it strengthens things broadly.
- Educational support becomes more respectful.
- Therapeutic support becomes more relational.
- Community support becomes more sustainable.
Without positive identity, support feels like training. With positive identity, support is empowerment.
Rewriting The Narrative
Developing a positive Autistic identity requires unlearning inherited narratives, examining the assumptions embedded in services, schools, and clinical systems and shifting from compliance to collaboration.
It also means giving Autistic people authorship.
Authorship is powerful. When someone can say:
- “This is how my brain works”
- “This is what helps”
- “This is what harms”
- “This is what matters to me”
This is autism support in action.
Because it restores agency.
Practical Autism Support Must Include The Story
If you are a parent, practitioner, educator, or community leader, supporting identity is a core feature of autism support.
It looks like:
- Using identity-affirming language.
- Introducing Autistic role models.
- Exploring strengths alongside struggles.
- Creating peer and community connection spaces.
- Challenging deficit narratives.
- Listening without trying to fix.
Identity is built in relationship. It grows in environments where difference is not treated as disruption.
Autism support that centres identity recognises that wellbeing is relational, not just behavioural.
A Framework for Re-Storying Autism
This is exactly why Helen Edgar and I developed Re-Storying Autism; a framework grounded in helping the families, carers, and professionals of Autistic people move from inherited deficit narratives and even directly help Autistic adults themselves step toward a self-authored, affirming identity.
Supporting Young Autistic Adults
It is not about denying difficulty. It is about placing difficulty in context and reclaiming meaning. It is about helping Autistic young adults understand themselves through lenses of ecology, community, and lived experience rather than pathology alone.
So, if you are Autistic, aged 18-24 and want help to discover your own Autistic identity, click the button below to learn more about Thriving Autistic’s discovery programme.
Autism support is not just something we provide.
It is something we co-create.
And when identity is nurtured, support stops being a correction.
It becomes a foundation.
We are currently running a Kickstarter to frustrated £5,000 to grow the community building work we are doing at NeuroHub Community Ltd.
If you are able to make a pledge, there are freebies you can earn for your financial pledge, and you help us do more for Autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people.
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