I am Autistic. I know this, not only because I was diagnosed after extensive assessment, but also because of my feeling of belonging within the Autistic cultural ecosystem. I am, however, plagued by a question that I am yet to find a satisfactory answer to:
Do I feel Autistic?
The Nature Of Being Autistic
Autism itself is not a physical entity. There is no object of any kind that one could point to and claim “this is autism”. We know of autism through the existence of Autistic people, and yet, there is still no unanimous consensus on the semiotic nature of Autistic people’s existence.
We exist to symbolise autism, and yet no one can agree on an autism proper.
Autistic people connect and come to know their autism through cultural exchange and symbolic recognition; we know our own. We can agree that our experience is an Autistically experienced one, but only through our shared reference points with other Autistic people.
Phenomenology Of Autism
From a phenomenological perspective, we can describe how we feel as an Autistic individual, but could not tell what it is about that feeling that is “autism”.
I, as an Autistic person, have no point of reference within a non-Autistic experience. I was born Autistic, I am Autistic, and I will die Autistic. To give a true phenomenological account of how autism feels I would first need to feel something non-Autistic to contrast the experience with.
This in itself is the root of the double empathy problem. Where experiences of the ecosystem we inhabit depart too much from those of the people we try to communicate with, our inability to impart more than a hypothetical understanding of what it feels like to be us causes mutual degradation of empathy and subsequent attempts at communication.
I can’t say that I feel Autistic, I can say that I feel like me. I can also say that I relate to the feelings of other people who identify with the Autistic identifier. It would seem to me that Autistic experience is a fundamentally cultural/ecological one. Our knowledge of our Autistic selves is constructed through our interaction with the human ecosystem. Since my experience of said ecosystem aligns with the collective agreement of other Autistic people sharing that space, I can then know I am Autistic.
Those external to the Autistic cultural experience are then left in the position of having to trust my assertion that I am Autistic. Sadly, ideology and hermeneutical injustice often render assertion invalid.
What Does This Mean For Autistic People?
The immediate rebuttal that I anticipate is from those who would claim that individuals with more observably profound degrees of support needs can not be a part of such a cultural space and thus they would assert a division between Autistic people like myself, who can articulate themselves freely, and those whom require 24 hour care.
I would respond by noting that human cultures throughout time have contained individuals with varying degrees of support needs, including those most profoundly marginalised. It is not that we should see their autism as different to my autism.
The question I would pose is whether or not our emergent Autistic culture is accessible to all Autistic people, and why Autistic people are so frequently categorised by the support they require. It would seem to me that a better use of time would be to improve quality of life for all Autistic people within the ecosystem.
My next point is this; if Autistic experience is an ecologically grown cultural one, then the systematic ignorance of Autistic individuals on matters pertaining to the identification and support of Autistic people is an ideological choice rather than a valid account of who is and is not Autistic. Autistic experience frequently includes an insistence on denying the Autistic person.
So, to answer the titular question, which is the reason you have read this article (and kudos if you have made it thus far); being Autistic feels like being me. Autistic people are human beings, therefore to be Autistic is to feel human. The main difference in my Autistically human experience is societies incessant need to make me feel non-human.
Who I am, and what I will become, is a function of my Autistic nature (in all of it’s symbolic glory) in relation to the ecosystem I inhabit, and the cultural spaces I frequent. I am no more or less Autistic than any other Autistic person, and yet, to be Autistic is to know that my Autistic experience symbolises just one thread in a tapestry of Autistic life on this planet.
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