How I, a Level 1 Autistic, am Disabled.

It's disability pride month, so what better a time to get a little personal, and delve into the ways that I am disabled by my autism.

Theres two main reasons I want to make this post.

A. For the people who claim “autism isn’t a disability, it’s society that disables us” and things along that train of thought.

B. For the angered autism parents who look at level 1 autistics like me and think we’re not “disabled enough” and that is why aspergers should still exist.

So here are some of the ways autism disables me on a daily/regular basis:

1. I can't connect with other people

   I can see how some people might read this and think “is that really that disabling? Sure it sucks but how does it disable you?”

   
   

   A few different ways.

   For example, Even with my close, immediate family, I have a fairly distant relationship. I never talk to my brother unless absolutely necessary. I only talk to my dad about our shared interests in certain netflix shows, and even then it's hardly a conversation, usually its him infodumping while I nod along. I have a bit of a closer relationship with my mum, but most of my vulnerability with her has been done through text or email, and I still cannot open up to her verbally.

   
   

   Even with people I’m close to, I will not start conversations. I always have to wait for people to speak to me before I speak to them.

   
   

   This also means that I rarely am able to express my emotions, and so they usually stay bottled up inside. Which I think we all know, is not ideal.

   
   

2. I'm almost constantly in fawn response

   If I ever have to talk to strangers, I’ll almost always be fawning. I don’t consider myself a high masker, but one way in which I do mask is avoiding conflict by all means possible.

   
   

   This means always saying yes and agreeing to things, whether I really want to or not.

   
   

   This has gotten me in various sticky situations in life thus far. For example in my first job, when things were starting to go south, and I was not being paid for my work. I could have just said no, and quit then and there. But I was afraid of offending others by doing so, and 'causing trouble', so I felt stuck there until the bitter end.

   
   

   I’m sure how you can see how this could be potentially dangerous for me in certain situations.

   
   

   It also makes it very difficult for me to advocate for myself properly, especially in medical settings. I'm currently on a birth control medication that is not doing anything for me and I don't really want to be on, all because in that phone call appointment I was fawning and agreeing and did not advocate for myself well enough to get the help I actually need.

3. I'm so averse to smells that I often hold my breath

   This one perhaps impacts me slightly less, but it’s still incredibly inconvenient. Any time I open the fridge, or have to put something in the food bin, or basically any bin, I will have to hold my breath while doing it. The same goes for walking past smokers, I will always hold my breath until I’m far past them.

   
   

   I highly doubt i’d ever do it for so long it got dangerous, but it still makes life very difficult.

   
   

   Certain smells give me bad headaches (like strong perfumes), or make me feel nauseous (like the smell of cooking meat), so i’ll do anything I can to avoid smelling them. Unfortunately smells tend to linger...

   1. 
      

4. I have harmful stims (TW for blood and general body grossness)

   One of my most common stims is picking at the skin on my lower lip. Most days I will at some point have blood on my fingers from picking until I bleed.

   
   

   It’s incredibly painful, but I cannot stand the feeling of skin hanging off my lip, so i pick and pull until it comes off, and usually it comes with blood.

   
   

   I also pain stim, and while this usually isn’t in any way that causes much physical harm, I have ended up with bruised fingers from biting down on them when i’ve been very pain seeking.

   
   

5. Speaking is hard

   Yes, I do have the ability to communicate verbally, yes I am grateful for that, however that does not mean it’s easy. I’d say it probably takes me twice the amount of mental effort to speak as it does for allistics (thats a guess, i’ve never been allistic so i don’t know what its like lol). In some ways it also feels like it takes a lot of physical effort to push the words out, and some words are hard for me to get my mouth around.

   
   

   Words can come easy to me when typing and just thinking, but when I start speaking, they turn into a sort of alphabet soup and get all jumbled.

   
   

   I can forget things that are very important because they get so jumbled that I forget about things.

   
   

6. I rely on routine

   It’s only thanks to having a strong routine that I am able to keep up with things like personal hygiene. If that routine gets thrown off, it is very difficult for me to get back on track with regular habits like that.

   
   

   To mention the “embarrassing” reality a little, it’s only just now at 23 years old, that i’m really starting to get in a regular habit of putting deoderant on every day. I would honestly rarely remember to put it on as a teenager and onwards, because it just was never part of my morning routine before. Now I’m starting to remember more, thank god.

   
   

   I also relied on routine when it came to things like reading and other hobbies. I used to read every night as a kid, but at some point that stopped, and now that's made it very difficult to get back into reading and build a routine with it. The same went for studying. I struggled to build a routine of studying and therefore I never really did much studying at all.

   
   

7. I cannot provide comfort to people

   I feel empathy very strongly, but I cannot deal with it. I know in theory how to comfort people, I watch other people do it and try and pick up the “techniques”, but when that situation is sprung upon me, my brain blue-screens, and I shut down.

   
   

   On some occaisions I have, almost literally, run away from situations where someone close to me was upset. I ran away and hid until someone else dealt with it because I couldn’t deal with it.

   
   

   As you can imagine this puts a strain on all my relationships, and It makes me wonder if I ever will be able to have a romantic relationship without it crumbling because of this.

   
   

Those are just some of the ways autism disables me.

So yes, I am “only” level 1, and yes I can “function” in society better than some others, but that doesn’t mean I don’t struggle every day.

If you’re comfortable sharing in the comments, what are some ways you’re disabled by your autism?