In the 1970s, roughly 1 in 5000 children had an autism diagnosis. At that time, children like me really were rare. They were also often treated poorly in the school system or, if their autism was severe, institutionalized and deprived of basic freedoms.
Today?
One in 50 children has an autism diagnosis.
Now I will agree some of the increase in diagnoses comes from greater awareness of ASD and a parental desire to access the services available to children with this diagnosis. This does not mean, however, that a physician can conjure a diagnosis of ASD where none exists just so a child can get extra time to complete tests and receive a few sessions of speech and occupational therapy each week. Despite the belief that being mildly quirky will qualify a child for a diagnosis of ASD, there actually are specific, extensive criteria in the DSM that must be met. If the child doesn't meet them, the diagnosis will not happen.
I do believe children with ASD were missed in the 1970s. But honestly? I think many children that meet criteria *now* are still being missed. As much as people may believe parents want to maximize the special services their children receive, parents also have a nearly pathological need to believe that their children are preciously perfect darlings who outshine all the other children in every possible way. Unless a child's ASD is fairly severe, parents will avoid the stigma of a diagnosis for themselves and for the child.
I don't know if that's good or bad, by the way. I really hate labels. And dropping the Aspie label on someone tends to eclipse everything else about that unique, beautiful, living being. While understanding why, precisely, you are so different from others might bring some solace, it won't actually change the fact that you are that different. It might, however, let you know that you'll have much better success connecting in friendship with other people who share your own traits.
That's a topic for another post.
Today I'm hitting prevalence. And it really, truly resembles a speeding train at this point. I'll say it again: I do love my Aspie brain.
But then I have to say this: being autistic hurts. It doesn't just hurt me--although it really, profoundly does--it hurts my family. It hurts my friends. I do not act the way that even I, myself, would wish sometimes. I am often shut down by my fears so completely that I can barely function. Until I gave up gluten and began supplementing with vitamin D, I was so terrified of spiders that the sight of them made me cry and left me unable to re-enter the room where the arachnid had been spotted for HOURS. My fear of damage inflicted by UV light kept me wary of venturing too often outside during sunny days. Crowds of people filled me with a dread that only a stumbling horde of zombies would justify.
This hurts. It makes me run away from crowds--I mean that literally. I have done it more than once. I have abandoned friends and family at gatherings and retreated to the bathroom to escape the mob. This is cowardly behavior and it lets friends and family down. I also sometimes take directions literally and thus mistake a person's intentions. I use too many words when trying to explain things to others. I am defensively controlling when people's actions threaten a part of my daily routine that feels fundamentally important. (For instance, I always sit in the back corner of a room. I don't feel safe if there are people behind me. I try to arrive early to secure this spot. In classes, I assume that people will respect my tendency to inhabit a certain seat. When, on rare occasion, I arrive a bit late and someone has taken "my" seat, I am unsettled for the rest of the day. And even if I don't say anything to the person--and, honestly I never do--I'm still angry about it in a way that's wholly unjustified.)
And if someone eats crunchy food around me? Oh, my heavens, the world could crack from the intensity of my agony. I have no doubt that my misery is transmitted from my face and posture. If I cannot escape the room, then I make people feel bad about doing things that are in NO WAY bad. This is unfair. I know it. It's completely my fault. I own it. I still cannot control the fact that I want to kill either myself or the chewing person if that person is chewing crunchy nuts. It's just the way it is.
I also cannot sleep most of the night. Every night. For my entire, hopeless life. Yes, that's right, Buttercup. Autism isn't all deliriously happy interest in dinosaurs and an encyclopedic knowledge of train departures and arrivals. It's also insomnia, anxiety, phobias, sensory sensitivities, loneliness, and hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt, HURT.
Still not saying I'd trade my brain. No. Just saying that this epidemic of ASD isn't just flushing the halls of computer science, physics, and engineering with gifted students, it's hurting people.
Parents worry about their children. Siblings resent and worry about their sibs with ASD. And while we might be good employees in some ways, in others we are certainly sub-par. I *still* take people's words too literally. I have a BA in English. I certainly understand idioms and irony and sarcasm. Sometimes, when I'm tired and feeling ill, however, my Aspie brain overwhelms my finer understanding of human communication, and I just plain FAIL at grasping the true meaning of people's sentences.
Having Aspies in the population is probably a good and necessary thing. Without us, computer science and physics and engineering would suffer noticeably. At present, however, our numbers are stupidly, painfully out of balance with the neurotypical population. As high-maintenance and neurotic as most of us are--and I'm owning that and apologizing right here--we will just plain decimate the happiness of the human populace if our numbers don't decrease with the passing years. We are TERRIBLE romantic partners for neurotypical people. I doubt we're excellent romantic partners even for other Aspies, but at least we understand and respect the quirks that make us difficult. Yes, Microsoft and Intel would be shades of what they are today without us. Frankly, I suspect that animal rights' movement would also be miniscule if not for us.
Nevertheless, our numbers are too great. Right now, we are bringing society down. We don't *need* this many people writing code, fathoming quarks, and designing better inline skating tires. We need more laid-back, happy, non-thinky people who can sleep at night and not get into car accidents during the day.
I love us, darnit, but it's still true.
And something way worse is also true. The ASD population? Our brain-damaged selves? We are a marker for something far more sinister. I was actually intending to make that the subject of this blog, but I tangented. Sorry. That's another lousy thing people with ASD do. Our tongues just ride the rails of our thoughts and lead all the heck over the entire mental landscape before they finally get to their intended destination.
From L.A. to San Francisco by way of New York, Miami, Kiev, and Dresden. Sorry.
~This blog post was brought to you by the letter A.
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