Ilostit my son is hyper empathetic. He misreads stuff, but is so kind he will do anything and sacrifice anything to make someone else happy. He's also scrupulously polite. And I'm fairly strict about stuff where it isn't the autism at play, so no, I don't think it's an excuse. But the thing is, autism is different in everyone. And the thing also is, a child who acts appallingly is sending a message. Sometimes, that message is that they are lacking proper boundaries and the parents are crap. More often, it's that something is wrong. Could be all manner of things. But it can be autism. And where it is, behaviour is communication. That is so essential. The behaviour is a symptom of a problem, and without identifying the problem you can't help solve the way it manifests.
I think most poor behaviour with ASD can be traced back to either 1) sensory overload - and , and it's very familiar as that is how my son can get, yet we get glares because people think he is misbehaving - or 2), fear and anxiety because the world he has to live in - one set up by, and for, people who are not autistic, is confusing and terrifying. He becomes incredibly controlling when anxious or stressed, when he is the sweetest and gentlest child when he feels safe and secure. I think it's the same way many anorexics and self harmers choose that path because their lives feel out of control; not a cry for help, more a way to feel they can manage their own bodies, at least. And the reality is that for many ASD people that need to control is very logical, because the rest of the world communicates via words that really mean something completely different. I mean, think about Facebook: a friend well into middle age posts a photo at a wedding and everyone exclaims that she is absolutely gorgeous and looks no different to when she was 20. If you're non-autistic, you know what that really means is: I care about you, I recognise you made an effort and look really nice, you are fab. It doesn't literally mean: this person is an age-defying supermodel. But perfectly reasonably many ASD people take it at face value, because their brains are wired to be supremely logical. So they see social lies, which are codes to express support, and see not coded messages we all understand, but actual lies. And they are RIGHT.
Imagine having to live in a foreign culture - really, really foreign, one where waving may mean "fuck off, and your mother is a whore" and where licking your fingers is seen as being the equivalent of picking your nose and eating it, but nobody has ever told you, so you know you can fuck up at any moment and then, still, people won't tell you; they'll just dislike you and think you are a twat. Imagine the anxiety and stress of that, every day. Then imagine you have to share your work with someone, when you are dedicated to it and it's important, on a laptop... and they keep turning it off and losing all your work, because you weren't allowed to back up. (This is how my son experiences being pulled away from his passion, or being expected to work with another child when he is focused rather than teaching them - which he is ace at, and school would ask him to do - he is 9, and in some ways his critical thinking skills are degree level, and his maths A level in pattern recognition and problem solving. School was often quite boring as a result). Then imagine that you struggle to cope with changes of plan, because one of the ways your brain is wired differently is to be able to intensely focus on one thing, to the point you can block everything else out... but changing gears is unbelievably stressful, and that actually bleeds over into absolutely everything, throughout your whole day. Then imagine all this happens while you have music playing so loudly the room vibrates, under lights so bright you could be filming in a studio, with smells so strong you might as well be at a perfume testers conference with chopped onions thrown in. And imagine people keep slapping you (my son's sensory problems mean a light brush against him feels like a slap. As a toddler, he thought other kids were hitting him when they moved past him - playgroup noted this as odd at the time). Then imagine you couldn't sleep very much, or for very long (sleep issues are part of autism). Then imagine that in some ways you are far, far brighter than the people around you, yet they treat you with impatience or patronage, because You Are Impaired, and They Are Normal, so your way of seeing everything is just wrong. Not different: wrong. Then imagine that this is your life.
I think you might find you melted down sometimes. I know I would. And that's not being spoilt. It's being in a world where people make absolutely no allowances for the fact that you literally experience things differently. We expect autistic people to function in a world set up to suit us, and not them. And when they struggle, we label that their failure, and not ours to try to meet their needs halfway. Schools, sadly, do this all the time. Classrooms and lessons are designed specifically to be busy, bustling, creative places in terms that are really, actively, bad for ASD. So kids struggle, and blow up, or try to control their peers in a desperate attempt to cope, and then get punished. And so it goes on.
DS masked so perfectly nobody saw problems at school. But he would come home and explode, and claw his skin to blood, and talk about suicide. Started when he was five. There was talk of medicating for chronic anxiety, because he had mental health problems stemming from his desperate efforts to fit in. He's home educated now, with tutors and forest school groups etc to socialise, and he is fine. Absolutely fine, albeit needing more support than the average kid his age. He's autistic, not mentally ill, but 75% of ASD people have mental health problems due to the ignorance of society... and a lot of that comes, in my view, because people with neurotypical minds are sure it's so much better if you don't label people.
If you don't label, then you don't have to adjust. And that's nifty for people who are not autistic. But my son's experience in school, as opposed to his toddler years, and joy in life now, starkly demonstrates to me, and to a lot of other home ed parents I know, how much of our children's issues stem from the world they have to inhabit.
What scares me now is how I help him learn strategies as he gets older, and how he will learn to manage the seemingly unmanageable. Thanks to Mumsnet, I know a lot of brilliant adult autistics who are managing families, and demanding careers. With a huge amount of extra effort, and no little stress. But they do it. And they are a beacon to me, in knowing that my son can, too. With the right support.
But if the rest of the world shifted just a little, and displayed just a smidgeon of that empathy they say autistic people lack... the lives of autistic people would be infinitely easier. And it would help if people could stop freaking sneering at, "The Label." It's not a fucking label. It's a road map to understanding a different mind.
To a very, very large extent, autism is a different cultural understanding. And I think until people start to recognise that, and try to work with the idea of diversity rather than damage and disorder, we won't really be able to either help support autistic people... or
Final addendum: there's a saying: when you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person. My child is not the gold standard of autism, and my experience is necessarily focused on him. So the above is my exceedingly personal understanding, and not objective truth for all time.