I recently saw this news article in the Guardian: What kind of person would drag autistic children into the culture wars? The Kemi Badenoch kind, written by John Harris.
This is a difficult article (not because of the writer) and I respond to it below.
When I got my diagnosis over 20 years ago, I got a two-sided letter from the specialist, cc'd into my GP. On it, the only support I got was a little list of self-help groups and a name of a local charity. There has never yet been any follow up from any social or medical care. I had to deal with my diagnosis by myself, alone in my very overactive head. To say that processing the diagnosis was painful was an understatement! It completely turned my world view upside down and unearthed this very painful truth that my own behaviour can contribute to my social difficulties. It burst that bubble that it was just everyone else and I was fine. It made me take responsibility for how I came across. It hurt. A lot. However, I am fortunate that I have capacity for this level of critical reflection of myself.
I guess it did help me understand my own brain, but that was only because I made the effort to do so by myself. I am also very aware of my privilege of being able to do that, unlike many autistic counterparts.
So when they say it's about understanding my brain, yes it was but there was no one to help me unpack that. I was left alone and all I have got is my strong awareness of disability discrimination laws to rely upon because a trade union trained me up on it. What do the Tories expect? The system is so chronically underfunded that all the most highly functioning of autistic people have really is the ability to Google our way around employment law.
That is if we can actually get through another round of job interviews that expect us to talk about how to do a job but never actually demonstrate it or deal with stupid lateral thinking questions.
As usual, the Tories don't get it. They shaft those who need care support through a lack of funding and write the rest of us off as having no resilience.
Perhaps, and this is wild, if newly diagnosed people were given the necessary support to become work ready and deal with the impact of the diagnosis itself, perhaps we wouldn't have to turn bloody Google.
And they also don't mention that the Tories in 2022 removed the Access to Work fund for all people who are civil servants and public servants. That's a very long list of people, from the NHS to councils. Bastards. So now employers have to self fund their own autism awareness training to support their employee. Chances are, that makes 'expensive' disabled people less attractive as employees to the public sector, despite the Public Sector Equality Duty.
Kemi Badenoch, shame on you. Mental health illness is already a common problem for autistic people, yet you tell us we don't have enough resilience. Do you have any idea how much resilience is needed to just exist in a society with such sensory noise everywhere? Or how hard it is to navigate the confusions of social dynamics? Or the resilience needed to put ourselves through activities that neurodiverse people find intuitive?
We have resilience by the bucket load and telling us we need more is damn offensive when we already give all we can.
