I know what autism looks like, probably better than most people. I grew up going to a special school where there were quite a few kids with severe autism and Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties. Then, a few years ago, I spent some time volunteering at Charlton Park Academy, working with kids with various neurological conditions, including autism. I know what it looks like: it is a profoundly debilitating condition where people barely comprehend the world around them, how to communicate or how to look after their selves. It is nothing to be joked about or laughed at.
These days, however, the term is being used more and more flippantly. Claiming to be autistic seems to be some kind of craze or fashion. In the last couple of weeks, for example, we have heard both Boris Johnson and Elon Musk claim to be on the autistic spectrum, as if that somehow explains or excuses their behaviour. I obviously have severe problems with this. Medical conditions are medical conditions: they aren’t something you can just claim to have, when it becomes politically or socially fashionable. Nobody could suddenly claim to have Cerebral Palsy or Muscular Dystrophy, out of the blue.
Yet with Autism, the definitions seem to have become so vague that just about anyone can now claim to be on the autistic spectrum; any kind of antisocial or selfish behaviour can be excused by adopting the label. Parents seem to now do it in order to make excuses for their unruly children; individuals now do it in order to feel different or special. Behaviours which were quite recently perceived as perfectly normal, if slightly antisocial, now fall under the autism umbrella, frankly making a nonsense of the entire condition. Whereas CP and MD have clear, fixed definitions and causes, the definition of autism seems to be deliberately being made wider and wider.
The problem is, as I’m sure many others are pointing out, once you start labelling and pathologising behaviours or groups of behaviours in this way, they become ingrained or reinforced. Once someone starts thinking they are autistic or ‘special’, consciously or unconsciously they start to make such behaviours even more overt. Behaving in such a way has earned them attention, a niche, label, or some other form of gratification, so it becomes more obvious. The behaviour thus becomes more pronounced, so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It would be far better, in my opinion, to let these behaviours remain undiagnosed and uncategorised; to continue to see them as perfectly normal, if slightly flamboyant or eccentric, ways to behave. As soon as a label is attached to a set of behaviours which had previously been seen as normal, they becomes something else: something which people now seem to be wanting to attach themselves to, for social and political reasons. Frankly, having undergone a lifetime of social ostracisation and being treated as abnormal or different, I can’t see how it wouldn’t be preferable for people to want to continue to perceive themselves – and be perceived by others – as normal.
Autism is a very serious, profoundly debilitating medical condition. I am no expert in it, but I know enough to say that it is now being made a mockery of: people seem to be announcing they are autistic with very little understanding of what that really means. It’s part of the issue I started to outline here: When people choose to ascribe labels to themselves without understanding what that label means, that label gradually becomes meaningless; just as the wider the definition of a neurological condition becomes, the less intellectual or academic precision it has. My mind goes back to the profoundly autistic kids I knew at school: they couldn’t stick up for theirselves, so perhaps I should.
The Ill-Informed Ramblings of a Cripple 
I think it’s becoming more and more talked about but diagnosing yourself needs be looked at carefully, I wad diagonosed at 18 and there are some alarming things I do that don’t come across as ‘normal’. Whatever that is, like i stim when i get excited, I must have a routine, I’m pretty much always thinking, I’m pretty clever, I have obsessions like my running, I collect stuff like theatre programmes. I also struggle socially and sometimes don’t typically realise I’m doing something wrong in a social scene. People like Elon Musk or Donald Trump aren’t autistic in my eyes, they may have some traits but they are not autistic.
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Thanks for your comment. My point is, though, given that behaviours like collecting theatre programs and going for runs are pretty common, do they really need pathologising? I have a large collection of books and DVDs – does that mean I’m autistic? And everyone struggles socially, from time to time. Is it really necessary to categorise such things as neurological abnormalities, fitting them into a convenient, medicised box?
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Not everyone gets obsessed with things that it takes over their brain and it’s all they can think about. It’s important because employers and generally people need to be aware of difficulties we face day to day. I wrote this interesting blog. https://livingwithdan.com/ocd-about-ocd/aspergers-syndrome-and-ocd/
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Thanks for this Dan. I left it for the morning in order to give it a proper read (and watch). Now that I have, I can’t say that you have changed my mind on this: in you’re blog entry, you describe your various obsessions, but it seems to me that they cover a vast range of things, from lego to tattoos. Ie, you don’t hyper-focus on one thing for all of the time. That doesn’t seem to be particularly disabling to me. You still have the ability to articulate and communicate the behaviours which you feel make you autistic: you even go to the lengths of filming them and putting them on the internet. If such behaviours really were neurological in origin, surely you wouldn’t be conscious of them. By focussing on them, by broadcasting them, are you not just reinforcing them?
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No because I’ve learnt to control these behaviours now, I’ve got to a point of my life where I’ve able to identify what these behaviours are. I’m not saying I don’t have times where I struggle, I course I do but I’m able to document them now and help others. 💕
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I’m afraid this may come across as adversarial- I assure you that isn’t my intent. When you say that you have learned to control your autistic behaviours, to be honest that suggests to me that you are conscious of them and that you recognise that they are not normal. If something can be consciously controlled, then I don’t think it can be likened to a physical disability: I will be unable to talk clearly or walk properly, no matter how hard I try to, just as the people with severe autism I have encountered will never learn to behave like other people do.
Moreover, online I have come across the notion of “masking”, where people who claim to have high functioning autism say they deliberately hide or suppress their autistic behaviours in order to appear normal. Again that would set it quite apart from a physical disability: I can’t choose to talk clearly or stop dribbling when I don’t want to appear disabled. If a neurological condition can be controlled or suppressed in this way, then I must wonder if it can really be called a disability. If people are conscious of these behaviours and can stop or suppress them as and when they want, then they cannot be integral to them in the sense that a physical disability like CP is. And if they can be controlled in this way, why not learn to cease such behaviours altogether and perceive yourself as normal, if not for sociopolitical reasons?
More to the point, if such behaviours are conscious and controllable, then they are no stranger than any other behaviours. You realise you obsess over things just as anyone else will realise they have hobbies or habits. Why should one be perceived as a symptom of a neurological condition but the other seen as normal?
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