As part of our Youth Awareness Campaign (supported by the Department of Justice & Equality) we held public meetings around Ireland to hear the views of young people with Autism. At each event we tried to make sure young people with Autism got the chance to speak or present. Kevin McLoughlin did the honours at our Ennis Meeting and we were blown away!
Whether you are a person with Autism who wants to hear another person’s experience or a young person who wants to learn more about Autism – his speech below is a must read!
So I understand everyone here tonight is my age or at least in that area. We also all have at least one thing in common; we are on the autism spectrum. Well I am here today just to talk to everyone about my own experience of the whole condition.
Being on the Autism spectrum we tend to find some things more difficult than other people. This has always been very apparent in social areas to me. When I was small I noticed different perspectives on the same thing from different kids. For example any game which involved taking turns made me feel upset and left out and I got mad, the other kids could never understand this because to them this was only a fun game. Ball games made me feel as if people were throwing things at me or kicking the ball at me to hurt me when really they were just playing football and I was clumsy.
From my own viewpoint Autism and Aspergers are these different views of the world. I mean I don’t think anyone else can understand the crazy connections we make out of nothing sometimes or out of sensory issues. Like for example I can tell you for a fact that brownies taste like cookies smell, I love all things Tomato but I hate Tomato Ketchup, can’t stand the stuff.
My experience of the condition is fairly simple. It is similar to a handicap in golf. In other words because of my autism certain allowances have been made for me by my family, most of my teachers and a lot of my friends. However as I continue to play the social game and get older less allowances are made for me. In other words I adapt better than I used to when faced with similar problems.
Basically my entire life I have found things harder than Non-autistic kids and because of this I have had to try much harder than them to deal with things and that’s how I have gotten to the stage I am at. From a sensory point of view things that most people take for granted are debilitating to me. For example, flashing Christmas lights, loud music, crowded shopping centres, queues and elevators, the smell of mushrooms and the texture of nylon all overload my senses in a way that non autistic people can’t understand and the closest I can equate it to is pain.
I think my peers are mostly clueless about autism. When they hear the word they think of someone who just can’t function in everyday life. Someone who couldn’t hope to sit in a classroom, and learn.
However I find that when they hear the word Aspergers their mind goes in a different direction completely, someone who is smart, but only in the one subject and who can’t organise themselves or really function in the real world or in real life situations.
Most of my peers have only one source of information about Autism, Aspergers and ASD; Television and movies. They see characters like Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory, Dustin Hoffman from Rain Man and Abed from community who are all shown with many symptoms from the spectrum but removed from a diagnosis so to everyone watching they just look like weirdos, they see people like these as strange and distant, not actually as people who have a certain experience of the world.
I think that they need to be educated, simply because they don’t know enough about it. My friends are quite knowledgeable about autism because I always explained it to them, and how they could help me. I couldn’t have done that if my parents had not sat me down and given me all the information and tools that I would need to cope, I was not given the opportunity to be embarrassed by it because there was no need to be, and that is an essential part of how I got to where I am.
I would love my peers to understand that I cannot deal with stress like the rest of them, That sometimes sarcasm goes over my head and it may be necessary to help me out by being quieter or at least letting me away to a quiet place. I had panic attacks throughout my junior cert year and many anxiety issues and no one in school could really understand. So I had to try extra hard to keep it all together, and by all I mean my social life, family life, my schoolwork and the exams.
I have found a few issues with participating in the community, particularly when I stim. I’m in the Clare Youth Theatre and Coder Dojo and in both of these groups I have great fun and they help me a lot to be more social. However in both of them I often find people confused and put-off by my stimming. But they don’t understand that I can’t really help it very much. The harder I try the worse it gets. I just think that it’s important that the people involved in these groups and classes get the necessary information about these issues so as that they can better involve people with autism, ASD or Aspergers.
I used to be involved in the No Limits Surf Club for people with Autism, special needs and ASD. The club involved everyone in a sport which they would not have had easy access to otherwise. It was a volunteer run organisation and it led to amazing and rewarding experiences and indirectly encouraged me to socialise with people outside of my comfort zone.
This led to me developing an interest outside of my very narrow range of interests. It would be very helpful to the community if more clubs could try and integrate people with autism and special needs and help them to develop the social skills necessary for both everyday life and the sport e.g. soccer and teamwork.
My message for other people with autism is to make an effort socially. To push yourself to try harder. Try new things. Use your support structure, Parents, Siblings, SNAs, Teachers, Friends, The Guidance Counsellor, Therapists, Volunteer groups like ASIAM, Autism Action, Enable Ireland, CEIS, Solas and DPOC.
Get involved in your community. Take on more responsibility even if it’s hard and if it’s scary you will feel more in control of your life and your future. My experience has thought me that “making the effort is making an improvement.”
Image courtesy of zirconicusso / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
