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Quite "normally" authentically autistic
Many autistic people see, hear, smell, and experience the world quite differently from non-autistic people. They perceive scents that others might miss. They notice things that are completely inconsequential to others. They perceive sounds particularly intensely that non-autistic people don't even notice. And there are many other sensory aspects in which autistic people differ from non-autistic people that become apparent in everyday life. It is not impossible that individual sensory aspects also occur in non-autistic people. However, due to high sensitivity and different ways of processing sensory input, these very sounds can become a barrier for autistic people, and excessive physical contact can even feel like torture.
In short: the world of autistic people is, in many ways, completely different from that of non-autistic people. And yet, we all live on the same planet. The autistic world is neither better nor worse than that of non-autistic people. If we learn to recognize and understand our different perspectives on the world, we can learn a lot from each other. That is why we have tried to make the sensory world of autistic people understandable for non-autistic people. Join us on a journey of discovery and prepare to be surprised.
Autistic People and Sensory Noise
PDF Download, Info: Illustrated by Amy Rose from our team
Autists and sensory.pdfSensitive or dull?
Desensitization is a product of high sensitivity. Sensory mechanisms are neurologically shut down when the senses are overstrained. This can be a temporary or a permanent state. Constantly ignoring an overwhelming sensory environment can result in non-verbal autistic children, who originally showed an enormous and valuable sensitivity, switching their behavior. Classically, they are then categorized as so-called "low-functioning" autistics, typically around the age of 2–3 years.
Being Disabled
They are not born this way; it is only after many inconsiderate experiences that they "stopped speaking" or "never started in the first place," "no longer play," or "lost interest in books and their environment."
Punishing the "Foreign Body" of Autism
Eventually, they resort to hitting, biting, or kicking, alternating with staring at the wall and exhibiting behaviors such as eating anything in their surroundings, clenching onto objects convulsively, or banging their head against the wall. Lamenting, overused, and unclearly formulated language overwhelms them, causing their ability to communicate to shut down.
And then people say: "That is the autism."
The fact that this is an environmentally induced mechanism is something no one truly perceives or understands. Perhaps, at times, they willfully refuse to see it, because doing so would mean recognizing themselves or the environment they’ve created as the disruptive factor. Some autistic people communicate almost exclusively non-verbally, even though they understand everything intellectually.
Non-Autistics Become the Actual Disability
When autistics cry out "Stop!", "Get out!", "Bla bla bla!" or "Enough!", they are often misinterpreted. Some feel offended, even though they themselves are the ones in need of help to learn how to communicate as equals. Warning signs are ignored by these "non-disabled" people—who are actually needy themselves—making them a further disruptive factor. Due to their lack of empathy toward autistics, they often cause unsolvable conflict situations. For autistic individuals, this is fatal; they shield themselves off, and at a certain level of overload, they no longer notice if they spill hot coffee on themselves out of shock or turn the radio up to an unbearable volume. Only when the stimuli are removed can the autistic person become capable of acting again. This is why, in this context, unempathetic, self-needy people are called a "barrier," much like the noise from a radio.
Labeled and Naturally Limited
From the outside, these autistics are often certified as being desensitized or even lacking intelligence. In reality, this impairment results from an excessive sensitivity to noise and to unempathetic, abrasive people who fail to maintain proper distance—not from a lack of it.
Hence the perpetual misjudgment of supposedly impoverished—or worse, entirely absent—empathy. The tragedy of this manipulation of perception is that many autistic individuals begin to believe in these home-made deficits themselves.
Those who feel incapable cease their own mechanisms of personal growth.
Forcing Conformity
From that point on, neuroleptics, sedatives, and conditioning, along with re-education, become the order of the day.
The medical model of disability—to prevent disability.
The autistic person is now expected to function and lead a "normal" life, but please, without breaking out of the prescribed framework. An entire financial machinery is built on the backs of these individuals. If, instead, the social model of disability were applied and those steps toward "de-handicapping" were taken—in which all responsible parties would have to participate—the child would still be:
Speaking
Playing
Looking at books
Running / Learning
Developing
...and not in such a dire state of nervous exhaustion.
Nothing New
Ever since autistics have been researched and publicly discussed, the causal component of a world that is too loud, too fast, and too prone to violence has been acknowledged. Until someone comes along with the "Middle Ages" sledgehammer. In the Middle Ages, people with different neurologies mostly lived under a form of positive paternalism. Cases of being "drowned in a well" or "locked in a barn" were by no means the norm. Records show that although they were labeled as "simpletons" just as they are today, they were nonetheless provided with free daily meals, clothing, and even housing, because society saw itself as unable to integrate them into standardized social activities. Not exactly a model to emulate, and yet the integration sector still functions this way today: compensatory benefits from agencies and companies instead of wages, without opportunities for development or freedom of choice.
{Irony on}
Limited is the one who does not choose limitation—not the one who cuts off the possibilities.
The common, loud, violent, cut-throat person of today is not responsible. The mentally "limited" person is simply too fragile. Period.
{Irony off}
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