For a long time (all my life?) I have known that I am ‘different’. In recent years, since learning about extroversion/introversion, I believed that I was an introvert - and I do have some traits which align with introversion - I ‘recharge’ alone; I struggle in crowds; I hate noisy, busy, environments which can be overwhelming, etc… But there’s an awful lot more which isn’t really explained by introversion, and I just assumed that those things were my responses to past trauma and that I was basically ‘broken’… Or even, in my worst moments, that it was ‘my fault’ that I react to certain stimuli in the negative ways that I do. That’s apt to induce guilt and shame. But the psalmist says to God…
…it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed. Psalm 139:13-16
so perhaps I am, basically, constructed in the way God intended after all.
I have recently learned that I am autistic. I seem to be almost the only person surprised by this news. ‘It took you long enough to work that out!’ might well be a valid reaction, along with ‘It’s about time!’, or ‘Do you mean to say that you didn’t know already?’ I can be a bit slow on the uptake, as you might say; when it was first suggested to me as a possible explanation for ‘how I am’, I dismissed it because I didn’t think I had enough of the typical, diagnostic, traits… But it turns out that I do - and as an explanation, it ticks virtually all the boxes - practically all my ‘foibles’ turn out to be ‘features’ of the condition.
The world or, perhaps better, society is ‘organised’ in a way which suits the ‘neurotypical’ majority; consequently there are many things about it which don’t suit autistic folk (or, indeed, other ‘neurodivergent’ people, such as those with ADHD) particularly well - and still others which are positively hostile. This can, and does, make some aspects of life more challenging for autistic people - and sometimes virtually impossible.
All of that means that autistic people are noticeably different (however hard we try to ‘camouflage’ or ‘mask’ our differences - an exhausting and, it seems, largely futile exercise) - and some might see those differences as being evidence of ‘brokenness’ - but I’m not so sure; certainly, some aspects of the condition are a challenge to live with in our society, but then, nobody said life would always be easy, and neurotypical folk have their fair share of difficulties too - albeit they typically find different things challenging.
Following on directly from my discovery, I have begun, fairly tentatively, to examine myself and my life up until now, in the light of my supposed ‘disorder’, naturally including my faith and its meaning.
One major difficulty, as I think about the condition, and about ‘me’, is how much of what I’ve always thought of as being ‘me’ (good or bad) seems simply to be nothing other than the typical responses of an autistic mind to its (often hostile) environment. I’m not really sure any more that I am anything ‘beyond’ or ‘underneath’ those responses - so:
Who am I?
I just don’t know any more. I feel as though knowing about the condition has stripped away my sense of ‘self’. What am I left with which is truly ‘me’? Is it only the things which are ‘atypical’ of someone who is autistic?
One thing it does, perhaps, leave me with, is what has been at the ‘core’ of my identity for a long time now: that I am a beloved child of God. Should there be any more than that anyway? Can there be? Maybe there shouldn’t - maybe this ‘stripping away’ is ‘deliberate’ and to be welcomed as yet another step along the path towards Christ-like-ness. But it leaves me feeling rather ‘naked’ and vulnerable… Although maybe that’s a good thing.
Setting that aside for now, my ‘condition’ does raise some obvious questions - firstly, and most obviously - is it really a ‘disorder’ and does it therefore need ‘healing’? I should point out, I feel, that there is no medical ‘cure’ for autism, nor any prospect of one; nor are there really any effective ‘treatments’ - ‘treatment’ consisting mainly of requiring employers and others around the ‘sufferer’ to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ for the ‘sufferer’s’ condition - in other words, in a way, forcing inclusion. (I should probably point out here that in some ways I’m one of the lucky ones - some people on the autistic spectrum are very much more profoundly disabled by it. In their case, maybe, it is something which is in need of healing, divine or otherwise.)
Am I ‘made in the image of God’, or does the condition mean that, really, I’m ‘too defective’ to bear more than the most superficial resemblance to the Divine? Or does it mean, given how differently my brain is ‘wired’, that God is even more ‘diverse’ than people have imagined - or, in other words, do autistics merely reflect yet another facet of God’s image?
If the latter, then perhaps society is even more broken or ‘fallen’ than we suspect - perhaps part of a societal ‘repentance’ might be about making room for ‘difference’ (in whatever form it takes) instead of judging it - in other words, is autism (as just one example amongst many) a disorder of society rather than of the individual?
I think the church does nobody any favours with its emphasis on individual sin, individual repentance and individual ‘salvation’ (the Greek word which we translate as ‘salvation’ is much broader than any single notion of ‘rescue’ - there are layers of meaning around healing and wholeness which the church rarely seems to consider in its messaging). Jesus’ message was therefore much broader than that, and incredibly challenging to the power structures of his day - if it wasn’t so, why did the Jewish religious authorities and the hated Roman oppressors collude to have him ‘dealt with’? The same is true today - politicians are happy enough if the church doesn’t ’rock the boat’ politically speaking - but if the church dares to weigh in on any debates about fairness and social justice, it’s usually told, very forcefully, to butt out… That should really, be taken as a sign that the church should become more strident, rather than meekly retreating into the shadows again.
Maybe society should, instead of judging the so-called ‘disabled’ and seeing us as a burden, welcome us as part of the rich diversity of life, and value our unique gifts and talents, including, in the case of those with autism, our different perspective on life and our powerfully different ways of thinking - which can bring clarity, or novel solutions to problems, where none might otherwise exist.
Some cultures traditionally have a far more enlightened attitude to those who are ‘different’ and don’t, or can’t, conform to what society typically expects - Native American culture apparently being one of those. This blog entry is well worth reading in full:
https://nativetribe.info/native-american-views-on-inclusion-disability/
There is a much more general, and academic, paper on the topic of disability and inclusion here (it’s worth persevering with - the things it says are quite profound and thought-provoking):
https://dsq-sds.org/index.php/dsq/article/view/8468/6302
Would that western civilisation could be even a quarter as enlightened as indigenous peoples in its approach to those who are ‘different’ from what it prefers to see as the ‘norm’.