Armchair diagnosis

There are so many things I want to talk about I don’t even know where to start. I planned this article three weeks ago, but my life is kind of busy right now (too busy for an autistic person, but this is not what I want to talk about today). Since then, things have evolved and changed in my mind. 

It all started with me seeing a podcast that talked about a lot of things, armchair diagnosing celebrities as autistic being one of them. I want to talk about this subject today. 

For those of you who don’t know, armchair diagnosis is a term that refers to making assumptions about other people’s mental illness without having the credentials to do so (or without actually treating the person). So, it is easy to understand why there is an entire debate on whether it’s right or wrong to do it. And obviously, in most cases, it is wrong.

Is it ever right? 

It depends on the reason behind the assumption. For example, telling a friend they meet the criteria for a certain mental illness or disorder might be out of concern and only to advise them to seek a medical opinion. It’s no different than saying, “Hey, one of your eyes looks a bit funny and red, has a doctor seen you?”

So how about armchair diagnosing celebrities? We cannot claim to be doing that out of concern because just because I say a certain star might be autistic it will never give them the help they will need if my assumption is true. Yet, I’m sure that most of us have found ourselves at one point or another in our lives doing something similar. Why?

Obviously, I can’t answer for others, I can only answer for myself. So, for me, it’s the lack of representation. If there were actually autistic celebrities outhere, I wouldn’t have to speculate about other celebrities being autistic. I want to find myself in someone, so each time I notice I have things in common with a famous person or another, I wonder if they are autistic. I especially do this with musicians when I find myself in their lyrics. Especially if their lyrics resonate highly with my autistic experience. I like to think that somebody out there understands me, feels the same as me, and has translated that feeling into art. 

In contrast, I care less about actors because actors have the combined personalities of all the characters they bring to life. However, it would be nice to see more autistic characters beyond the few white boy stereotypes that are now available. Women and people of color, autism represented through various cultures, and with its multiple ways it can present itself. An array of human experiences that is just as varied as life itself, offering each of us a chance to find ourselves. 

Until we have that, I will speculate. I will speculate about musicians based on the music and lyrics they compose. I will speculate about famous people who show the public parts of their personalities that seem to match mine. And I will especially speculate about the characters I see on TV or read in books. 

If it’s about real people, I will obviously speculate in private. I don’t believe I have that much power that if I make a claim about someone it will instantly go viral (in other words, it doesn’t matter what I say), but I can’t forget that these are real people, and I’m no medical professional. It doesn’t matter what I think I know and understand, the truth will always be that I don’t know these people. I only know the parts of them they’re showing to the public, which might not even be real. 

When it’s about characters, I allow myself to talk more freely about my beliefs. After all, they are out there for us to dissect and talk about them. They do not get hurt by our words or have anything to lose because of them. They live only to enrich our experiences and help us learn. And we, by claiming a certain character is autistic (or ADHD, or any other neurotype), do nothing else than saying we saw parts of ourselves into that character. That should be the goal of every author. 

So maybe now you’re wondering which characters I believe are neurodivergent? Who are those characters I found myself in? The list is obviously quite long and I can’t remember them all from the top of my head, but I’ll talk to you about some.

Lily from Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares. She is highly resistant to change, obsessed with Christmas, prone to screaming fits that look a lot like meltdowns and finds fitting in with other people difficult. 

Jasmin Santos from From Lukov with Love. A determined figure skater who can’t help speaking her mind and is often mistaken for rude. She’s dyslexic, but I believe she acts a lot like an autistic person. We all know that the two neurodivergences often appear together.

Antonia (Nina) from The Beautiful Ones. She doesn’t understand the rules of behaving in society (this is an etiquette book). She prefers clothes that are comfortable over those that are beautiful. She’s candid and genuine. And mostly, she has meltdowns that in the book are described as an unhinged use of her magic.

Niamh from A Fragile Enchantment. She’s not autistic but ADHD. And I believe the sole reason the author doesn’t openly name her so in the book is because ADHD doesn’t actually exist as a diagnosis. But the author actually names her “scattered-brained”.

Now that I talked about needing representation and not finding enough of it, I want to also talk about those few openly autistic celebrities who inspire me.

I’ll start with actress Chloe Hayden who plays the magnificent character Qunni in the wonderful TV show Heartbreak High. I highly recommend watching it. And the way she brings Qunni to life has been highly commented on and acclaimed by many autistic people. Even more, after watching the show with my husband, I noticed that he got a lot better at handling those negative parts of my autism, like my meltdowns and such. This is all you need to know about how authentic this character is. 

I also like autistic authors and novelists. Helen Hoang, Talia Hibbert, and Chloe Liese, with Chloe being my favorite. They all write romance novels with disabled characters (autistic or other disabilities). Mazy Eddings is also a great neurodivergent author, but I don’t know about the flavor of her neurodivergence. Her characters are autistic or ADHD or suffer from anxiety.

 I love them all. I follow them all. 

But they are not enough in terms of representation.

How about you? Do you know more autistic celebrities to add to this list? Do you want to tell me about a certain character you believe to be autistic? Feel free to do so. 

Sensory overload in an office space

What do you do when the world becomes too much? The light is bright and cold. It hurts my eyes, it hurts my brain. I want to concentrate, but I can’t even see properly. Words and numbers become blurry, table cells merge and become the same. People talk left and right, behind me and in front of me. Two phone conversations happen at the same time, and close to me, two people explain to each other some concept or other. 

Humming. The humming is always here. People clicking and typing, pages shuffling, someone blowing off their nose. Computers and monitors produce sounds. The AC is singing its off-kilter song. Someone makes a coffee and the coffee maker bubbles. Someone else is printing, and the printer screeches as it spews out paper. Something has fallen to the ground, thudding on the carpet. The neon above me is buzzing, the light dancing ever so slightly that nobody else notices. Yet, to me, it feels like a laser slicing my skull in two. 

Smells. A sweet perfume that makes me nauseous. Vaping. Food. I can even smell the breath of those who are close to me. My airways feel clogged, I feel assaulted, and there’s nowhere I can escape. Even the smell of cleaning substances makes me sick. 

Clothes rub on me, and I want to take them all off. Strip naked in the middle of my office so I will feel nothing. Or rather, change into a pj, and wrap myself in soft cotton. Naked, I feel the air on my skin, and I need protection from that. But even when I only opt for the most comfortable things, at some point something feels wrong. It feels itchy, or it’s too tight, or it finds another way to annoy me. 

I eat and eat because taste is the only one of my senses I still have control over. I eat and eat because feeling something in my mouth keeps me calm. Eating is the only part of my life that still feels like control, and yet, it is the part of my life the most out of control. I need to keep myself healthy, I know, but what does healthy means when what I struggle with is keeping myself alive? When everything hurts, when the now is so painful, how can I think about the future? 

Noise-canceling headphones, music, and audiobooks. It helps, yet it can’t keep all noises at bay. I still hear people talking, I still hear the electronic machines humming. When there’s too much noise, there’s too much noise and I can’t escape it. 

I run from my office, but there’s no place I can escape the humming and the smells. The kitchen smells of too many foods and the water purifier is always on. The bathroom smells of shit and piss and cleaning products, and the ventilator never stops, no matter what I do. Neons hum in the hallways, people talk everywhere. Every place is too bright. 

Outside. Outside there’s traffic, a different kind of noise, and a different kind of light. At least, there are some green trees, but their leaves look sad under the pollution they have to endure every day. And I? I am dying inside while my body keeps moving. I am wasting away day by day, the light in me dwindling until I have nothing left to shine. And I long for the dark. 

Communication

I don't know if it's because of who I am, because I'm autistic, or because I grew up as an undiagnosed autistic person, but I really struggle to communicate my needs. Sometimes I struggle and I endure until I can't anymore. Until I'm bent and broken, sick and on the ground. Sometimes, even then, if I'm around people who aren't family, I would crawl on the ground, digging my fingernails in the earth until they break, instead of asking for help. Asking for accommodation. I don't think I deserve it. I look around and see other people walking with ease and think that I should be like them. I should be able to do what they do without any accommodation. That it isn't fair to ask for more. That I would gain some advantage, when in fact, an accommodation would only place me on even ground. So I go on struggling. 

Why am I writing it? Partially because I struggle. I really, really struggle. I'm in burnout. I'm spent to the point that I'm almost constantly sick. An ugly UTI at the beginning of this year lasted more than two months. Now, for over a month I have been fighting with a cold. I am tired. A tiredness that goes as deep as my bones, that seems that it would never go away. I'm overweight, I overeat, and I'm way too sedentary for my own good. I should exercise, keep myself healthy, but I'm too busy keeping myself alive. I'm well aware that I'm likely giving away years of my life just to survive now but what can I do?

Yes, what can I do? My husband helps me as much as he can. My parents help, too. Could they do more? Maybe, but it gets down to that blasted communication. I don't know how to ask for help. I don't even know what to ask for.

As for outsiders, I don't think anyone else is even aware I'm struggling. How could they be, when I asked for nothing? How could they be, when I never complain? 

Work is horrible. Not the actual work I'm doing, but being at work, handling the lights, the constant noise, the assault of smells, the people. Yes, the people. Being around them and all their emotions is the worst thing I know. Especially when I feel like a sponge ready to absorb everything and carry it with me. I'm too empathic, but not in a helpful way that lets me connect with others. No, in a way that makes me want to run and hide from everybody. 

I have the possibility to ask to work from home. I have no guarantee it would get approved, but as my sister said, at least I would know where I stand. Still, I didn't. Why? Partially, it's anxiety. Yes, talking, and especially requesting something for myself, gives me anxiety. 

But it's more than that. It's that deep down I think I'm just a fraud that invented her struggles. I believe I don't have the right to ask for it. I believe I would gain an unfair advantage. So I imagine people saying all these things about me. I imagine them judging me and denying me. I build conversations in my head, think over and over again how to formulate my request, my answers to accusations that might never come. I convince myself that I can endure a little more, just a little more. All so I won't be judged, all so I won't face my judgment. 

I hate my internalized ableism. 

But even for those who knew all their lives that they were autistic, who learned about their needs, and who know they have a right to prioritize them, communication is sometimes difficult. Or maybe not exactly communication. We, autistic people, can easily communicate with each other. But when it comes to communicating with neurotypicals… sometimes we have trouble making our needs understood. I don’t know why. One would say that a person who always speaks their mind and is very direct in expressing themselves and their thoughts will be easily understood, but this is not the case. Even when we say “I need this because of that,” some people do not understand us. They think we mean something else, or maybe they downsize our need (here could be an entire debate, but maybe that would make the subject of another article). Whatever it is, misunderstandings often occur between autistic and neurotypical people. 

I was watching a TV show the other day, and one of the characters is autistic. She had this big fight with her girlfriend because when she communicated her needs, her girlfriend failed to understand that that was the extent of her capacities. To me, she communicated clearly. To her girlfriend, apparently, it wasn’t clear enough. 

This kind of thing happens often in my life. When I say that something affects me badly, when I say that I’m in pain or bothered by something, people rarely understand how bad it actually is. My parents didn’t understand what I’d suffered through. To people outside the family, I don’t even know if I bothered explaining. My husband is the only one who understands, my best friend.

But let’s get back to my parents for a while. In a recent conversation with my mother, she talked about how I didn’t have problems communicating when I was younger, and that I had friends. Obviously, interactions between children are far less complicated than interactions between adults, and this plays a part. And it’s true that why I wasn’t Miss Popularity, I wasn’t completely lonely either. 

But there’s a lot to the picture she didn’t see. All the bullying, the rejection I suffered until I was finally accepted. How gaining those few weak friendships I had felt like a fight, like pushing my way through undercurrents of water. How I had to adapt and change myself so I would fit. Wrongly, inexactly, but I was finally in. There were always parts of me I kept hidden because if shown, they would’ve been ridiculed. 

The girls who ended up being my friends were my neighbors. We had no choice but to be each other’s company if we wanted company. We grew up together and became friends not because we were alike or we liked each other, but because we were always together. Surely, over the years some of them maybe started to like me and I liked some of them. But our friendship started with rejection. Or better said, with their rejection of me, and me changing so they would accept me. Without me making an effort to fit in, I would’ve never had friends. 

Maybe it would’ve been better. I would've been lonely, but at least I would’ve stayed myself, so later I would’ve had the chance to make genuine connections. Maybe I wouldn't now feel the need to hide. I wouldn't have to fight with that part of myself that tells me to be hidden is to be safe. I would've stood in front of the others, accepting mockery or an embrace on equal measure. 

But how could a young child be so insightful? Back then, I wanted to belong, I wanted to be like the others, I wanted to be accepted. I wanted people to respect me and not make fun of me. I couldn't see that I was sacrificing temporary solitude for a long time alienation from myself. I couldn't see that I was winning people while losing me. 

How can autistic children end up differently? Obviously, I cannot give a definitive answer. But if there's one piece of advice I could give them, that would be to love and accept their children exactly as they are, to never try to change them (I know you fear that the society will not accept your child, but the first step to change that is to accept him yourself), and not to put pressure on them to make friends. Likely, your children will never have many relationships, but those they will have will be genuine and true.