I have just been diagnosed with a learning disability called high functioning autism. In this piece, in early days coming to terms with it, I want to focus on what the strengths are in having it. Why? I now understand that just 17% of those with my new diagnosis are ever employed in the UK and around 20% are ever employed in the USA
Stigma – as disabling as a disability
Just over 21 years ago I was given a diagnosis that was up there with my dark imaginings of what a death sentence would be like. Paranoid schizophrenia is something so badly stigmatised I genuinely thought it was the end of the road.
A positive attitude and (most of the time) complete honesty with my support and mental health workers enabled me to re-train as a journalist. In the mental health world there are a lot of good people who live their lives to lift you.
You get out of the mental health world and it’s a shock. You rapidly learn that arseholes are everywhere and unless you blend into the background you become ‘one of them’ – ‘the other’. Society is divided in all sorts of ways but one of the most despicable is the hatred of the less able
Diagnosis – telling you what you can’t do.
Roll on 2020 and thanks to being thrown out of an alcohol support group I pushed my family for an autism diagnosis. I thought the day I was diagnosed would be beautiful and bright. Was it buggery! I felt as if I had put on a pair of spectacles for the first time and had seen myself clearly in the mirror only to find the Elephant Man staring back at me.
Here was a list of things that I couldn’t argue with showing me all my failings through life. Finally I saw what others saw in me and it wasn’t pleasant. I have close to zero emotional intelligence. Empathy is negligible. I fail to adequately show an interest in others. Eye contact? I can fake it to a point!
Equally we all need to hear some home truths.
But what are our strengths?
I’ve signed up to multiple autism support groups and found a lot of people struggling to get employment. They say if you always assess a fish on its ability to climb a tree the fish will always think it is a failure. This is why I am writing this article. I want to ask you the disabled person, “What are your strengths?”
There are some broad character strengths that we autistic people as a grouping tend to have:
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- We are great lone workers
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- We love intricate detail
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- We are original thinkers by virtue we have no idea how others think
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- We can burrow into things that interest us in fantastic detail
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- Some of us hate chaos. You want a grammar Nazi? Get an autistic person!!!
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- We can be very reliable
- If we want something we will go at it until we break it. How many autistic people were codebreakers at Bletchley Park taking on the German ciphers in World War 2? Most of them?
In a world of team players it needs people who can be left alone in a room to demolish a project that would drive a neurotypical person insane. How is software developed? What about 90% of the writing you see on the internet?
The VIA Institute
I am nothing to do with this organisation and have no affiliate link to it. However, fellow disabled friend, I want you to do a free, 240 question test and assess what your character strengths are. Sign up here
The VIA test was developed by the positive psychology faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. It isn’t like some Facebook ‘intelligence test’ that tells pissed cat ladies that they are very intelligent despite a bottle of wine addling their ability write their names. This is the real deal! Sadly the U Penn’s website was down today so I couldn’t ask you to do it.
The VIA Institute home page states, “When you know your strengths, you can improve your life and thrive. Research reveals that people who use their strengths a lot are 18x more likely to be flourishing than those who do not use their strengths.”
Don’t pay a penny. Read through the free report and discuss what you discover with your loved ones. Start thinking about what these could mean in an ideal existence. How can you put your best foot forward? How can you grow?
I’d like you to do the test twice in a month to see how you are in different moments. What key strengths repeat themselves? Sooner or later the kernel of you will emerge.
My own strengths
I’m happy to share my four top strengths as shown on the test. These are:
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- Bravery
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- Honesty
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- Creativity
- Love of learning
If I now say I’m a social justice campaigner and a writer, you will soon see that bluntly I write what I think and couldn’t give a monkey’s cuss what the consequences are. This article is going to cause me nightmares with the arseholes who like to put people down because of their own inadequacies. Go on, stigmatise me!
This isn’t my autobiography. Suffice to say I have had some years that far eclipse 2020 facing issues that no one would walk away from unscathed yet I sit here writing this to you, successful and comfortable. As my daughter grows up I will tell her to remember, “You don’t fuck with the Shrubbs”.
A little more about me
I can’t tell you to be a freelance writer. It’s hell and for newbies to the business today the new writers’ rates are vomit inducingly bad thanks to the collapse of the UK and US economies.
What I will say is what I did to find my way to where I am today.
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- I found my best talent
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- I developed that with professional training (in my case a postgraduate degree)
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- Instead of getting employed I went freelance. I lived in dirt penury for many years
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- I developed a marketing strategy that worked for me
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- I did a marketing course (in my business these cost around $1,000)
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- I was always willing to learn from my mistakes
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- I drove myself like a hungry dog after a steak being dragged behind a Ferrari
Am I successful? Some close to me would say so. I’m not good at agreeing with them! I have a decent portfolio of work under my belt. I never seem to earn so little I qualify for Universal Credit. Who knows? One day soon I might even be happy!
Could you do it too?
I speak to you as someone with two disabilities that honestly screw my life up. When your brain wiring is out as well as your brain chemistry it will never be easy!
However, I believe you too can do what I did. If you start looking at what makes others love you despite your weaknesses then you too may start find a calling that suits you too. It may not pay $$$ but you may end up happier for doing it. Isn’t being happy what we do the most important thing?
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