For a class at Uni called ‘Citizenship, culture and diversity’ we got to do weekly blogs for one of the assignments! As you can guess, I thought that was alright. Here is one I’d like to share:
Week 8- Postmodernism, Discourse and language
My husband was diagnosed with autism about 5 years ago, after we had been married for more than 10 years. He was fine with this diagnosis. I was not. I was desperate to know if he was actually autistic, however I was unprepared for the negative consequences of the label.
Although I didn’t have the words for it at the time, I found the dominant discourse around autism being a disability with negative connotations overwhelming. Almost everything I read about autism was negative. The support group for partners of ‘Aspies’ was negative. I saw people in my family who have autism having negative experiences and my experiences relating to them were often negative. I thought of autism only as a ‘REALLY BAD THING’. How could I have chosen someone who was deficient and I couldn’t see it for so long? Even though he was a loving father, a valued employee with a PHD, and highly appreciated by his mates for his technical know-how, I was blind to all this because all I could see was the label.
Meanwhile my loving husband was just as devoted as always. Confused and frustrated by my ambivalence, but devoted none the less.
Professionals reinforced the dominant discourse about neurodiverse relationships being impossible, and any suggestion of the possibility of leaving this ‘difficult relationship’ sparked further panic that our relationship wasn’t good enough, despite the lack of evidence. It was our actual friends in real life, who knew us, witnessed our struggles, yet could see we had a good thing going that helped me begin to see the positives. But what helped the most was meeting autistic adults who are successful in life and relationships.
Three years after the diagnosis, I was at last able to write this post titled ‘Why I love my husband’: https://beforeandlaughter.net/?p=354#comment-26.
It wasn’t until I read much research about the stigma associated with autism for an assignment on marginalization and health, that I realized it was the internalized stigma, perpetuated by dominant discourses that I needed to fight. Not autism itself, and certainly not my husband.
All these things combined helped me reframe a negative dominant discourse about autism into to a positive counter discourse.
There has been a noticeable shift, even in the last few years, around the language used to describe someone who has autism. Autistic people themselves have led this change by using terms such as neurodiversity and neurodivergence. Person first language is preferred by some, while many autistic adults have reclaimed the label to define themselves in a positive way and so prefer the term ‘autistic person’. Some autistic adults are choosing to self-identify rather than go through a formal diagnostic process. (There are also barriers with access but that’s another story). Self-diagnosis allows individuals to avoid being defined by medical professionals in a deficit-based model, and perhaps contributes to blurring the line of the binary of neurodiverse vs neurotypical.
Those who are neurodiverse are often particularly good at challenging social norms and dominant discourses! As my hubby often says, “You care too much about what other people think.”