Oh Hey, Tyler!

** Content warning: This piece contains ableist slurs **

The novel Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk is a novel that reads so much differently the second time you read it, owing to a major "apostolic" twist. The movie, starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, is also a noticably different experience once you've revelled in the twist. After you've taken in the twist, and you cast your eye back over the story, meaning starts to crystalize through the unpanned and frosted glass. Until then, you're comfortable going along for the ride, enjoying the book/movie in-the-moment as it taps in to a nervous sense of anticipation. Something is coming. And as the payload drops and the twist explodes, your very place in the world shakes along with it. 

I wasn't diagnosed with autism until I was 23. For 23 of my 24 years on this Earth, I had been living alongside, and ensconced by, my own Tyler Durden. My own Tyler Durden didn't cultivate my anticapitalist sentiment and use it to guide me in bombing corporate buildings; rather, my Tyler Durden held my hand more gently, leading me away from the rules and norms of a society that thrives on, and rewards, gregariousness, feigned niceness, outward-mobility, brassness, brashness, calculated indifference, coy political moves, middle-class etiquette, and many other codes and modes of living. He led me towards my own set-standards of being and, with a specific question in mind, I want to take the time to share how and why it wasn't until January 2020 that I first looked at my Tyler Durden, squarely in the face, and said hello.

Were there not any signs, overt or covert, growing up that I was autistic?

It is fairly obvious in hindsight that something was up. I grew up with glue-ear so a lot of early childhood signs of autism were misattributed, completely understandably, to glue-ear. Covering my ears, crying when the living room stereo was turned on (which felt like the housing was going to fold in on me), sitting extremely close to the TV, watching peoples lips; all could be signs of autism, deafness, or both. A big problem used to be fireworks. I would miss out on all the hearty communal and anti-Catholic fun as each exploding firework felt like a physical violation. I would wager that autistic children and deaf children share a lot of comorbidities. Both have to learn to be comfortable in their own space (indeed, they have to find peace and ensconcement in their own space), both have to learn alternative ways to communicate with not only other people, but with the world around them (including but not limited to: their urban environment, their workloads, their labours, their own bodies and their own morals and interests), and both will probably experience bullying. 

I certainly wasn't bullied in the conventional sense. No swirlies or dead arms accompanied me on my solitary walks home. It took more sinister, more structural methods to make me feel like a lesser being. I was made to publicly audition for the school choir in primary school, which was probably only eclipsed by the famous and deadly tsunami by way of its sheer and unadulterated disaster. It prompted a few giggles, as well as one popular girl telling me I sounded and 'moved' weird. That one word, 'moved', has always stuck with me, because it seemed so out-of-sorts with my self-perception. Why would I move weird if I was just trying to sing? If, then, I knew I was autistic, it probably would have fallen right into the abnormal, or at the very least, different, expectations I would have set myself. One lad in particular enjoyed pulling exaggerated faces of what he thought disabled people looked like, stuck his fingers in his ears (mocking the fact I couldn't, owing to my hearing aids), and called me things like 'retarded' and a 'spastic'. I certainly don't want to appear bitter but at the latest general stock take of life, I saw him being bundled into a police van. I'm fairly sure (though I could have invented this through my own envenomed Sitzfleich, and sheer force of will) he had also pissed himself. C'est la vie.

The most obvious pre-diagnosis signs were to do with my mannerisms, general behaviours and motor function. Since high school, I have carried a book with me everywhere I go, even if I have no intention of reading it. That, in particular, becomes frustrating for me to deal with, as well as the general discomforted glares of repugnance I get in Morrison's cafe when I'm trying to thumb through Anna Karenina with my hash brown grease-stained fingers like a rabid and maniacal buffoon.

I get told by my family and girlfriend that I do everything in a considered, deliberate manner. I find last-minute change and disruptions to tasks extremely uncomfortable which in-turn has always affected my mood, motivation and capacity to carry out menial tasks. Just this past 12 months, I have found all menial things associated with my PhD, such as administrative forms and ethics applications, completely and practically undoable. I cry a lot and have used crying as a means, for a long time, to express emotions other than sadness and stress; incidentally, my meltdowns begin with crying. I have always come away from Disney movies with an extremely profound and acute sense of sadness, which I always attributed to the bittersweet memories I hold of my late grandad (and best friend). I have a very vivid memory of trying not to cry into my Pizza Hut after watching Wall-E. But perhaps it speaks more to my Tyler Durden, trying to worm his way out of my fleshy body. Maybe the sensory bombardment that would embarrass Horatio Nelson himself, combined with the powerful emotional commands Disney fire out, 90 minutes at a time, should stand trial instead.

I have always had poor balance and regularly left primary school with grazes and wounds. The first aider had to ferry me back to my house once, because I had ripped my kneecap open and had stones lodged in it. Despite that, I was screaming at even the idea of going to A&E. Hello, it would appear autism is calling. I fall up the stairs almost every time I attempt to climb them which has led to some embarrassing moments at university. I think probably everybody has hit the deck after slipping on a black patch of ice, but rattling down 3 entire flights of stairs in the Social Sciences building brings a new level of shame to the spectrum of human emotions. Needless to say, at home, specifically when alone, I walk up them backwards.

In spite of all of this, I've sailed through mainstream and Higher Education. I have built some profoundly meaningful relationships, I've held down jobs for long periods of time, I've gone on holiday on my own, I'm able to independently make plans, I have a long-term girlfriend; I haven't done too badly out of life. As such, we didn’t pursue a formal diagnosis because we all thought I’d adapted to the world rather adeptly. As I moved further into employment and academia however, I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. This came shortly after the death of my baby cousin and all meaning to the already-frayed fabric of reality began to unravel. To curtly end the piece, we thought that, to deal with this, we should target the root cause of this general feeling of cosmic abandonment. Indeed, it turned out to be a deeply-buried Autism Spectrum Disorder, and here we are, Tyler.

** Postscript **

Today (29 March, 2021) marks the beginning of World Autism Awareness Month (US)/Week (UK). Consider opening a dialogue with your autistic friends and colleagues and check that their needs are being met, they're happy and healthy, and ask what they feel should be the focus of the week that is, by its design, supposed to validate, affirm and empower them. 

On a civic level, we have a load of work to do in challenging harmful stereotypes and accomodating disabled people. Some would say a boatload of work, but a cheeky little (huge) tanker trapped in the Suez Canal is dragging our nautical friends' names through the ditch. We are, at the moment, politically neutered by an adminstration that is actively working to strip the human and labour rights of all, not just those of the disabled community, and the best challenges we can pose are through epic, academic manifestos, such as Crippled by Dr Frances Ryan. Consider a purchase, or consider a friendly hand in solidarity.