Particular Perspective: Sure, Autism Is a Disability

I have a disability, it is called autism.

Disability is not a lousy word. It is just an part of the human ailment, a single that we all experience through everyday living, regardless of whether it can be a limited-time period incapacity like breaking your arm, a very long-time period incapacity like autism, or a disability that basically will come with aged age.

It really is vital to not set others down when expressing autistic delight. By some refusing to admit that autism is a disability, alternatively using conditions these kinds of as “unique-capacity” and “superpower”, what does that suggest for other disabilities this sort of as MS, cystic fibrosis, and so on.? That they are lesser than? As if the phrase disability is a stain on who someone is?

The incapacity neighborhood is already marginalized more than enough, we have no area for infighting.

Permit me make a distinction:

It is fine, as an autistic, to not imagine of your autism as a disability. That is your perspective and your lived knowledge, and it warrants to be respected.

But there is a stark change in expressing that autism, in and of itself, and outdoors of your individual subjective experience, is not a disability.

Autism can be incredibly devastating for folks and households, no issue wherever one particular falls on the spectrum on any presented working day. Individually, autism is my worst enemy, yet it is also my most effective buddy. It is certainly my superpower, but also my kryptonite. My best asset, nonetheless my greatest downfall. We ought to embrace the totality of our human issue in which disability is a neglected cornerstone. When we are unsuccessful to pay out notice to the hardships, we go away this cornerstone to crumble underneath the weight of superfluous self-aggrandizement, in the end major to the crumbling of our feeling of self.

Even though it is true that a good deal of devastation in the autism community happens as a result of societal friction and absence of supports, expert services, and consciousness, and not necessarily from autism in an isolated silo, this also holds real for quite a few other disabilities. Modern society is merely not designed to be inclusive, equitable, or available for those with various one of a kind wants.

But, I cannot support but think that even if I were to isolate myself from the earth much like Henry David Thoreau in his cabin on Walden Pond, I would still face vehement struggles stemming from my autism because of to uncontrollable variables in the surroundings that impede the basic safety of my plan, as very well as sensory issues, for no subject how significantly from modern society a single can consider to be positioned, we would even now possess our senses, which in and of itself are a problem for those on the spectrum to process and consider.

All this to say that existence with a incapacity is seeking ample, and it is specifically for this explanation that we have to limit the arguments we have in our neighborhood due to the fact we are getting our eyes off the ball. Injustice is rampant for the most significant minority in the entire world (disabilities), and if we waste our power arguing in excess of semantics, the chances of progressive change reduce, transform that could, and does, practically make or split persons and their families.

Autism is a disability. If you will not see it that way, which is fantastic. But please do not talk for other people. A single of the worst factors you can do to a human being in our local community is to tell them that they will not have a incapacity. The audacity to dismiss and invalidate others’ lived encounter is the comprehensive antithesis of awareness and acceptance.