I don't like the sayings, "autism is a superpower" or "autism isn't a disability it is a different ability."
I feel like this invalidates people who aren't quite comfortable with being Autistic or Autistic people who feel as though their ASD has more negative than positive impacts or those who feel as though their diagnosis has an equal amount of positive and negative effects.
I understand these sayings have positive intentions and are meant to empower Autistic people, but it just kinda comes off as inspiration porn to me despite being originally from the Autistic community.
From my point of view, autism is indeed a disability, however I do not believe in a “woe is me” attitude. I believe delving into the sorrow of disability is crippling in itself.
I believe that the term “superpower” is a relative term and I believe that while autism is indeed a disability, there are elements of it that are very empowering if enabled by a positive attitude.
I do not believe that encouragement is false hope or “inspiration porn”. I believe that inspiration helps people, regardless of their disability, to do better. Indeed, better is never perfect, but better is always better.
There are examples of people with crippling disabilities that, with a positive attitude, achieve amazing success. For example, there are double amputee athletes, with both legs amputated, that have been disqualified from running races, not because they are disabled but because their custom prosthetic gives them an athletic advantage.
There is Rebekah Taussig where too much focus, help and sympathy towards her disability is not helpful or welcome. See her story
here.
Greta Thunberg was a non-speaking autistic. Her discovery about climate change inflamed a passion in her that pushed her to speak. And so, she now speaks to the world. A feat I cannot even fathom.
Michael Edwards – “Eddie the Eagle” is not “disabled” but is still a good example. Eddie Edwards had a childhood passion to be an Olympian. His disability is that he had no athletic talent. However, he had passion. While his performance was terrible at best, he still won an Olympic medal simply due to his passion.
I believe my life can also be an example of an autism advantage. Yes, all throughout my life, including now, I suffer deeply from autism, but my relentless autistic passion resulted in fulfilling my childhood dream. A dream that I do not believe would have ever happened if I was not autistic. My dream, starting in my single digit years, was to be an electronics design engineer. However, my autistic disabilities and my extremely poor math skills, dashed that dream. But, in the end, I am now a retired electronics design engineer. An engineer with no degrees or any college. I did not have any master plan for achieving this. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t even have any imagination that it was possible. It just happened. I was unable to work any job that required social skills, but I could not shake my passion for relentless study of electronics. I got technician jobs where I just followed directions working in a quiet backroom. With my autistic social disability and lack of understanding of the social structure of the career field, I would often build a circuit and add it to a device to improve its performance or add a function or sometimes I would just modify the device – without ever asking permission. While this would infuriate my boss, there were a few instances where the information about the improvements made it to the design engineers, prompting them to come look at what I did. Then the engineers started bringing their design documents to me for my input. That practice then became company policy. Finally, I was promoted to senior engineer. From my perspective, that is an autistic "superpower" - but I am still disabled. Among many issues, I am completely disabled if other people are moving about or talking in the same room.
These examples are not intended to say that the positives and negatives equal, or even that the positives outweigh the negatives. They do not. But that is not any reason to subdue or dismiss or reject positive encouragement. I believe that regardless of the type of disability; building on strengths, however small or limited, always improves one’s life. It is possible to be disabled and still have a “superpower”. One does not negate the other.
