These Each Day Little Issues Can Destroy An Autistic Individual — THINKING PERSON’S GUIDE TO AUTISM
Content note: This essay discusses suicide.
“It’s really dark in here,” my frowning boss told me the moment she came into my office. She knows I’m autistic; I’ve been here for three years. We also work in an industry that claims to know about autism, and to support autistic people.
I could only shrug, too tired and overstimulated to explain. What was happening is that I came off my medication this month, which put me in the most vulnerable position possible: being at work whilst my mental health crashed. The transition gave me a sharp perspective—not only as an autistic person but as an observer—into why the autistic community’s suicide rate is so high.
She continued, “It doesn’t look very inviting, does it?”
Clearly she wanted me to put the light back on. It didn’t matter if I was in pain or would be in pain the entire day from the added sensory input, what mattered most was that we looked inviting.
I briefly wondered if an overstimulated autistic person going into crisis would also look inviting.
A week later, I mentioned to another manager about the huge workload I had, and how hard it had been. I just wanted someone to hear my feelings so that I didn’t have to carry them alone. After all, we were constantly told to speak to someone if there was a problem. This was my problem.
“There’s not much I can do about it.” Was the response.
A hug? Telling me that despite the whole week, I’d done a good job?
Little moments like this played out the whole week. A lazy worker putting the most menial tasks onto me that they could have done themselves, after I was already swamped. Being asked to pick up what other people hadn’t done the moment I had finished my own job list. Not being told in advance that I’d be working on at the start of the week.
All these little slights that on their own, seem like nothing, had me thinking the following by the end of the week:
“I don’t belong here.”
“This world is too hard for me.”
“I’m not made for this world.”
Although coming off my medication contributed to the low mood, it was the actions of others (or lack thereof) that made me feel the lowest. This mood also drifted into friendship spaces, such as seeing that a friend was constantly posting in a group on Facebook despite telling me that she didn’t have the energy for social media, and that’s why she never messaged me back.
Such small actions, but all of them together led me to feeling like death would be more peaceful.
As an autistic person, it’s my theory that it’s not just big traumatic events and open bullying that lead to suicide, but rather the small everyday thoughtlessnesses of others, adding up over time. I suspect this is especially true if you are an autistic person with an ability to play back memories like a video reel, so that no matter how much time has passed, you can’t really let go of what hurt you, and those small things end up piling up into a mountain of pain.
At the end of the day, unkindness can lead to suicide, and that can include the thoughtless moments where someone didn’t mean to be hurtful, but ended up being anyway. I think awareness of autism also needs to come with the awareness that ours is a very vulnerable community, and more thought needs to go into what true support for autistic people looks like.
Specifically, support to prevent suicide in the autistic community includes taking autistic accommodations seriously. It includes letting autistic people have their lights off if they need to. It means forewarning them about schedule changes. It means helping them manage their workload, or acknowledging how they are feeling. It means making them a cup of tea, and giving words of affirmation when they’re feeling low. Because while the small cruel moments can contribute to an autistic person feeling suicidal, the small kind moments can help keep an autistic person alive.
Ice floes image by Hans from Pixabay
