Since I was diagnosed so late in life, I was spared some parts of the direct ableism that so many of my fellows have had to navigate from an early age. I haven’t ever had to deal with the immediate assumptions that non-Autistic people (NTs) make when they meet an Autistic child with a diagnosis and accommodations (however inadequate). Rather, what I had to survive was that I was different in a way no one could or would explain to me, but nevertheless made me wrong and broken, without any larger context. This is indirect ableism and it requires no diagnosis, and even no disability, to experience. The profound confusion and gaslighting of this is the main issue I have had to deconstruct in order to heal from my past.
When I began doing advocacy and education about autism and neurodivergent conditions, I began to meet advocates who had known from a young age about their condition, and had subsequently never been treated or addressed like a typical adult. Often they display thinking based on “learned helplessness.”
Learned helplessness happens when you keep trying to do something and failing unless you are aided by someone in a position of authority. You can’t succeed because you are not getting the type of support you need to be independent. Often this person or organization is not a member of the outlying, often-oppressed group you belong to and the methods of aid are designed, purposely or not, to stop you from having long term success on your own. When the person with less power or authority tries to become more independent (like through enacting systemic changes), the authority (for fear of losing control) either clamps down on the subordinate or withdraws approval and aid. You are scolded, abandoned, or excluded.