This article was written by a disabled, autistic Kooth writer and contains discussions about ableism and poor mental health.

The word ‘ableism’ means the discrimination and devaluing of disabled people and the treating disabled people as different and lesser compared to non-disabled people. Ableism can come directly from interactions with people, for example, someone assuming a disabled person can’t do something or talking to them like they’re a child. Or, it can be physical things to do with how the world has been set up without considering disabled peoples’ needs, like buildings not being accessible to people in wheelchairs.

But what happens when living in an ableist world means that the ways you think and feel towards yourself are affected too?

Often the world isn’t kind to disabled people. Growing up without seeing people like me – or only seeing heavily stereotyped, negative versions of me – definitely impacted my ability to accept myself for who I was: a disabled, autistic person. In fact, because of the world I lived in, I shut down the idea that I wasn’t neurotypical for a very long time, and only got my actual diagnosis when I was twenty years old.

My story: from ableism to being proud of who I am as a person with disability and neurodiversity.

In this article, I’m going to explain a bit about how I went from someone who had so much internalised ableism that she didn’t want to accept the idea that she was disabled/neurodivergent, to someone who’s very proud of who she is, in the hope that you can see that it is possible to accept yourself for all of who you are too.

A quick glossary before we get started…

• Autism – A neurotype (a different brain structure) that affects how people might think, behave, and communicate in lots of different ways.

• Spectrum – A range of something with lots of different points. It normally means a scale between two points, but when we talk about the autism spectrum, it just means that there are lots of different traits that people might have.

• Neurodivergent – Autism is an example of a neurodivergence, but other people might identify as neurodivergent too, for example, people with ADHD or dyslexia. Being neurodivergent just means your brain works a bit differently to neurotypical people (people who are considered to have a more ‘typical’ brain and way of thinking).

• Non-binary – Non-binary people are people who don’t identify with being strictly either male or female. They might identify as somewhere in between, as a bit of both, or as neither. Often – but not always – they use they/them pronouns to refer to themselves.

The word ‘autism’ was first brought up in one of my team meetings in hospital when I was 15.

In the meeting, someone mentioned that they’d like me to be assessed for autism. Both me and my family thought this would be a waste of time. None of us had ever considered the possibility that I was autistic and we weren’t ready to consider it then, either.

I’ve thought a lot about why we were so determined that I wasn’t autistic at this time in my life, now that I’m equally as sure that I am. And the big thing that comes up every time is – you guessed it – internalised ableism.

At that time, I’d never read or watched anything with an autistic character like me. All the characters I’d seen were white men or boys, who struggled in social situations, were often outcasts because of how rude they were to the people around them, had incredible memories, and often excelled at science and maths. And I didn’t know any autistic people in real life besides a few boys in the years below me at school who weren’t anything like me at all.

So, when the word ‘autism’ was first brought up, it honestly felt laughable. I wasn’t a boy, I hated maths, my memory’s not great, I found social situations stressful, yes, but I’d studied the rules enough to just about get by most of the time, I had a very vivid imagination, and I had a lot of feelings and empathy for others. The exact opposite of what I thought autism was. Plus, I’d heard the really negative statistics about autistic people, like how so many of us are out of employment, and I really didn’t want that to be me. At the time I thought this was due to there being something ‘wrong’ with those people, rather than considering the fact that maybe the workplace is often unfairly inaccessible for autistic people.

However, over the next few years, I gradually adjusted to life outside of hospital again, and I continued writing about mental health online. As I did so, I came across accounts of autistic people sharing their experiences.

Breaking stereotypes about autism

I was really curious when I first started reading about these people. They were so proud of who they were. They challenged what’s called the medical model of disability, which views people’s difficulties as being caused by their body/brain, and instead used the social model where people’s struggles are seen as being mostly caused by that person having to live in a world that’s often not as accessible to them as it is to other people.

Also, lots of these people were nothing like the autistic stereotypes I’d grown up with. Lots of them were women or non-binary people and, I started to realise, were very similar to me. I’d always heard that autism was a ‘spectrum’, but this was the first time I’d seen any real proof of it. Autism wasn’t just the black and white thing I thought it was. Lots of these people were living really lovely, full lives but they still talked frankly about the things that they struggled with, while not viewing those things as defining their whole existence.

Now, it’s important for me to emphasise that there is absolutely nothing wrong with people that do fit the ‘classic’ presentation of autism. In fact, as part of me tackling my internalised ableism, it was really important for me to realise not just that I was autistic even though I didn’t fit the narrow view I’d held before, but also that there would be absolutely nothing to be ashamed of if I did.

Getting a diagnosis

I remember my therapist talking about another client of hers and the similarities between me and her – casually adding that she was autistic. I decided then that that was the perfect time to bring up the fact that I’d started questioning whether I might be autistic too. As soon as I did, I saw in my therapist’s face that she immediately thought, ‘Oh my gosh, she is.’ And that was the beginning of me getting my diagnosis. She sent off a referral to our local autism team. They eventually they got back to me and offered me an assessment. I went, I had a couple of appointments with them, and they finally offered me my diagnosis.

That wasn’t necessarily the end of my journey with internalised ableism. I live in a world that often isn’t kind to disabled people, and that does still affect me to this day. I constantly have to fight against negative disability representation, hear stories where disabled people are treated as not important as able bodied, neurotypical people, and that does take its toll. But, at the end of the day, I made a choice a few years ago.

I chose to accept myself, radically and intentionally, for everything I am.

Challenging ableism, whether that’s internalised or external, doesn’t mean pretending like everything is easy and there’s nothing different about me compared to other people. Instead, it means acknowledging the differences – the positive things and the things that I struggle with – and accepting them, continuing to see myself as a whole person who is deserving of love both from myself and others.

If you feel like you struggle with internalised ableism, here are some final reminders:

Try to catch yourself when you think negative things about yourself.

It’s not nice to think unkind thoughts about anyone, and that includes yourself. Try to challenge those thoughts. Where are they coming from? Are they factually accurate or a result of things you’ve been made to think because you live in a world that treats able-bodied, neurotypical people as the ‘norm’?

Surround yourself with other disabled people if possible.

Of course it’s going to be isolating and you’re going to be really aware of the differences between you and the people around you if you don’t spend time with anyone similar to you. But if you can find disabled and/or neurodivergent friends, hopefully you won’t feel like such an outsider and this could really help with you unlearning the negative feelings you hold towards yourself too. If you’re not thinking negatively about your new friends, why would you think those things about yourself?

When you do need support because of your disability and/or neurodivergence, try to remember that there is nothing shameful in that.

You deserve to be able to function as well as anyone else, and there is nothing wrong with needing support to help you do that – in fact, it shows a lot of self-love to ask for something you need and you should be really proud of that.

Read, research, and rethink.

There are so many incredible disabled people out there living their lives; reading more about them can be a really powerful experience.

Try to remember that you are an incredible person.

You might struggle with certain things, but who doesn’t? And, sure, maybe you think about things in a slightly different way to others – but doesn’t that just make the world a more interesting place for us all to be?

Only you get to decide what your disability/neurodivergence means to you. No one else. Just you. But – speaking from experience – life is a whole lot easier when you decide that it means something positive, or at least accept it as a neutral fact.

Hopefully this has made you think about a couple of things and consider trying to accept yourself a little more. Whereabouts do you think you are on your journey towards fully accepting yourself?