Autism Acceptance Week

I’m Charlie, the current VP Activities at ECSA, and I am autistic. 

Although I didn’t get my formal diagnosis until I was 17, just before my 18th birthday, I have known I was autistic since I was nearly 14. Since that point I have put a lot of time into understanding myself and how my brain works, which a lot of other late diagnosed autistic people do.  I am now 20 and want to talk about my experience this Autism Acceptance Week.

Looking back, I can see that many of my autistic traits were present in early childhood and primary school. From my particularly niche interests to my social struggles. However, an issue I faced like many other higher masking autistics (particularly afab autistic people), was that almost all of my behaviour and struggles were labelled “what kids are like at that age” or “they’ll grow out of it” by teachers, despite my parents having concerns. 

School

Highschool for me was a rollercoaster. I thrived academically but socially was a totally different story. I struggled a lot with feeling different to everyone around me and not knowing why, as well as some bullying from people who I considered my friends, this really affected my mental health at the time. I ended up talking to one of my school’s counsellors, who listened to me and was the first person to suggest I might be autistic. Considering I drew out a whole diagram of how everyone in my year interacts socially, I can see where he got this conclusion haha. 

I had already done a lot of research into mental health at this time, so after diving a little deeper into autism I realised it really does fit my brain and how it worked, and helped me explain a lot of my struggles to myself. Having this label and explanation was life changing. I could finally understand myself and started to stop feeling so other around my peers, and I very quickly grew to love everything that made me different. 

Being in my autistic and in my late teens in Covid lockdown was actually surprisingly beneficial, I was able to complete school work and engage in my special interests without any of the social pressures I would usually have faced in school. And spending nearly 2 years learning about myself and what works for me without having to worry about being perceived by anyone else meant I was able to advocate for my needs more effectively when we did return to school full time. 

This is also when I started to advocate more for others around me too. I was in S6, my final year of high school, and felt I had a good platform to represent and stand up for other autistic students. This lead me to joining the Rights Respecting Schools group and creating my schools first Autism Acceptance Week assembly, which I presented with one of my friends. 

College

Fast forward a few months and I’m starting at Edinburgh College doing my first year of HND Music. This was the first time in my life were I had been surrounded by so many like-minded people and felt understood by my peers. My experience as a student at the college really allowed me to develop as an individual while building a strong network of fellow neurodivergent people. It was here that I made friendships with people that truly felt like they would last a lifetime. This continued into my second year at college and I continued to have a good experience. 

This isn’t to say I didn’t still struggle at all. At this point in time I had just learned to manage it better…to an extent. The amount of work involved in my course was at times overwhelming, and I spent many days coming home from college and just sleeping. I had really thrown myself into my first year of college and it very much caught up to me in my second year. I had to find a way to keep myself motivated while still looking after myself and my brain. For me this looked like starting to go to the gym, I would be in college and have a set time to get work done then decompress by doing a gym class. Starting with the coached gym class as well gave me the confidence to start to go and do my own thing. Then once home I would have dinner and sometimes finish up bits and pieces or spend time watching a favourite show or movie. I managed to find a way to structure my afternoons and evenings which for me made it much easier to get things done, and the day felt less overwhelming.

This year while working for the Students' Association I have continued to give myself as much structure as possible. I have continued to go to the gym, for me its been a great way to end my day and it gives me a set end of day routine.  And while in work I do my best to do manageable periods of dedicated work, give myself a short break, and then jump back into it. I call it giving myself “brain breaks”, which I find particularly useful ahead of an important meeting. In the last couple years I’ve learned not to be ashamed of the things that help me, such as having things on my desk to fidget with – keeping me focused in meetings, or having a colouring book with me with I need to relax my brain a little, and most importantly, making sure I give myself time some evenings and on the weekend to do absolutely nothing and let my brain and body recover. 

Celebrate Differences

This year the theme for World Autism Acceptance Week is “Celebrate Differences”, this has the aim of creating a greater sense of inclusion and to celebrate how all autistic people are unique individuals. The National Autistic Society has some fantastic resources and ways you can help raise awareness and increase acceptance, which you can find on their website linked here.

And at the college we are having the first meeting of our Disabled Students Forum, which is for any student who identifies as disabled, including hidden disabilities such as autism. If you are interested in joining the Disabled Students Forum you can join the teams channel here.