#like if “literally housebound for six months due to pain and mobility restrictions” doesn't count as physically disabled

[lookingforcactus]

I have a lot of Feelings about the way that people talk about autism being "just autism" and act like being ""only"" autistic automatically excludes people from being physically disabled.

Yes, the shit that physically disabled people have to deal with is different than the shit people who are able-bodied and neurodivergent have to deal with.

You know how I know that??? Because my ""just autism"" has made me physically disabled for years at a time.

A lot of autistic people are physically disabled, especially but not exclusively people with level 2 and level 3 autism.

A ton of autistic people have motor issues to a level that makes them physically disabled. If you don't have the motor abilities/physical ability to do things like tie your own shoes, or use a regular fork, or shower yourself, or be stable and safe while walking, is that not a physical disability?

Now, none of that is how my autism sometimes makes me physically disabled - I'm level 1 autism, and aside from some fine motor skills I'm personally mostly fine on those fronts. (For people who don't know, "level 1 autism" is more or less what a lot of people would term ""high functioning,"" but that is problematic and outdated terminology.)

So, you might be wondering "Well then how the hell does being autistic make you physically disabled??"

Well, first of all, it's genuinely not that rare for masking to be so, so hard on and physically stressful for autistic people (yes including and specifically level 1 autistic people) that they just fucking. develop chronic pain. sometimes so severe they're regularly in and out of emergency rooms. Because stress hormones are literally toxic/cause tissue damage, and because being completely tensed up and sensory guarding and in sensory pain all the time causes a shitton of muscular dysfunction and chronic pain.

That's happened to me somewhat/occasionally - there are other people it impacts a lot more.

My main problem?

Autism significantly affects your ability to regulate sensory and nerve input.

Meaning when I have a significant injury, between that and all the tension/distortion/related pain, that injury can last for literal years.

I spent three years with on-and-off Significant mobility restrictions because I got an ankle injury.

I just finished two years of chronic pain/sensory pain and a big reduction in functioning/cognitive everything, which was so bad it left me housebound for the first six months, as the result of a surgery that is super common and super does not do this to most people.

Does that not count as physically disabled??

People also tend to treat physical disability as something that by definition never goes away, but people move in and out of physical disability all the time. Our society just tends to use really restricted definitions of what "counts" as a disability, due to stigma, rather than looking at it as a significant and/or long-term impairment in your ability to do things. If you have a severe injury, it can leave you unable to move normally/walk/walk unassisted for months or years. And then, eventually, hopefully you heal and do a lot of physical therapy and then you may not count as disabled after x amount of time.

(I'm not just making this up btw, this is a major tenet of a lot of modern disability studies. I could cite a bunch of texts for this but tbh I'm not investing that kind of time.)

Also the mind-body division is fake, which is why a lot of disabilities and disorders that affect the brain/nervous system (you know, like autism) also affect the body. You know, the thing your nervous system runs through basically all of.

So, yeah, I'm not trying to tell anyone else how they can or should identify, but I personally describe myself as "previously physically disabled" and/or "intermittently physically disabled" because that is the most accurate way I've found to describe my own experience.

Okay, rant over, thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[directactionforhope]

I've been seeing more comments about how autism is """just autism""" and thus autistic people are able-bodied lately, and I'm really not a fan tbh.

Why? Because my autism has made me physically disabled. Very directly and also indirectly. For years at a time.

Like, if "literally housebound for over six months" from pain and sensory pain and significant mobility restrictions doesn't count as physical disability, that's a very bizarre definition of able-bodied.

Obviously some autistic people are able-bodied. But a lot of us aren't!

Most people who are physically disabled due to autism have more ""severe"" autism, aka level 2 and level 3 autism. But if you're reading this post and thinking "Yeah, but that doesn't apply to people with level 1 autism" (what most people think of when they use the outdated term "high-functioning")...

Guess what? I'm definitely level 1 autism, and I have spent years of my life with significant chronic pain and mobility restrictions because of my autism anyway.

So, yeah, please don't assume that autistic people are ""just"" neurodivergent and never belong in spaces for physically disabled people. A lot of us do.