The Autistic Performance

by M.C Reine

"Theater" by Alan Cleaver is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Every day, we put on a performance both for ourselves and for our peers. We have different performances for each unique stage and audience: our performance at home, alone; our performance in school, at work, at family gatherings, and with friends. Each performance is a different version of ourselves. Each thing we do is an act we perform, everywhere we go is a stage, and every person around us is an audience member.

Performances vary from person to person based on certain factors: ability, race and ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, and occupation, as well as any other attribute which may set an individual apart from what is considered “normal.” Here, I would like to draw attention to the differences between the performances of allistic and autistic people (vocabulary word of the day: allistic adj. an individual who is not autistic). 

Autistic people perform differently from allistic people on every stage for every audience, as the perceptions of stage and audience are different for autistic people from the perceptions of allistic people. The problem is not the perception of the autistic, but the ambivalence of the allistic and their inability to empathize and accommodate.

Too often, we are forced to perform on stages with lights that are too bright, audiences and theatres that are too loud, in uncomfortable costumes, performing lines too hard to pronounce and actions that are damaging, all for the benefit of the allistic directors and audience.

Allistic people, specifically the parents of autistic children, push the autistic into allistic roles. They force a performance that is at the expense of the autistic person’s wellbeing only for the benefit of allistic people too uncomfortable with the idea of having to actually make things better.

“(vocabulary word of the day: allistic adj. an individual who is not autistic).”

Autistic children are reprimanded, by means of verbal or physical abuse, for characteristics not assigned to the allistic character. Within the last year, an autistic boy, son of an NYPD officer, died of hypothermia when his parents left him in an unheated garage during subfreezing temperatures to sleep in. The abuse he experienced goes years back, with the parents calling him a “f---ing moron” and depriving him of basic necessities. For some autistic people, it is impossible to play an allistic role without failure, at which point the allistic have the audacity to once again punish them for their bad acting.

Some allistic people, however, succeed in molding their autistic children into the allistic character they want to be. As time goes on, however, and as we become more aware of the performers and their performances around us, we notice differences in acting methods. Sometimes, the actor breaks through, diverging from the set character to give it a unique life.

Growing up as a “high-functioning” autistic person (often referred to as having ASD because Asperger’s Syndrome is a more frowned upon term given Hans Asperger’s connections with eugenics and Nazi Germany) with a lesser-functioning twin, I was able to play my role as an allistic person better than her. To this day, she is often reprimanded for her traits; I am, too. I am reprimanded for talking too quickly or to myself, rocking back and forth, and picking at my skin among other actions. Perhaps if we were given better alternatives and outlets, years of chronic stress and self-loathing could have been avoided.

I do not like discussing autism in terms of “functionality,” as it is language allistic people use to judge how “well” an autistic person performs in society and in school (as if, God forbid, “low-functioning” autistic people cannot function and serve a purpose in an anti-neurodivergent society). I also find that calling an autistic person “high-functioning” belittles their experience with autism and makes the struggles and obstacles they still face less valid. However, I lack the language to talk about it in any other way.

The truth is, neither of us were told we have autism. Instead, we performed allistically as autistic people. We knew we were not neurotypical. We were painstakingly aware of the fact that we did not perform as neurotypical people no matter how hard we tried, no matter how well we fit into molds.

“We were painstakingly aware of the fact that we did not perform as neurotypical people no matter how hard we tried, no matter how well we fit into molds.”

I tell people I am on the spectrum and their first response is one of utter shock. “Wow, I had no idea! I could never tell!” I know. For years, I needed to rehearse sitting still, the equivalent of needles poked into flesh, or to stop rocking back and forth and flapping my hands when I eat or when I am excited or nervous. I did this out of the fear of being noticed as anything other than behaved and status quo, as being seen and treated as anything other than normal.

“Wow, I didn’t know!” Neither did I, though I had an inkling for years that I was neurodivergent, at the very least. Autism was not really on my radar. I felt maybe my twin had it. I did not feel comfortable bringing it up with anyone because I felt that, not knowing I had a diagnosis to begin with, self-diagnosing would get me into trouble. It was an extremely uncomfortable time, during which I found it harder to perform my role as an allistic person. I found myself stimming (stimming n. self-stimulating behavior) more than usual. I found myself overstimulated in situations no one else was bothered by. I found myself having meltdowns after receiving sensory overloads, as I had no other way to cope with them. I found myself unable to handle certain textures, noises, and visuals everyone else could.

I felt like a freak.

Whenever I made any of this known to anyone, whether visibly or vocally, they made sure to make me feel like a freak.

It worked.

I tried even harder to perform well. While everyone else got what they wanted out of me, I was never more miserable. For a variety of other reasons, this was an extremely difficult time in my life. I stopped eating properly, losing weight and becoming physically afraid of eating. I isolated myself from my friends, participated less in school (not to worry: my fear of failure kept my grades perfect), got into a terrible relationship, and scratched at my arms until they were raw and bleeding as a form of self-harm and a method of stimming.

It was at the age of nineteen that my mother finally dropped it on me during casual conversation (about getting a diagnosis for a chronic illness I have now been diagnosed with) that my twin and I were put on the spectrum as kids. She was quick to add that I “have always been more high-functioning” and that I “seem to be just fine now.”

What was this supposed to mean to me? That everything I have been scolded for my whole life are things that are normal and healthy for me to have and do? That everything I have been called a freak for is programmed into me? That the bad associations I made with how I behaved was all avoidable if it had just been handled properly?

When I began stimming again, I let it happen. I slowly got better, proving that “fine” to her meant “allistic.” As if she, my dad, my teachers, and my classmates had somehow succeeded in curing what cannot and should not be cured. My parents would bring it up. “Do you know you are [insert autistic trait]?” “Stop [insert autistic trait].”

"state theater 2" by JSmith Photo is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

Learning the allistic role from an autistic perspective is difficult, but watching other performances have taught me. It is my firm belief that observation and imitation is how autistic people learn to perform in an allistic society. Unlearning it and accepting this unlearning is difficult. Stimming and not instantly judging yourself or fearing judgement from others is difficult. Welcoming stimming back into my life has been a struggle because it signifies my shedding of a performance I have been forced into my whole life. One performance of many that did not fit me, like performing the female that wants to be a female, performing the high GPA-without-sweat student, or performing the happy, smart, normal person people are comfortable with.

Instead, I am here.

My relationship with gender is in limbo. I’m a student pushing themselves a little too hard. I’m a person with ups and downs. I’m a smart person with dumb, messy moments. I’m an autistic person determined to never sit still and never be normal.