One of the many emails in my inbox at work is about a webinar titled Inclusive Investments: Bank of America’s Neurodiversity Success. It is difficult to read this without also imagining my soul leaving my body. Perhaps this is an overreaction, but I am a bit obsessed about words. I am also autistic.
In her book Autism Is Not A Disease, which I quoted from in a previous article for West England Bylines, Jodie Hare writes that “we must resist the co-optation of the term ‘neurodiversity’… Language is a tool through which we can create our world and control what it is like to exist within it as a neurodivergent person.”
A paradigm shift is required. Widespread, accurate understanding of the term neurodiversity, and its implications for neurodivergent individuals, is a world away from the traditional perception of humans as uniform components of productivity. You could say that it is at the other end of the spectrum, except of course we all know that spectrums are not linear – well, not the autism one, anyway.
It doesn’t go from ‘mild’ to ‘severe’ or ‘low’ to ‘high’. In her YouTube video titled High or low functioning autism? Why functioning labels hurt us, Samantha Stein (aka Yo Samdy Sam) says that “when you call somebody like me ‘high functioning’, what it sounds like to us is that you don’t see our struggles, therefore they don’t exist.”
The value of a diagnosis
Being a productive member of society, or ‘going to work’ as it is usually known, is undoubtedly the hardest part of my life. I was diagnosed as autistic just over a year ago, aged 41, and I was diagnosed with ADHD a few months later. Until then, I not only felt like a deficient worker but a deficient human being. I used to think that the difficulty I had with focussing on a necessary yet dull task was ultimately down to a lack of willpower. Finding out that my brain is ‘wired’ in such a way that it makes endless random connections to the point of distraction has been a revelation to me.
Jean Ward is a 72-year-old retired teacher. Speaking toThe Guardian about being diagnosed with ADHD last year, she said: “There’s an empowerment that comes with diagnosis… and confidence. Maybe I’m not as awful as I thought I was.” This speaks for me too. However, while finally having the knowledge that I am autistic with ADHD (I am an AuDHDer) is a massive relief, it does not change the fact that my brain is always pulling in at least two different directions. To simplify: I crave the peace of routine due to my autism, and I crave the excitement of novelty with my ADHD.
With this in mind (literally), it makes absolute sense for me to invest so much time and energy in a YouTube channel, which is called Autistic Not Alien. Over the past 14 months, I have made 36 videos (40 if you include the livestreams), and I have accrued 28,000 views in total. To put that into perspective, the highlights of the recent Liverpool-Man Utd match had 165,000 views within 16 minutes of them being uploaded.
The threshold for being a paid ‘content creator’ on YouTube is 4,000 watch hours, and I am currently at just over 2,000. But this is missing the point. While I can dream about earning a living by making fun videos, I am already enjoying the reality of being part of an online autism community. As the autism saying goes, I like being alone, but I don’t like feeling alone.
Using my voice
Making YouTube videos is a way to connect with other people, which helps me to deal with the anxiety and depression I constantly feel in a world not designed for me. I have responded to hundreds of comments about my videos from autistic people around the world, and I have felt validated and supported by other autism YouTube channels such as Adult with Autism, Autistic Jenny, Creative Autistic, and Proudly Autistic.
The so-called ‘mother of neurodiversity’, Judy Singer, has said that “as a word, ‘neurodiversity’ describes the whole of humanity. But the neurodiversity movement is a political movement for people who want their human rights.”
My YouTube videos are daft, but they are also seriously political. By amplifying my AuDHD voice, I am trying to challenge the perception that neurodivergent people are somehow ‘lesser’ than neurotypical people. By changing the narrative, we can change the world to make it a place in which neurodivergent people thrive and don’t just survive.
Neil Laurenson can also be found on Twitter/X @NeilLaurenson, on Bluesky @neillaurenson.bsky.social, and at www.neillaurenson.co.uk.
Autistic YouTubers to follow:
Neil Laurenson – Autistic Not Alien: https://www.youtube.com/@Autistic_Not_Alien
Adult with Autism: https://www.youtube.com/@AdultwithAutism
Autistic Jenny: https://www.youtube.com/@autisticjenny
Creative Autistic: https://www.youtube.com/@CreativeAutistic
Proudly Autistic: https://www.youtube.com/@ProudlyAutistic
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