Did you know that this week was Autism Awareness Day? It falls every year on April 2nd. Let me quickly google it.
Here’s what Wikipedia tells us about it:
World Autism Awareness Day is an internationally recognised day annually on 2 April, encouraging Member States of the United Nations to take measures to raise awareness about autistic individuals throughout the world.
On the neurodivergent side, it is estimated that 50% to 70% of people with autism also meet the criteria for ADHD. So, perhaps being late for Autism Awareness Day is the perfect illustration of that.
Here’s a little selection of neurodivergent-related pearls to support autism awareness, not just for a day but forever.
Autism Awareness and the Shadow of Phaedrus
So, you may be wondering: Is there any character with autism in Phaedrus?
The answer is yes. Now, if I were listening to my evil inner voice, I would leave it at that and be done with the article. However, I have a hot cup of tea and I am waiting for my cheeseburger pizza to be delivered, so to put it simply, I am in a good mood. Good enough to share with you a slightly more extended version of my response.
Diversity and inclusiveness was always a core aspect of writing. A lot of characters are neurodivergent-coded. When we say coded, we mean that they carry traits that are highly recognisable for the neurodivergent community. It happened naturally. Sometimes, you just write about characters that make you feel at home, and the ones who do that for us are neurodivergent. They may not nail the textbook autism awareness criteria, but they do nail the unspoken truths of a neurodivergent mind.
However, they also live in a completely different environment and society from ours, and more importantly, in a world where rules have been created by a specific individual to support a specific purpose. I will not say more about this, but this purpose was never the creation of a society designed to meet neurotypical needs only. As a result, their experience of day-to-day life isn’t quite the same as the one of the neurodivergent community as we know it.
We have given Rhode the ability to observe her surroundings, identify patterns that people don’t see, and learn from those. This is one of the reasons why, as an Earthling, she’s been able to create her own magic.
She can also copy the behaviours of people around her to fit into a new situation, assuming there are people to imitate. Otherwise, she doesn’t really know how to behave and often acts uncertain and awkward in social situations.
She is also very aware of how she might come off to people, which is something a lot of late-diagnosed and not-yet-diagnosed people with autism will be familiar with. So, she doesn’t say much, but we do get some glimpses of her thinking process here and there.
She has poor spatial awareness and coordination… We feel that autism awareness needs to be a little more than addressing social awkwardness, and unfortunately clumsy is a word frequently used to describe people with autism. I would love to say that it is unfair, but I’m “clumsy AF and will throw a dart backwards even though the target is in front of me” team.
She isn’t comfortable trying new food and prefers to stick to safe flavours.
She gets travel sick. It is a frequent issue for a lot of people with autism as a result of the hypersensitivity and the way the brain processes motion. This doesn’t affect everyone, and having travel sickness is not a sign of being neurodivergent. But for the reasons above, it can be more common among some autistic individuals. As the body can struggle to self-regulate, when you get travel sick, it can last for a very long time.
She has one strong interest, though, which is vengeance, and it is the only thing she truly cares about. In fact, she defines practically everything she does in terms of how it can help her get her revenge. If it doesn’t fit with her vengeance-driven view of the world, she doesn’t even stop to try and understand it. This is also aggravated by her black and white view of the world… and we will see later in the book how much it affects her.
Finally, while she doesn’t have the kind of meltdowns that a lot of people may be expecting, she tends to shutdown instead.
Did we start with the intention to write an autism-coded character? Absolutely not. Rhode develops this way because she made sense to us this way. We only realised much later that she was on the neurodivergent side of life.
Autism Awareness: What Do We Need to Know?
Is The Dead Shadow going to change the general worldview on autism?
Well, that would be fantastic, but let’s be realistic; it is unlikely. This isn’t even the purpose of the point.
As explained, we wrote a story about characters that felt like home to us because they were related, because we knew exactly what was going on in their minds, because we could feel their frustration and despair. Every writer would tell you the same thing. You write about what you know best and what you feel best. Our best happens to be this. So, while it is not life-changing, it is certainly life-showing. And perhaps, in the end, autism awareness is as much about supporting as understanding others. What better way to help you understand than by showing you?
Of course, this is a spectrum. But autism awareness is precisely about exploring the spectrum. For a start, let’s not call it spectrum. It is a multidimensional constellation, not just a mere line where those who are only a little bit autistic would be on one end and those who are extremely autistic on the other.
Anyway, as complex as the constellation is, I’d like to think that autism awareness is about recognising that The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Remains of the Day, and many others can coexist and all be a relatable glimpse into autism. The Dead Shadow is merely casting a light onto another part of the constellation.
I hope in the end that when you get to meet Rhode, you’ll welcome her with open arms. I hope she can help add a new layer to your autism awareness, too.