The challenge of being clear about who you are as an autistic professional.

 

Well I’m very glad to have sorted this conundrum out over the last few days. 

I guess you could say my artist website has suffered from jet lag since my diagnosis of autism in March 2016. I processed my evolving identity as an autistic person through this blog, which has always felt more dynamic to be honest. My website is a little bit ‘best behaviour’ and Sunday dresses – which I guess is it’s function, to show me at the top of my game.

It has a showcase feel about it, whereas blogging is earthy and of the moment, but I’ve come to think that I really don’t need a dinosaur of parked features  which rebukes me from afar.  My blog has raced on, and at times got away with me, but it’s always been about nourishing identity.

It’s a wonderful thing then to have worked it out.

Part of the issue is with the website platform (clunky though familiar) but truly the professional dilemma has been that my work predated my diagnosis, and that I’m known for a specialism which ostensibly is not related to my autistic identity.

The issues have been twofold:

1. How to talk about autism within a unrelated context.
2. How to talk about autism without detracting from my topic area.

What this boiled down to was working out how to front load my identity without obscuring my specialist subject. Without achieving this balance I had begun to lack congruence and hence also the growing irrelevance of my website.

And so this half way house wouldn’t wash. Or certainly not for long. I had ended up feeling compromised by, and demoralised with my Sunday dress.

This process of enlightenment has been eased by gaining funding for my own professional development as an autistic artist  – I can’t overstate how incredibly affirming this has been. It’s opened up autism and access as a new and complementary  area of specialism within my practice, and armed me with the confidence I need to focus on becoming more congruent in my self presentation across platforms.

Not wanting to be pigeon holed and dismissed is a valid concern for any autistic, but being professionally out – I feel – is a state of mind no one can mess with. If I know who I am I can communicate this to others more easily.

Sure, there will be those who won’t get it – so be it. Maybe in time they will.

But I must own that this is a privilege. I can’t be sacked as a freelance, though I might lose opportunities and audiences.

SO, I risk becoming a specimen of a certain kind of patronising anthropological interest I’ve come to loathe. Humpf.

No matter.

There’s just no price tag on congruence

If you can be this thing, then I think it’s truly important to do it. There are many ways in which you can assert both an autistic identity and a professional status.

It’s a process and I’m not judging – but the more we do this and more we self-define the more powerful we become. Don’t wait for someone to pigeon hole you is what I say. Get there first and stick it to the wo/man &/or gender fluid person.

 

 

 

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