Picture this situation: you’re leaving the hospital after a checkup for some simple blood work. You fasted the day before and now you’re ready to head home, put your feet up, and have a lovely steak dinner. You earned it for having an amazing appointment, after all. As you’re exiting the hospital, you see someone who’s extremely upset. They’re throwing items all over the place, screaming uncontrollably, and they’re covering their ears. A crowd is summoned to watch this spectacle and doctors rush in, preparing to subdue this upset person.
As a medical expert, you know that this person has severe Autism spectrum disorder and he’s being over stimulated. You rush over to the scene and you calm this person down. After the chaos ensues and the meltdowns are done, you pat yourself on the back, knowing that you did an amazing thing just now. You saved someone with Autism from a lifetime of institutionalization. You helped this person have a chance of living life to their full potential. Unfortunately, Autism is still widely misunderstood by the medical community. So acts like this are incredibly rare.
Autism is an extremely complicated disorder, as it has a wide range, called the spectrum. For people like me, there’s the high-functioning side of Autism, where we’re just a little bit awkward in social situations and take certain things literally. For the lower end folks, they can’t walk, talk, or maintain themselves, and have to be taken care of for the rest of their lives. What’s worse is that the first solution for medical personnel on both ends of the spectrum, no matter the severity, is medication. The medication can make the symptoms of Autism worse and then that leads to institutionalization.
So how can medical personnel better approach Autism? The first step would be to provide free healthcare to all people with disabilities, including Autism. Medical bills are extremely expensive these days and it can be even harder to pay for when you have Autism or other disabilities. Also, no one wants to pay for a Lamborghini and a mansion when they want to get a checkup. Providing free healthcare to people with disabilities without any hoops to jump through would make life a whole lot easier for people like me, physically, mentally, and financially. Medicaid can help, but unfortunately you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get that as well. So, with politicians making millions of dollars a year, why not make them pay for healthcare to help all people function as human beings?
We also need to do a better job at researching Autism once we’re in the medical field and during medical school classes. While research has come a long way since the 1940s and we have a better understanding of Autism then we did back then, there’s still work that needs to be done. With today’s technology, we can better understand how an Autistic person’s mind works and why those with more severe Autism might have meltdowns or feel overstimulated at times when they’re in a public place. There might be some work involved, I acknowledge. But doing the work for an amazing cause will be worth it.
Autism is a complicated disorder, especially in the medical sense. But if we work together, we can help doctors and the medical world to better understand the Autism spectrum and better help the neurodivergent community at large. So when you have that steak dinner after the checkup, raise a glass of your favorite beverage to the medical community. But also raise a glass to the Autism community.
Kadin is a college student, writer, and activist who is on a mission to help people better understand Autism. Throughout his life, he was told he wouldn’t be successful because he was on the spectrum. But time and time again, he proved the naysayers wrong. His goal in life is to inspire people with his story and help bring attention to Autism in the world.
