The Meaning of Uniqueness
by Chris Damon-Cronmiller
On June 19th, I arrived at Arsenal Park right on time. A couple of days beforehand, I had offered to help and volunteer at AANE’s 9th annual Summer Barbecue, which is an event that is greatly looked forward to by many. I was looking forward to this event a great deal. On the other hand, there was another part of me that was skeptical about how this whole event would turn out.
I was of course diagnosed with autism many, many years ago, and have had it for as long as I can recall. As a result, I am no stranger to autism and Asperger support groups, as I have been involved in a countless number of them over the course of my life. The support groups and meetings that I enrolled in were very helpful in my earlier years, as I was considerably more impaired than I am right now. I also really needed that extra push needed to make connections with others; particularly with others like myself. However, as I got older my impairments lessened greatly, and my experiences with support groups started to change. I was less and less able to relate to other kids in these support groups, and in group work, I found myself partaking in activities which practiced skills that I had long since mastered. I even felt some tension towards my other group members on occasion, due to my inability to properly relate to them. By the time I was 16, these groups had essentially become useless to me.
However, my experience at AANE gave me the chance to try something new. I figured that I must have matured enough over three years to relate to others with autism better, and that things would be different if I was actually helping out. I decided to keep an open mind going into the barbecue, which really paid off in the end.
After the barbecue ended, I realized that this event was incredibly unique. For instance, from my point of view, I may very well have been the youngest person there, so it was very interesting for me to interact with other adults (at 19, I view myself as sort of an adult but not really) who had ASD. Several of the people I met were quite interesting despite some of their quirks. Also, I was actually able to interact quite well with a few of the people there. I led, along with some of the other staff at AANE, a very successful wiffleball game, and some of the guests even invited me to play a short game of Frisbee with them. I will refrain from giving away too much information about these people for privacy’s sake. Anyways, the major thing that I believe I gained from the barbecue was a whole new meaning of what it means to be unique; a meaning that I found out I had forgotten over the years.
Since I had “lost the need” for support groups, I became obsessed with trying to be “normal.” In other words, I tried to fit in with the neurotypicals. My efforts have been more or less successful. I have made a lot of great neurotypical friends as of now, but I have found that I usually have to disclose my disability at some point, mostly to avoid coming off as just weird. So far I have not had any real problems so far; after all, it is a lot better to say that you are autistic and have come a fairly long way instead of letting people think you are just odd, at least in my opinion. During the barbeque, however, I actually found it nice to not have to disclose myself for once. Instead of being the most unique out of my usual group of friends, I was able to be with other people who were unique in the same way that I am. I could tell, I could really tell, that the people who attended the barbecue felt the same way as well. That is why events like this exist, not just to allow people with ASD to connect, but just to give them the opportunity to be around others that are like them (plus a few who are not- after all, almost no one with ASD is exactly alike). People with ASD, like me, are given the opportunity to bask in their own uniqueness for once; which as I learned, just means being a little different from the norm. After all, is there really anyone around who is completely normal?
July 22, 2010
Posted in: AS Community & Culture, AS News, Events, Testimonials
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