This week’s blog is a review of “Inside Our Autistic Minds”, a BBC documentary hosted by Chris Packham. This two part documentary aired in the UK on Tuesday 14^th and 21^st February and can be viewed here: BBC iPlayer – Inside Our Autistic Minds

Last week Matt and I sat down to watch the first episode of Inside Our Autistic Minds with some trepidation and a lot of hope. Trepidation because documentaries about autism can feel quite removed from the experiences of autistic people and their families, often coming across as patronising, but hope because this is a documentary made with and by autistic people. An hour later I was in tears and Matt was unable to speak for half an hour because it had struck so close to home. If you haven’t seen it I really urge you to give it a watch, especially if you are new to learning about autism. Below are my thoughts after watching both episodes.

Inside Our Autistic Minds sets out to let autistic people share their experiences of the world through the medium of short films, which they create with the support of the production team.  The first episode features the making and screening of the films of a comedian called Flo, who wants to share her true self with her mum, and a non-speaking young man called Murray who wants the world to know that those who are non-speaking still have plenty that they want to say. The program follows Chris Packham as he meets and gets to know Flo and Murray and culminates in the reactions of Flo and her mum and Murray and his family when they are shown the films.

I believe the power in this episode comes from the fact that the participants and Chris Packham are willing to be so open and vulnerable. When you hear Flo talk about the distress she felt when her husband went to a different supermarket to the one she was expecting or Murray’s stories of people believing he couldn’t think because he couldn’t communicate you can’t help but put yourself in their shoes and think how scary and frustrating that must be, even without the judgement of others on top.

For me Flo’s story of masking felt very close to what I experience with Matt, which I have written about in a previous blog post. Matt has spent a lot of our relationship masking, mostly without even realising it. When I spoke to him after we watched Flo’s film and asked if he feels I ever see him totally unmasked he said that he doesn’t think so. After close to 40 years when he didn’t have a diagnosis he says he finds it hard to really let the guard down, even with himself. For me, knowing that he still doesn’t completely unmask with me was hard. I wish he could feel free to do that, and I hope one day he will.

Murray’s story was further from our experience but what struck home here was how Murray was underestimated. In his case it is because he doesn’t speak, but I believe it is a common autistic experience to be judged on obvious difficulties rather than hidden talents. I really hope that this program has an effect on how society thinks about non-speaking people and about how they judge autistic people in general.

The second episode, featuring Anton and Ethan, gives even more insight into the autistic experience. Anton is a rapper who suffers with extreme sensitivity to noise, and his film gives his family, his classmates and the viewers the chance to experience a little bit of what that is like. Ethan survives by routine and when his routine is broken, even in the slightest, he experiences great distress. He has managed to hide this from many of his friends and very few people in his life know how severe his reaction is, until they see his film.

The strength of this series is in making it apparent that the things that non-autistic people may think of as choices and preferences by autistic people are in fact nothing of the sort. Rather they are deep seated needs, which if not met lead to great trauma for the individual. I was struck by the reactions of both Anton and Ethan’s mums. They had known their sons suffered but not how bad it was. They had similar reactions to one I have experienced with Matt – if I had only known I would never have made him go into that environment.

Thankfully, because I got to sit through Matt’s diagnostic appointments, I do know a lot more about his experience than I used to and I trust that whenever he tells me something is too much, even if I don’t understand why, then it is. I hope that watching these two programmes will help other people gain a greater understanding of the trials of being an autistic person in a neurotypical designed world and that it will allow more autistic people to explain their experience to those around them without fear of being judged.