Challenging Mental Health Awareness Week for Autistic People
Mental Health Awareness Week leaves Autistic people feeling unheard and ignored. Despite years of advocating for better mental health support, Autistic individuals still face systemic barriers. This week should be more than just raising awareness – it's time to demand systemic change and meaningful
This week is Mental Health Awareness Week. It's a week when we where our scars visibly and talk about the things that make us struggle. The problem is that it leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth. Autistic people have been speaking up about their suffering for many years. Despite this, we are consistently ignored and held out of mental health support systems.
This has been evident in services like Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), but it also happens in adult services. So, in this sense, "awareness" feels like a slap in the face. Much as April has been hijacked by those who purport to be neurodiversity affirming while doing harm, Mental Health Awareness Week has become a week where Autistic people are relegated to the sidelines.
What do we need from Mental Health Awareness Week?
Lets start by considering Autistic children. CAMHS as a service have failed them miserably. My own experience was awful, and in the almost two decades since, nothing has improved. Autistic people are literally dying due to lack of support, but nothing has changed. As of 2023, 190 Autistic children were in an inpatient unit, with 1,290 Autistic adults also in carcerative care. Inpatient care, in my opinion, has become necessary because of failure's to address social inequality and a lack of support for individuals within their community.
Mental Health Awareness Week needs to be more than simply talking about our mental health as Autistic people. It requires us to protest, to stand up and force ourselves to be heard. We need to challenge a system that will happily lock us away or ignore us until we die. Awareness simply does not achieve what we need. We need systemic change and meaningful support. Only then will Autistic people have a chance at living happier and more fulfilled lives.
The irony of awareness for Autistic people
I am stared down by the irony that Autistic people, most of whom have some diagnosable mental health condition, are once again left to fight for basic support. It's not enough that we live in a neuronormative society, experiencing extensive amounts of minority stress and discrimination, we also have to force systems to change. Systems that we did not design, that we have said for decades are broken. We have carried the weight of a system that should be the responsibility of those in power. Unfortunately, like all minority groups, if we want change we have to burn ourselves out to achieve it. Those in power simply do not care.
Mental Health Awareness Week should build a better world
