Ms Gillian Kearns:

I refer to the impact it had on me. I began masking when I was four years old, and it had a substantial and continuing impact on my mental health and ability to really know who I was, because I had been doing it for so long. Again, as Mr. Harris said, I cannot count the number of times I have heard that I do not look autistic. I should it get it tattooed.

In terms of accessing the health services, and this is true across most services for people with disabilities, our health services and disability services are set up for people to cope, not to thrive. There is no understanding that disabled people can thrive if given supports, and would happily do so, without having to fight for every single thing. Our lives are not inherently miserable, 24-7. Most of our difficulties come from trying to fight for every little thing.

I also work in homeless services. I am not going to give any more details on that because of confidentiality, but I have witnessed very obviously neurodivergent people accessing the services I work in multiple times. We tend to recognise our own. They are very obviously neurodivergent, but they have addiction problems and they have difficulties maintaining their day-to-day living expenses so they run into difficulties with renting. At no point in the screening is it even considered the underlying reason they are struggling so much, either self-medicating with alcohol or other substances, may be that they are undiagnosed neurodivergents. That is a really important thing that needs to happen because autistic people and other neurodivergent people are disproportionately represented within homeless services and within the Prison Service. Often if those people had an awareness of or knew what was going on, then the core issue could be addressed, rather than papering over the cracks. A really important point is that it should just be standard. If somebody presents with an eating difficulty, because unfortunately that is a very commonly occurring condition, with mental health difficulties or with addiction problems, that screening should happen, right across the board. The vast majority of people may not be, but at least we would have a better idea and people would get the support that would be beneficial, rather than spending years getting incorrect help or the wrong help completely for them.

With ADHD, for example, it is known that medications work differently on the brains of people with ADHD. It has to do with neurotransmitters and dopamine and all that. A person could be accessing support and getting a medication that is detrimental to their health because they do not know they have ADHD. I understand this meeting is about autism, but it is a similar situation. That was the other point that I wanted to make.