All human beings are equal

LYLE LEXIER

My name is Lyle Lexier. I’m 51 years old. I am proud to be Jewish and a supporter of Israel. I love foreign languages and I taught myself fluent Hebrew. I studied French throughout high school and I studied Spanish and German at college. I have a degree in computer science. I live independently in Vancouver. I have a wonderful, warm-hearted, intelligent, very attractive Jewish lady-friend who I met at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver who I really love. I have autism. And I am going to tell you about my experience with being a person with autism. The autism isn’t me, it is just a label.

I am also going to share a bit about ableism, which is a term used to describe the discrimination of someone with a disability, e.g. autism or another developmental disability. It is unfortunate that, even nowadays, bigotry is still completely acceptable when dealing with people with autism or other developmental disabilities.

I prefer to use the term “diverse ability” to refer to people with disabilities, who can have abilities and talents like everyone else or better. Some of these talented people can be musical savants, mathematical savants, language savants, etc. Although some people with autism have savant qualities, most people with autism do not have savant qualities. Many strive to live a normal life as a neurotypical person would. Autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning that there are different degrees of autism, from mild autism, also called Asperger’s, to severe autism. Someone with severe autism has a very difficult time with living a normal life.

I am a person with Asperger’s (a mild form of autism), also known as a high-functioning autistic. People with autism can have different interests, even if they both have the same degree of autism, e.g. one man with autism might be obsessed with trains while another man with autism might be fascinated by bus schedules and weather. With autism, many people have obsessions with their favorite topics.

The challenges I face as a man with autism are: I lack ability to make close friends, I am not able to read facial expressions or body language, I can’t recognize faces unless I stare at a face many times or by seeing them over and over again, and I may appear rude, insensitive, shy, selfish, inconsiderate, piggish, etc. Sometimes I might misunderstand what a person’s real intentions are and I might be too trusting with people with bad intentions, because it is hard for me to read people – I take everyone at face value. It is easy for people to take advantage of me and I have also experienced bullying at school because of my autism.

Some ways that I have learned to cope with being a person with autism are: to learn patience in letting other people get to know me and not judge me, doing relaxation exercises such as yoga and prayer, getting more involved in my special interests such as learning foreign languages, learning about dinosaurs, playing music on the piano or guitar, watching sports (e.g. Vancouver Canucks/B.C. Lions), etc. Also, one of my coping strategies is to educate people about autism and other disabilities.

Some advice that I can offer people to educate them about autism is: not everyone with autism is the same. Some misconceptions are that people with autism don’t like to socialize, don’t make eye contact, don’t want friends, don’t want to be touched, which is true in a lot of cases, but not for everyone. There are different types of autism and varying degrees of autism. People with autism have different personalities and varying interests. The only suffering that I undergo is when others perceive and treat me in an inferior way. What I really want people to understand is that just because a person has autism, this does not mean that they are violent, dangerous, mean, stupid, weird, like a child, etc. I don’t want to be called a “retard” or “stupid.”

I want to live in a world where all human beings are equal. We aren’t that different. We all want the same things that neurotypical people want, e.g. a girlfriend, our own apartment, a job, independence and friendships. Next time you meet a person with any disability, remember to treat them with respect and dignity.

Lyle Lexier lives in Vancouver. October is Canadian Autism Awareness Month. Versions of this article have been published previously by the Developmental Disabilities Association, B.C. Association for Community Living and PLAN.

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