Date: 15/12/22
Autistic qualities such as differences in how we understand
what our body is feeling (interoception), our experience of
pain (hypo/ hyper sensitivity) and difficulties in noticing
and identifying how we feel (alexithymia)
Nurse practitioners and doctors may have a limited understanding of the unique and significant ways in which autism and its associated issues impact a patient’s experience of a given medical procedure. This means that the particular supports that might help to alleviate discomfort could be lacking.
We might encounter resistance to our own attempts to self-
regulate and take care of our sensory and emotional needs
during the appointment. We may even experience medical gas
lighting or invalidation when attempting to express our
experience or request much needed accommodations (
we know that this happens at higher rates amongst female
presenting people, people of colour and those with additional
learning disabilities in our community). For those of us with a
history of these types of experiences, just being in a medical
environment could feel threatening and unsafe.
* Autistic person with a particular set of qualities and traits, this is not a prediction of what others might encounter or an attempt to generalise my own experience to the broader community.
Date: 15/12/22