Is my environment making me sick?
As I write this I sit in my ground floor in Deptford, London. I grew up in this area and every street, crevice and cobbled alleys holds pieces of hazy memories from my youth. You see I was made in Deptford and now I feel as if the place that defined who I am is dying piece by piece, with each new edgy coffee shop and hairdresser my old stomping ground ceases to be.
I think where we are from, where we have been raised serves as a placeholder for our identity . You may be thinking what does this have to do with you being autistic? The truth is it has a lot to do with it. You see I seek and enjoy routine, comfort because it soothes my nervous system. I always yearn for the feeling of sameness. Not everybody experiences this but for me this aspect of uniformity grounds me. In a world that is forever changing and unfamiliar for me, I long for that gooey feeling of stability and certainty.
How gentrification is not just displacing communities but harming neurodivergent people
However I have noticed over the last few years something is happening to me, ever since I stopped subconsciously masking I was suddenly hit with a steady stream of intense feelings that I have never allowed myself the privilege to feel.
All of the noise, lights, smells that I used to painstakingly filter out started to hit me all at once.
In fact it hit me in such a fashion that the first time I experienced it I nosedived into my bed, I allowed myself to be engulfed by the darkness of my blanket, I shut my eyes and I felt like I did not know how to breathe. Can you imagine being so overwhelmed that you struggle to breathe in and out?
I couldn’t figure out if my environment was becoming louder, more polluted, more congested or if it was me allowing myself to feel what I had always omitted from my experience.
Then it dawned on me, how come we never talk about the impact living in a bustling city has on all of us, not just neurodivergent people?
We speak of reasonable adjustments for the office, the working environment but we never think about the impact of gentrification, the impact of constant building, the idea of feeling squeezed for space and how that impacts on our mental health. We talk about what we can do to feel better, but what if it is not us, it is where we are living? How then do we address it from a space of disability, environmental and social justice?
We can apply as many strategies to reduce stress, overwhelm and anxiety but if our environment is changing, if the place we call home no longer accommodates us how do we reconcile, especially when a place holds such a central place in our hearts?
