Anger and Compassion

As the parent to an autistic child, I sometimes find myself getting angry. So many autistic children are struggling at school, or out of the classroom all together. The Scottish education system talks about ‘getting it right for every child’ but, when it comes to autistic children, there is a huge gulf between rhetoric and reality.

This is only one example. In reading and writing about neurodivergence, I come across examples of injustice all the time. It sometimes feels as if anger is the only honest response, that if we don’t fight then nothing will change.

It’s not just me. In the autism space I see a lot of anger. Considering what has been done to autistic people, what is still being done, this makes sense. Autistic people face barriers in education and employment, have poor outcomes in both physical and mental health, live with stigma and misunderstanding and, on average, die much younger than the general population.

But I know that being chronically angry isn’t good for me, or for anyone. My body lets me know this. Even when I’m righteous, I can feel it’s not quite right. And so I’ve been wondering: how can we work for change without being angry all the time?

Autistic psychologist Dr Megan Anna Neff describes the anger she sees amongst the autistic community as getting stuck in ‘fight’ mode. After a lifetime of feeling unsafe in the world, with our nervous systems often stuck in survival states of ‘freeze’ or ‘fawn’, it’s no surprise that, in unmasking, there’s a tendency to flip into ‘fight’. But fight is still a survival strategy. And humans are not designed to stay in survival mode long term. To do so is to create a state of chronic stress and inflammation in the body that can lead to long term physical and mental health problems.

And it doesn’t always achieve the results we want. I have sometimes felt that, if I could only describe an injustice clearly enough, things would have to change. But it doesn’t seem to work like that. In fact, sometimes the opposite happens. Anger and blame on my part causes defensiveness in others and this can lead to division. In speaking my truth, everyone just gets more entrenched. Change becomes less, not more, likely.

I recently heard about a study that illustrated this. Autistic veterinarian and researcher Jodie Wilson, speaking as a guest on the Neurodivergent Woman podcast, described a qualitative study she recently conducted at La Trobe University in Australia that explored the experiences of autistic people accessing mental health services. Based in the overarching theme of ‘we don’t know what we don’t know’, it showed that poor outcomes are often based on mutual misunderstandings between autistic patients and the nonautistic professionals aiming to help them.

It’s easy to get angry on behalf of autistic people who seem to have been mistreated, Wilson said, but failures have an impact on all involved and are never intentional. She pointed out she never met a healthcare professional who wanted to fail at their job. According to this study, difficulty communicating across neurotype is a shared problem, requiring acts of translation on both sides. She hoped her research would act as a basis for facilitating better communication and better outcomes for autistic people trying to access services. Not knowing isn’t a problem, she said. It’s when you think your knowledge is complete that things go wrong.

Recently I have been exploring nondual teachings that state there’s no separation between the world ‘in here’ and the world ‘out there’. I can see my hands typing on the keyboard, hear the sound of a chair scraping on the wooden floor in the next room and distant traffic, but there’s nothing I can find that I can call ‘me’. I have found this very helpful. And very mindbending. If there never really is an ‘us’ and ‘them’ then what does it mean to be autistic? When I rest in nondual awareness, it’s clear there’s not really a split between me and you, or between autistic and nonautistic people, that we’re all in it together. This isn’t to deny any of the difficulty and trauma of living as an autistic person in this world. But it does ask the question: how do we hold on to the truth that things need to change, while simultaneously understanding that we’re not fighting against anything or anyone?

Such nondual teachings have their basis in the Buddhist concept of compassion, which clinical neuropsychologist Michelle Livock defines as ‘an active state of wisdom and kindness.’ She points out that compassion is, in fact, similar to the emotion of anger. Both are active. Both can clarify. Both set boundaries. Both can tell the truth. Many of us, she says, and women in particular, have been socialised to believe that we shouldn’t get angry. But the problem, she says, isn’t anger itself. Difficulties arise when, in feeling uncomfortable with anger, we suppress it. What we suppress gets stronger. When it comes out, it does so explosively, or sideways. At these times anger is neither wise nor kind.

Anger is not excluded from compassionate practice. But compassion comes from a different basis, one of safety rather than survival. It’s hard to be kind and wise unless you are already feeling safe. In comparison with a ‘fight’ energy, which is linked with trauma, compassion happens when our nervous systems are in a state of regulation. This depends on our physical and emotional needs being met.

You can’t fake this. I’ve learned that slowly and painfully as a parent over the past eight years. I can’t truly be helpful to my son unless my own nervous system is in a state of regulation. To parent well I need to feel safe. And as an autistic person it can be hard to feel safe in the world.

But at least the concept of compassionate practice shows me how I might create more safety. In a compassionate state we can work for change without blame, without creating harm or division. This doesn’t exclude anger. But it does assume everyone is doing the best they can. In this state we take account of the entire situation, ourselves and others, with the aim of reducing suffering over all.