Mindfull

Mental health is probably the most misunderstood and tragic topic mentioned in the media and in reality. Most movies that include characters with mental health issue, often don’t do a good job of depicting real life characters. Although I have seen quite a few movies that talk about mental health, I have not seen many that talk about autism or even display autistic actors. This is hurtful due to the fact that I am autistic myself. Some of the movies that have featured autistic actors are  Rain Man and Forrest Gump; unfortunately, I was compared to these actors during my middle school years. Thankfully, this changed in high school and I was no longer compared to them because my classmates believed that I was smart; while, Raymond and Forrest were either dumb or too severe in the spectrum. This is not true because Rain Man was based on a real-life severely autistic boy, but the story had to be altered for dramatic reasons. Because there is still some kind of stigma towards autism, Raymond and Forrest are labelled as “real autistic” people. Although I no longer get compared to them, many people still do not know what autism is. When speaking about it, most people bring up the movies I said earlier or Molly and Rudy. The minute I tell people that I’m on the spectrum as a mild case, some people say, “But you don’t look autistic” or “Why don’t you behave like Forrest or Raymond?” But luckily, there are shows like The Good Doctor and Elementary to display what autism really is, and this makes me feel a bit better. Although there are a few shows that accurately depict it,  I’ll probably always struggle with having to deal with people that are ignorant or hateful of autism. This being said, i’ll always have the memories of being labeled as a middle-school outcast for being autistic among a number of other reasons.