Rusting and rotting

#031 All kinds of breaking down

The arm on my glasses has started to complain about bending. A bit like my hips at Sunday morning yoga, they are losing their flexibility. I put it down to swimming in the pool wearing them, but was still slightly surprised that they had rusted up so quickly. But hey, as people keep telling me, ‘This is the Caribbean’.

Then I found out that the swimming pool is filled with sea water. It’s great for the costumes, I was told- it means the elastic doesn’t lose its elasticity with the chlorine. But not so great for metal, I thought. So I’ve switched to wearing my old, slightly scratched emergency pair of specs, just to swim in. It means I’ll soon have two pairs of rusting up glasses, but hopefully extends the life of my main pair. If not, I’ll need to add specs to the list of ‘emergency supplies’ that I’m hoping visitors might be able to bring me. Otherwise you might find me wearing my prescription sunglasses to the office! (My visitor list so far is dark chocolate, decaf tea bags, and a selection of bags- all to be individually sealed and vacuum packed until they are required!)

I’ve been in the Caribbean for almost seven weeks now and boy, my things are aging fast! My work bag and my laptop case both have the colour peeling off the handles. My Chilly’s water bottle has a small orange mark where the base joins the body- foreshadowing its rusty fate. I have seen some speckle marks on my leather shoes, and I was asked to get the car washed as I’m living so close to the sea, to save the new paint from getting stripped away. I’ve been warned that my clothes will rot from the salty air!

So my morning swim gave me time to ponder the beauty as well as the harshness of the conditions here. It is apparent that different kind of self care is required. Not the fluffy, prettifying care we see advertised in glossy magazines; the facials, the nails, the fox face lifts (which I had no idea were even a thing until being educated through this series of MASFUK!) but the protective, preventative, oxygen-mask survival type of self care. Without it, things simply fall apart, and fast.

This week I’m turning political

Alongside the rot, there are also the beautiful beginnings of roots and shoots of routine here on the island. Whilst some of the population reserves Sunday for church, worship, and rest, for me, Sunday has brought beach yoga on Governor's Beach. There is a big carpark beside the beach making it really accessible, and a short walk in the other direction brings the pleasures of a chai latte treat after yoga. Last Sunday I’d had the foresight to wear my swimming costume, so I added the pleasure of a post-yoga sea swim to the mix. It was still churned up from the after effects of the brutal storm, but was warm as a bath.

Whilst my friend and I were drying beside our yoga mats, a white picket gate clicked open and shut behind us. A man walked onto the beach, clad in long trunks. My friend, fast as lightning, started grilling him. She was more polite than this, but essentially asked-

Who are you, and what are you doing here?

Her Sunday brain, unlike mine, realised the significance of our location. Governor’s Beach is not a random name for this beautiful stretch of Seven Mile Beach, but because it is the beach front to the Governor’s house. The white picket fence is surrounded by security cameras, and borders the hidden-in-plain-sight residence of the Governor.

For those of you unfamiliar with Cayman politics and structure, the country is a self-governing British overseas territory. This means there is a system similar to the UK, where Cayman Islanders vote in a Prime Minister who, along with the politicians, is responsible for laws. They also have a Head of State, or Governor who acts as the representative of the King. This is Jane Owen, and she has the responsibility for defence external affairs and internal security and power to withhold royal assent from parliament.

The click of the gate therefore announced a VIP visitor. Courtesy of my friend, we discovered that he was on island for the purposes of internal security. A member of the House of Lords, his name would well fit a character in an old RAF movie, or an Agatha Christie novel. You can look up who he is and why he was there if you are curious! With only one hour before his flight to the USA he was very personable, and generous in pausing to talk to us, especially considering we were eating into his precious sea swim time.

My friend took his email address for future correspondence, whilst I voiced my curiosity about what it was like in the House of Lords. Having worked as a Member of Parliament for eight years, he was able to reflect on his experience of both. The main difference, he said, is that the House of Lords is more civilised, and people only talk about areas in which they have expertise. He was calm, composed, and humble, and expressed wonder at the privilege in the station he had acquired. He made a self-deprecating joke about barely speaking in the House now. I smiled, but I have no doubt that this man knows what he knows, and when he has something to say, people stop and listen.

‘Most people go into politics with good intentions, or the right reasons’. He said.

I believed him, but held back the question fighting to escape my lips,

‘Even Boris?’

I’m glad that my lips won out. Wikipedia later confirmed that the visitor served as a minister under Boris Johnson’s charge (which I suspected), and received his peerage in the Dissolution honours of 2019 (not the controversial resignation honours list).

At the time (but after he left us for his swim) my friend and I reflected on the grandeur of his title, and wondered how the choice of location assigned to a peerage was made. We were very soon distracted by the dark cloud that appeared over the sea, with the ominous water spout connecting the two. I was glad to be on dry land, and not one of the paddle boarders braving the sea. It did not last long and the tail became more and more wispy before disappearing completely, as if it had never been there at all.

Picture taken from the front of the Governor’s house, with waterspout still just visible

Identity politics

Being overseas, I get glimmers of UK political happenings rather than full stories. Soon after this encounter with a British peer and past minister, Substack brought an article into my feed which was about autism in the political arena. As a clinical psychologist working with children and adults with autistic spectrum conditions, it grabbed my attention.

I lost the original Note that took me there, so can’t quote my original source, but the article detailing the situation and intelligently responding to it was by author

Katherine May

. It seems that in the flexing of muscles in the Conservative leadership contest a pamphlet has been produced by hopeful, Kemi Badenoch, called ‘Conservatism in Crisis’. From my reading it rides on the back of criticisms of identity politics to promote a position that Badenoch hopes to get the conservative party ‘back on track’, and presumably herself into power. In it she casts identity politics as an agent of power- ‘either destabilising the social order and tearing apart society or, through civic nationalism, stabilising the social order and providing the basis for a common political debate’. She makes the point that society is having to make accommodations for the individual in ways that they never had before, which she seems to be suggesting is contributing to the destabilisation of society. People with autism are an unfortunate target of her attention, with reference to the special treatment they get, such as paid transport to school.

Katherine’s response highlights what it is like growing up autistic. She outlines the challenges of being a girl with autism when the condition was much less recognised, or even considered possible for women and girls. Her piece is powerful, and an important piece in the picture (but I would add that she is writing from the position of what it was like for her growing up with autism, not what it is like for all people).

It is understandable that we disproportionately hear from autistic people with the greater verbal and intellectual skills. The voices of people who will never read, nor even hear of Badenoch and her pamphlet due to difficulties associated with their autism need people to speak up on their behalf. I therefore also appreciated reading the responses to Badenoch from John Harris, Guardian Journalist, and Mel Merritt from the National Autistic Society (both of which Katherine links in her piece). As in the House of Lords, all of these people are speaking because they know what they are talking about.

One has autism.

One has a child with autism.

One heads up the policy and campaigns of the biggest and most respected charity for autistic people in the UK (See here for more on what the NAS do).

They all may be destabilising the social order but they are certainly not tearing apart society, as Badenoch’s binary choices infer. All are working for the same goal of raising awareness and bettering the lives of people with autism, with inclusion and wellbeing as a goal.

What even is autism?

I imagine Badenoch has been reading a lot about on autism this week. I hope her editor is frantically adding to the book they planned to publish on the heels of the pamphlet. She won’t read it, but there’s no harm in me adding my tuppence to the mix!

Whilst the characteristics leading to a diagnosis of autism are set out in diagnostic manuals (DSM-V, ICD-11), autism is not the same for everyone.

A diagnosis requires evidence of:

social interaction and communication differences, repetitive and restrictive patterns of behaviours, and impairment in social occupational and other areas of functioning

Whether we consider ourselves to be neurotypical or neurodivergent, there is undoubtedly something about autism that most people can relate to, but it’s because we’re all human, not because we’re all ‘a bit autistic’. For example, someone might have difficulties in social communication, or exhibit restrictive behaviour, without being autistic- they might struggle with these things because they’re anxious (which Badenoch also mistakenly identifies as neurodivergence).

I like the idea that the autistic spectrum can be understood like the image in a kaleidoscope. The different colours represent different strengths and skills, and each person has an individual profile of skills associated with the condition. Each autistic person has their own twist of the kaleidoscope, and their individual image brings unique challenges and strengths that impact on their personality and functioning in the world. It is important to value the kaleidoscopic individual beyond the label, and figure out what accommodations and support each person needs to thrive. Does this have to destabilise society?

Diagram produced by CAMHS professionals

Mel Merritt, at the National Autistic Society gives a clear response-

"Kemi Badenoch’s comments and the statements in the ‘Conservatism in Crisis’ document are not only offensive to autistic people but detached from reality and demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of autism and disability.

"Politicians need to stop looking to the autistic community as a political football and instead recognise the difficulties and challenges that so many autistic people face in their daily lives. They need to engage in good faith to make a positive impact rather than dismissing their needs. Our charity would be happy to provide factual and evidence-based information about autism through one of our excellent autism awareness training sessions.

"Autistic people and their families face huge delays and long fights to get support across all aspects of their lives, including diagnosis, health, education and social care. It is greatly concerning that in 2024, elected politicians still don’t understand that autism is not a mental health condition and to say that ‘anxiety’ is a neurodivergent condition, is completely incorrect.

"Being autistic doesn’t offer economic advantages and protections, only three in 10 autistic people are in any form of employment, the lowest of any disability. Reasonable adjustments are in no way an immediate pathway into economic privilege, but a legal right to make sure autistic people can participate in work, education and live a dignified life.

"To say children with a diagnosis of a neurodivergent condition, like autism, ‘may well get better treatment or equipment at school’ and ‘even transport to school’ is to misinterpret legal protections and adjustments that give young people access to the education they need and should be entitled to. Parents of autistic children have to fight too hard and too long for support; often having to pay for expensive legal battles, that overwhelming find in favour of families."

Mel Merritt, Head of Policy and Campaigns in National Autistic Society

In my experience children with autism are typically getting funded transport to schools far away from home because those local to them cannot meet their needs. What must it be like to be a nonverbal autistic child to travel a long journey in a car with a stranger who may not know how to communicate with them, or help them feel safe? Autistic children with special equipment like picture exchange communication systems (PECS) have them because of difficulties communicating with spoken words.

Many children with autism have to be home educated because no schools can meet their needs. Parents give up careers to become home educators and full time carers, but there is no mention in Badenoch’s pamphlet of the economic and psychological costs to families and society. My experience is that parents say their voices are often side-lined, or that they have been silenced by years of fighting and exhaustion. Are ‘special accommodations’ really something a parent would fight for if there were better alternatives? Let us not forget that it is not so long ago that people with significant intellectual disabilities and autism lived institutions and families were told it was the best thing for them. The accommodations we make are like life-bringing oxygen-masks for autistic people, not fancy pedicures of self-care, as Badenoch’s pamphlet implies.

‘the socialisation of mental health so everyone has to treat you differently has failed to improve people’s mental health outcomes’ Badenoch (2024)

I have worked alongside Adult Social Care and Children’s Services, and heard senior managers in both expressing concern that costs threaten to bankrupt the Local Authority. They were not being dramatic. The cost of good care and accommodations are undeniably high and outcomes are important.

I saw the huge costs to the individual, to families, to the reputation of services, and to the public purse when ‘we’ don’t get it right. There are far too many examples of failures in services for people with autism, and it is with this in mind that I scanned the rest of Badenoch’s document, to see what solutions she is suggesting.

‘what all Conservatives agree we want - growth, social cohesion, better public services and sustainably lower taxes. The solutions will flow from an understanding of the problems.’

I can buy into greater understanding of the problems and hope there will be helpful lessons for Badenoch in the responses to her pamphlet.

Resistance training

This week I added resistance to my morning swim, running one way, turning around and running the other. It gives my legs a different challenge, a gentle alternative to running on the unlit streets, highlighting that our challenges are often a result of the resistance we create for ourselves. In our efforts to push hard in one direction, it gets harder to turn and go another way. My pool resistance is helpful to my wellbeing; the resistance of our thoughts and ideas is perhaps less so. Before Badenoch publishes the book that expands on her pamphlet, I hope she takes up the invitation of a conversation with the National Autistic Society. I imagine they share a vision of the socially cohesive nation she writes of.

Things turn on a sixpence here in the Caribbean and it isn’t all easy, but I’m learning to roll with it!

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