Introduce yourself.
My name is Maeve, and I am 24 years old. I have lived in Sydney for my whole life. I am the least physical person ever, so going to Sky Sirens to do pole has been interesting – my body isn’t used to the activity! This is my first term, but I have followed the studio on Instagram for like four years. I love burlesque, and in 2017, Dita Von Teese was in town. My friend and I went, and decided that we should try burlesque. I looked into it and found Sky Sirens, but my friend didn’t have the time, and I was too chicken to try it alone!
I am enjoying Pole - Wednesday is an amazing teacher. My partner’s sister does aerials and pole elsewhere and I originally did pole with her to help me get comfortable. But I love that Sky Sirens has small class sizes. I feel like I have found a home here and I haven’t looked back! It’s a welcoming atmosphere, and no other studio I have been to has that vibe.
My goals are mostly to have fun, but I have been bitten by the Pole Bug. I want to be in diamonds one day. For now, I really want to polish my spinning climb. One day, I would love to climb to the top of the pole!
Tell us about your conditions.
I have been diagnosed with autism, depression, anxiety, IBS and vaginismus.
I’ve always known that I was different, and the other kids at school knew that too and bullied me for it. Autism was used as the punchline of a joke. If I talked about how much I love planes or horses, people would say “haha, you are so autistic”, and never “this might be an actual diagnosis, let’s look into it.”
In 2018, I was having lunch with my half-sister, and she said you might be autistic. I thought she was joking - but she was being serious. No one has ever said that before. I had an appt with my psych the next day, who I had been seeing since I was 11. I brought it up with her expecting her to laugh and say “you’re not autistic”, but instead she went quiet, looked at me and said, “....well”. She told me she could have diagnosed me when she first started seeing me but didn’t, because she didn’t think I needed the resources. It was a short-sighted decision by her.
As I really struggle going into public, I decided to get a service dog and train it as a puppy. I asked my psychologist for her support, and she told me that if I pursued this, people would be able to see my disability. Why is that such a bad thing?
After the initial conversation where she told me she could have diagnosed me with autism earlier, I moved to Korea on student exchange for a year. I pushed the conversation aside, and I didn’t deal with it. I read neuro-tribes – an interesting book about the history of autism – but this was the extent of my research.
When I got back to Australia and started dating my partner, he told me that he had been asking that question about himself too. My partner is legally blind, and because I am dating someone whose disability affects humoral immunity every day, I never knew so much about disability issues before we started dating. Early on, I said that I have mental illnesses, but didn’t want to co-opt the label disabled from someone who needed it more. He told me that it’s not a finite resource. If it is disabling, you are disabled.
This environment helped me explore autism more. The things I read about people socialised as women not being diagnosed with autism until adulthood felt gratifying.
It was like someone was looking inside of me. I am a perfectly good autistic person. Nothing has ever clicked in my life like that.
I went back to my psychologist and asked for a diagnosis, and was told that nobody does adult diagnoses, so I would have to go through ASPECT – which has no medicare rebate, and costs around $1600 for a diagnosis. We had an interview, they spoke to my partner, they rang my mum – and later I got an email like “congratulations, you are autistic!”. I cried. Self-diagnosis is a completely valid tool, but I knew I needed an official diagnosis to receive the accommodations I need for university. I also wanted someone to just confirm it. It was the most freeing experience. I am extremely lucky that my mum supports me. As I was “only” diagnosed with level 1 autism, I would have to try hard to prove that I need NDIS funding.
How does it impact your classes?
Dry hands is a sensory nightmare. I hate it! I hate microfibre towels normally but adding dry hands into the equation makes me want to rip out my eyeballs. I never say anything, because i don’t want to make people uncomfortable or have them judge me. The material of bike shorts, I hate. I’m good with loud music, I like it! So that aspect is fine. I struggle with proprioception - awareness of the body. My arms don’t do the things, my legs don’t do the things. I am very uncoordinated – but I’m sure it will get better with time. I pick up pole easier than I do choreography. I have to break it down into steps. All of the teachers have been really good with this!
What do you wish people knew about autism?
So many things! I want them to know that AFAB people are chronically under-diagnosed, and that people of colour really struggle to get diagnosed. The image they have of a little white boy or a grown-up white man is not representative of what autism is. We are just as diverse as the rest of the human population!
Be more understanding! If you see someone flapping their hands in the corner – is that affecting you? Is it hurting you? If a person can’t stand a certain texture, is that really affecting you? No. You don’t have to make fun of them. Empathy and understanding goes a long way.
Don’t say things like “you don’t look autistic!”. What does autism look like? Have an open mind and listen to me say what autism means to me, rather than coming to me with preconceived notions of what autism is.
I used to think ‘disabled’ was a dirty word – I was ignorant. When you are in the community, it is staggering how little the general public knows or cares about disability issues and disability. This is ridiculous – we walk past disabled people on the street all the time, and you can’t even tell. There's no excuse.