RUNNING AND AUTISM
Novelist Chris Carse Wilson explores how running helps him and other autistic runners manage challenges such as extreme social anxiety and sensory sensitivity, and how the running world can do more to welcome neurodiversity
IMAGINE THE BIGGEST RUNNING EVENT YOU’VE EVER TAKEN PART IN,
perhaps with tens of thousands of other runners queueing at the start, nervously shuffling, trying to warm up in a dense crowd, knowing you’ll not even see the start line for the next half-hour or more. Think of those glorious aerial images of the Great North Run or the London Marathon, with 50,000 or 60,000 runners of all ages and abilities readying themselves for the gun. Now multiply that image over and over again and think about what 700,000 people would look like – it would be close to stretching all the way from Newcastle to South Shields, packed shoulder-to-shoulder along that iconic half marathon route.
It’s a huge number of people, and unthinkable for managing a race, but the National Autistic Society estimates there are around 700,000 autistic people in the UK. More than 1% of the population is autistic. Every day, we struggle to varying degrees and in different ways, with communication, social interactions, repetitive behaviours, overwhelming sensory sensitivity and extreme anxiety at any change or disruption to our carefully planned routines.
But what’s still poorly understood is how massively one autistic person’s experience can differ from another. The old stereotype is of a condition that only affects boys, ignoring all the autistic girls and women – and the simple fact that autistic boys grow into autistic men. Similarly, while around a third of autistic people also have learning disabilities, and might need lifelong care or be unable to communicate by speaking, others, like me, are able to work and live independently and are invisible in everyday life, continually hiding the challenges we face.
Running has helped me cope for over 30 years. To be able to move and breathe with total freedom, to feel anxiety and panic easing, to enjoy the careful planning and preparation for races, and the ability to lose myself in a thrilling subculture rich with information, is a pure, unadulterated joy. The physical benefits of breathing hard and the rush of endorphins after a run can blunt the edge of living in a world that isn’t designed for autistic people, and which often unintentionally causes us great harm and distress. To escape into nature and run through woodland, along a riverbank, or out on a beach is better still, although until recently I didn’t fully appreciate how important this is – or why.
It wasn’t until I was 40 that I received my diagnosis as autistic, and it happened by chance. I had long suffered with anxiety and depression problems, rooted in an intense feeling of being different, of strugg
