You mention your experience of being part of more than one minority group. Would you be able to talk more about that and what it means for you?
I love being an autistic, Muslim Pakistani woman. My identity in itself is so diverse, which I am really proud of! It does make it harder to live so freely however, with all of the stigma and discrimination that surrounds both autistic people and Muslims. Race and autism intersect a lot and talking about race in autism conversations is so important.
When people think of ‘autism’, a Muslim or a woman of colour would be the last person they would think of to be autistic. I think way the media portrays us is partly to blame for this. Being a female Pakistani autistic ADHD-er Muslim comes with a lot of stigma and ignorance within the Asian community. I am grateful to have an understanding and accepting family and to be able to be my authentic, unmasked self in my home environment, which I know a lot of autistic people don’t have the freedom to do. In many Black and Minority Ethnic households, neurodiversity and anything to do with mental health can often be seen as taboo, which differs our experiences from white autistic people, from this perspective.
Why do you think representing autistic people of all backgrounds is so important?
The world is full of so many different people, and it’s unfair that we barely get to see representation of other minority groups or any other neurotype outside of what we’re all too used to. Just like neurotypical people, autistic people are so diverse. We’re all different with our own sets of unique traits, but all still autistic!
At times, I think the media’s portrayal of autism can be inaccurate and unfair. It’s very frustrating to see autism only depicted through a white (and often savant) man, when in reality, autistic people are so incredibly diverse. It’s also frustrating not seeing these roles played by actually autistic people [We hope this is something that will improve, thanks to recent positive depictions of autism in TV programmes like The A Word and Hollyoaks. Travis George Smith (The A Word) and Talia Grant (Hollyoaks) are both autistic]. After all, who knows us better than us?
Misrepresentation causes stereotypes and stigmas to form, which is probably why people get so surprised if someone like me were to turn around and say that I’m autistic.
If you could destroy one myth about autism, what would it be?
Being autistic isn’t something that is exclusive to men or to Caucasian people. We are as diverse as our traits. Being from a certain faith or a certain background doesn’t make me “less autistic”. Autistic people come in all different shapes and sizes and come from so many different backgrounds and cultures. We’re not bound to any specific physical characteristic and it’s so important this is depicted! We’re a diverse community!
Are you working on any creative projects at the moment?
I am! I'm currently working on creating a webcomic called DARJIN. It's based on the characters from my piece in The Character Creation Zone. The main character, Zari is autistic and has ADHD like me! It follows the story of Zarifa Nasim, an aspiring carpet racer. The sudden murder of her sister, Kotori, causes a rift in her life and everything around her. Zari not only wants to gain the title of ‘Carpet Racer’ more than ever, but takes on an underhand operation her sister started.
I'm so unbelievably excited for this project, it's like a precious child to me that I'm so excited to share with everyone (and of course, it’s jam-packed with a ton of diversity!). I post new drawings of my characters for this universe on my Instagram at @iqradraws.
How are you coping with the current lockdown?
It's definitely overwhelming. It takes a lot of energy for me to be keeping up with everything that's happening and can be too much to cope with sometimes. I am keeping myself as distracted and as busy as I can, through my special interests - such as video games and drawing.
Even though I have more time to indulge in my special interests, I’ve found it a lot harder to be active as I find myself caged in my room a lot, so lockdown has me a little all over the place right now. I’m hopeful there will be positive change in the future.
How has your experience taking part in Ramadan been this year?
It’s definitely an experience I’m not used to, but I kept almost all of my fasts this year, which I’m really proud of! Despite the changes that I’ve had to adapt to due to lockdown, it’s made Ramadan easier since I didn’t need to be moving around too much. I could just sit in my room all day and do my own thing. I didn’t have to use lots of energy. On a usual day, I would get overwhelmed and fatigued while fasting, especially if I had a lot of work to do that day. I also tend to be hyper-aware of my sensory inputs when fasting.
Personally, I eat a lot at sunrise so I don’t feel the impact of fasting throughout the day, which makes it easier for me to keep fasts. I also tend to forget I’m fasting halfway through the day, since I’m usually hyper-fixated on something. This definitely works as a positive for me as I then don’t think about it a lot. I really enjoy eating dates to open my fast as I find it really satisfying and rewarding. I’m pretty confident that I’ll be able to fast just as well as I have this year in the future.
