World Autism Awareness Week: Video highlights difficulties people with autism face on public transport
‘The fear of unexpected changes can make leaving the house impossible’
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Your support makes all the difference.Travelling on public transport can be pretty stressful at the best of times.
However, for someone who has autism, venturing on their everyday commute and facing the unknown can be an incredibly overwhelming experience.
The National Autistic Society has released a video called Diverted that shows a young woman with autism trying to remain calm while on a train surrounded by other people.
The video illustrates how things such as loud noises, flashing lights and accidental knocks with fellow passengers can trigger emotive responses from an individual with autism.
It’s been released as part of the National Autistic Society’s "Too Much Information" campaign to mark World Autism Awareness Week, which is taking place this year from March 26 until April 2.
The person cast in the lead role of the video is Saskia Lupin, a 21-year-old aspiring actor from Brighton.
Lupin has autism and personally finds travelling on public transport extremely tough.
“I struggle a lot with the unexpected changes that can take place: they make me feel anxious, they make me panic, they make me angry but overall I feel confused, like I can’t do anything and all sense of rationality is lost,” she wrote for the Huffington Post.
“My fear of public transport doesn’t stop here though, I also experience anxiety about how the general public may react to me if I start acting in a way unfamiliar to them.”
At the end of the video, it’s revealed that everything that occurred all happened in the young woman’s imagination as she envisaged what could go wrong during her journey.
“I’m autistic, and the fear of unexpected changes can make leaving the house impossible,” she says in a voiceover.
The powerful video has been highly praised on social media, with many people expressing how much it resonates with them.
“Can relate so much, I’ve tried to get on a train once and had to abandon it. Didn’t get on as too difficult,” one Twitter user wrote.
“I am unable to cope with any great degree of change, and am extremely sensitive to sounds, touch, taste and smell,” another person commented.
“I experience #sensory overload frequently. Welcome to the #autistic universe!”
Approximately 700,000 people in the UK are on the autism spectrum, according to the National Autistic Society.
Autism affects the way in which people interact and communicate with others and how they perceive the world.
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