Autism's Hidden Sentence - Noise

Robin's next post in his recurring series "Autism's Hidden Sentence", is on the topic of noise while incarcerated.

"I often times think of what others go through in my same situation and how they cope. This is an issue because we often do not know. Autism in prison is not studied and is not understood. This comes days upon days of my mind just being hardly capable of anything beyond basic functioning. A problem exists with noise that really messes with me. I saw a new nurse psyche practitioner and she even asked what was wrong. The first thing after I told her about the noise due basically to radios being played loud was for her to ask if I "told" the officers. No I did not. Instead some people talked to the individuals responsible for the music. It has since gotten better. My mind is still cloudy. I have been told that is also part of PTSD. I knew a guy that had autism in another cellhouse that would have seizures due to the noise level and the frequency of the noise. That is where I have problems as well. Nothing is done when a rule like the noise level is broken. Instead like in my case I just made it through. I once was given a walk permit to get away from the noise and "reset" once a day. Just to get quiet. The medical here revoked the permit because it was from mental health. Yet, medical said they knew nothing about autism and did not want to get involved in mental health issues. This is all too uncommon. Mental health issues have a stigma to them. Especially when a person can function on a higher level and has problems that are not readily seen all the time or as they say, "are not on the surface". Then most want to pass judgement on a person that they are "faking" it. People do not know the complexities of autism and judge from their perspective and from their own ignorance most of the time and are not willing to accept anything else. Leaving many to suffer due to their lack of understanding and closed mindedness." - Robin