This First Person column is by Julianna Maggrah, a Cree filmmaker and storyteller based in Prince Albert, Sask. For more information about CBC’s First Person stories, please see the FAQ.
I used to think I was broken. Now, after learning about Indigenous views of autism, I consider myself gifted.
I am Cree. My people have long had a word for people like me: pîtoteyihtam, which means “he/she thinks differently.”
I come from a long line of hunters and trappers who lived off the land and depended on their relationship with the animals around them. As a kid, I thought I could communicate with animals. I could look at my cat and tell whether she wanted to be cuddled or left alone. I was content to sit in nature and watch the wildlife. I wished I could live with them instead of among humans I couldn’t understand.
I grew up on the Kitsaki reserve, which is a part of the Lac La Ronge Indian Band. It was hard. My autism made me much more sensitive than other girls. If someone even slightly raised their voice at me, I would cry. I would get irritated easily, especially in noisy environments. I would get sad easily. It felt like I could sense the world around me more strongly than others and that made the world around me feel very intense. I was also surrounded by intergenerational trauma. I often didn’t understand the emotional outbursts of people around me.
My differences made me feel isolated. A lonely outsider looking in. No matter how much I observed other people, I couldn’t understand their behaviour and actions.
It became safer to try to copy their actions and suppress the things others didn’t understand — like why I talked to animals. I sometimes joined in on the teasing of others, although it made me feel terrible as a sensitive kid. I justified it because I just wanted to have friends.
‘It’s going to be OK’
Some things about me started to make sense after I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2017 when I was 29 years old. But there was still the part of me that was highly sensitive and didn’t understand other people.
It wasn’t until I posted in an ADHD forum about my difficulties with socializing that a user suggested looking into autism. I finally felt like I might have found the answer.
Shortly after that, I met Jolene Stockman, an autistic Maori woman who speaks publicly about the special qualities of neurodivergent people. She shared the Maori perspective that people with autism have spiritual gifts, and do things in their own time and space.
After that, I started looking into the Cree perspective. Through Googling, I found the Cree word pîtoteyihtam, and found work by other researchers and thinkers like Grant Bruno from Samson Cree Nation and Aimée-Mihkokwaniy McGillis from Red River Metis Nation who’ve talked about how their communities have seen autism as a gift.
These teachings resonated with me. At that point I hadn’t been diagnosed, but I knew that I had autism. I felt very sure — it was a feeling in my body and as someone who constantly overthinks everything, I’m not often sure about things but this felt different.
For the first time in my life I started to think of myself as special. Gifted.
Growing up near La Ronge, Sask., Julianna Maggrah didn’t feel connected to her culture. Her grandparents were trappers, but they didn’t take part in any cultural events or ceremonies. As she got older, Maggrah was determined to find that cultural connection, and share it with others. In this video for the CBC Creator Network, Maggrah takes viewers on her journey to find meaning in her past, and shape her future.
Last year, I was diagnosed with Level 2 autism, which came with the description “requires substantial support,” through the University of Saskatchewan. It brought both validation of my lifelong struggles focusing, organizing and socializing, and sadness at how I’d had to push myself for decades just to survive.
I realized that deep down I had always hoped to one day be fixed. Autism can’t be fixed. I was born with it. There was a part of me that didn’t want to have a label. It felt like confirmation that I was broken.
That’s why learning about multiple Indigenous perspectives of autism and the concept of pîtoteyihtam helped me so much. Rather than looking at myself like I have a disability, I embrace the fact that I think differently. I like that I look at the world through a wider lens than others and that I don’t automatically conform. I’ve begun to think of my mind as beautiful rather than strange.
As a result, I have started to feel more confident embracing the parts of myself I had suppressed, including my sensitivity and my connection to nature and animals.
Nowadays, when I walk my dog in the woods, the squirrels will stop and look directly at me, angrily chirping as my dog sniffs their tree.
“It’s OK. He’s just sniffing around. He’s not going to do anything,” I tell them.
A friend who saw this compared me to Snow White, who is special for her ability to talk to animals and sees them as her confidants and friends. I felt seen for the first time.
Nature has become my resource, as it was for the hunters and trappers I am descended from. I can go for a hike when I’m stressed, sad or anxious, and soak in the energy of ancient trees.
“It’s going to be OK,” they tell me.
I have found other people who are like me. They tell me how they think I’m cool and brave for being so open.
It feels incredible to know that I’m not alone. For the first time in my life I don’t feel broken. I just think differently and that is a beautiful thing.
I can finally be who I really am — pîtoteyihtam.
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