My boyfriend installed a stun gun in my caravan
Independent Offgrid Living + Support as a Neurodivergent person
In the build up to moving into a van full-time, the image of offgrid van living that stuck in my mind was of a rugged, practical, often dreadlocked person who capably handles every challenge and always knows exactly what to do.
A person like the hardy, purple-dreadlocked woman who gave me a lift to a hippie festival in her live-in, also purple, van. An extremely resourceful and skilled long-term nomad, she impressed me with her foraging and forest school abilities, but mostly with the fact that she made accessories out of roadkill she had collected herself.
I remember looking at the rabbit skin headdress that wound through her dreads and thinking, “I could never do that.” I couldn’t imagine dealing with the gore.
As a dyspraxic autistic with ADHD, diagnosed with spacial and co-ordination difficulties at age eight, I have always felt insecure about my ability to do practical tasks. The sewing teacher in primary school despaired of me, “But you’re so good at school work! Why can’t you understand a simple instruction?”
I hid in the toilets to avoid PE (gym classes) and took eight attempts to get my driver’s license, only on the seventh time getting out of the car park.
When I was younger, I couldn’t catch a ball or tie my shoelaces, and as an adult I got lost frequently and couldn’t follow verbal or written DIY instructions, however clear or oft-repeated.
Recently, I’ve been coming to terms with the fact that underneath these difficulties were disabilities, at least in terms of how our society is set up to function.
And that I’ve been dealing with them all my life, without knowing that’s what was going on.
I knew that these things made me feel stupid. And that led me to adopt two broad strategies: to hide my disability and pretend that I knew what was going on, and to avoid any activity that would betray my difficulties.
I hid behind books and, later, online living, deferring to others when it came to making a fire at the community camps I loved so much. (I eventually did learn to make my own fire, when I was on a solo retreat and had no other choice. I was taught by an Elder who had lived in the wilds for decades, and it still worked only sometimes).
When people hear that I live offgrid, they are often impressed — probably because they, too, have this image of the capable dreadlocked vanlifer in their head. What I don’t want to admit to them?
That I get a lot of help. That I don’t do it on my own.
So when it came to offgrid living, I’ve often felt more than a touch of the old Imposter Syndrome.
My partner — and, during our year apart, other random people in the communities in which I lived — has by and large kept my solar power going, figured out what was happening when the lights stopped working, and generally kept on top of the numerous everyday tasks that are beyond my brain wiring.
Recently, when the ignition on my 1987 caravan gas heater stopped working, he installed a part derived from a stun gun to spark it up manually. Pressing it felt like I was about to give myself an electric shock, and, alarmingly, he advised I wear Wellington boots to earth myself in the process — just in case. I wouldn’t have had a clue how to even begin to fix such a thing — and watching instructional YouTube videos would have just made me more overwhelmed.
Why don’t I just teach myself these tasks? Aren’t I just being lazy and taking the ‘easy route’?
Because they would be explained to me, I would manage it once after many tries while the explainer was with me — and then I’d forget how to do it. It would be as if I never learned it in the first place.
Or sometimes, I just never ‘get’ it. Yes, I did learn how to change fuses (hooray! but it’s a straightforward one-step process). But while I can write academic papers and figure out numerous online platforms that have others scratching their heads in bewilderment, my brain just cannot retain the other kind of information beyond the very basic. It actually hurts when I try.
Recently, I’ve come across powerful voices within the autistic community that challenge the notion that Independence is Everything.
This concept is deeply embedded within our largely ableist society.
A society where there is an illusion that each of us is independently operating without help from anyone else — an easily exposed untruth. Each of us relies on an intricated, interconnected system of resources and influences, from our supermarkets to our electricity providers to the neighbour who agrees to allow your fence to be erected. If just one of those links were to break, we would know about it very quickly.
There is no real separation — but those who do not live with disabilities or other disadvantages (such as single parenthood and other marginalised groups) do not usually have to confront this truth because the cracks in the system so seldom show for them.
When, due to disability or difference, you find yourself unable to do some of the day-to-day tasks, whether that is filling in doctor’s forms, doing your banking or food shopping or fixing basic things around the home, the need for help and support is highlighted much more regularly.
You find yourself having to reach out and ask for that in an explicit way because it is not provided in the overall ‘support package’ that the average atomised household receives. A package created on the assumption that everyone has the same abilities, and rested on the bedrock of a society where ‘community’ is often hard to come by.
This can lead to shame and self-doubt, because we are comparing ourselves to people who seem to be able to ‘do it all’ — on their own.
Several disability writers, such as Devon Price, address the issue with defining ‘independence’ as the benchmark of success in life, talking about ‘barriers to success’ instead. One of those barriers is the way that society is set up to favour certain sets of abilities over others. He says:
People do not choose to fail or disappoint. No one wants to feel incapable, apathetic, or ineffective. If you look at a person’s action (or inaction) and see only laziness, you are missing key details. There is always an explanation. There are always barriers. Just because you can’t see them, or don’t view them as legitimate, doesn’t mean they’re not there. Look harder.
So for now, I am working on uprooting the internalised shame of, “But why can’t you just do it?” and allowing myself to accept the support I need without qualifiers and excuses. Sometimes, I find reciprocal arrangements within my capacity, such as sharing some of my healthy dinners with my partner (we don’t live together) in exchange for his help with practical matters. Sometimes, I just ask, and people are happy to help.
I may never live up to the classic image of the hardy vandweller, but I am doing it in my own way, as a barefoot faerie most of the time.
If you want to read more of my writing, please consider subscribing. Want to read more about my nomadic journey? Check out my book, ‘The Wild Wandering Arc: A Journey through Vanlife, Nature & Love.