It’s such a mindfucky place to be, to discover late in life that you are autistic in a world that is notoriously anti-autistic people. I’ve been processing this knowledge of myself for a few years now. Always feeling different than most everyone around me my whole life. Being told I’m either too much or not enough. Being bullied and punished for not fitting into a mould that society wanted.
There’s so much grief that comes from knowing you were constantly being pushed to have a different brain. A different nervous system. A different way of connecting to the world around you. And knowing you tried and felt so broken most of the life you have lived because no matter how much you tried, you just couldn’t be “okay” according to those around you.
And simultaneously there’s so much relief that comes with finally have the ability to find the things that work for you to cope with the world, not feel so overwhelmed all the time, and understand yourself more fully. But it doesn’t stop people from telling you you are wrong and misinformed, when their information on what it means to be autistic is rooted in studies done by eugenicists and people that are simply observing the autistic experience rather than actually experiencing it.
When I made this discovery about myself, almost every single person I told, in a effort to let them know and understand me more fully, responded in hurtful and damaging ways. From telling me I was wrong because I am empathic and “autistic people just aren’t,” to another instantly infantilizing me, to someone invalidating me entirely with “we’re all a little bit autistic”, which I promise you no, no we aren’t all a “little bit autistic,” to another straight up apologizing to me like being autistic was a death sentence. So I stopped telling people, even when I wanted to because for me, if someone is really interested in knowing me fully, seeing me in my entirety, getting to understand my communication style and the way my brain works and body feels moving through the world, letting them know I’m autistic in a lot of ways is like handing them the answer key. But it’s painful to find out that most people are not interested in truly seeing someone when the word autism comes up. Treating them like a blight on this world.
For me, yes, it has so many struggles. I get overstimulated easily. Burnt out often. Hearing all the sounds all the time all at once, like why is the goddamn electricity so loud. I get frustrated easily when something unexpected happens. I misunderstand people a lot when most people rely on tone and body language rather than the actual words they are saying to communicate. I overthink every interaction. I get bullied often for speaking plainly (or bluntly as the world likes to point out) or for liking things that the world says I should have “grown out of.” And most people being irritated at me for passionately talking about things I am interested in in depth and at length for.
But to me, it’s also such a beautiful thing. I cannot accept injustice and fight for a better more accepting world with my whole heart. My brain is always wanting more information and is ever expansive and believes in all humans ability to also be ever expansive. I feel everything so deeply and in my entirety. My world is in technicolor. Which is a blessing and a curse.
Most people have found my being so overly in the world but also “not of” this world as an annoyance. And it’s heartbreaking. I just want to deeply connect in a world that wants me to stay in the superficial when I just can’t.
I want friends that hear this information about me and use it as an opportunity to expand their understanding of autism and celebrate the beauty that comes with that life experience, but can also understand it comes with a lot of differences in our nervous systems and the way we move through the world and not feel we are broken and needing fixing. I just need support and acceptance.
