Working out what you need after a life of suppressing

...I NEED (or at least other people to appreciate) that I am ME, I am HUMAN, and to be more tolerant. I do not fit into THEIR standards but I am a pretty ok human and a very small threat to others :)

Like any human I can align my needs to Maslow's hierarchy 

The bottom two elements are described as "basic needs" - I have my basic physiological needs met, but not all my safety needs and many on the spectrum suffer from poor health and fluctuating employment/other income means.

Love and belonging is there with friends, not with family and there is no sense of connection with the wider community and society.  Esteem is low due to the essential aspects of love and belonging, safety and core physiological needs not being met fully.

below is a link to Maslows hierarchy against an ASD framework

https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2289&context=doctoral

The majority of what you have said is in fact exactly how my life has been, only it wasn’t suggested or noted I could be autistic, I happened to stumble upon an article of a female who had realised she may just be as her young son was going through the process of diagnosis. She got a diagnosis as is now telling her story to highlight autism amongst females. Sadly often missed and seen as shy or just anxiety, 

I call it my epiphany and sudden realisation of who I always had been .

So about work , yes yes yes They use what I have to offer only when it suits them, but there is apparently no role for me other than carry on being paid a low wage but use my skills and ability to over come subjects out of my remit to their advantage. 

Picking the meat off of a rather meaty bone, but only paying for the bone within.

thank you for the wat you put across not only how you feel but no doubt countless others on here.

 Take care. 

I think personally that as I became more aware of my autism. Things that I have done all of my life that I just thought were odd, were now explained by autism. It had the effect of grouping together a lot of previously fragmented traits and behaviours into one nice neat cognitive schema. I've never tried to hide stimming behaviour, I just didn't realise that that's what I was doing. 

It's really good that you're trying to see what bothers you rather than dismissing it. A lot of learning how to manage symptoms can be trial and error although there's some good resources out there that can help. I recently realised that the reason why I get completely blinded by the sun, even in winter, is because I'm really sensitive to sunlight, so I'm looking into buying a decent pair of very dark sunglasses. If you can make little changes to reduce stress then it will help.

I might give a more lengthy answer tomorrow but I'm very tired today!

Yes, yes, yes, yes!

After crashing into Burnout in 2017 and then realising that ASD explains my life 100%, it was as if the part of my brain filling in for the inner Aspie just gave up, lied down, and went to sleep, leaving Aspie me fully present and in charge. So I became fully aware of my sensory sensitivities, fully aware of how they stressed me for the first time, gave myself permission to remove myself from stressing situations where previously I would have soldiered on, and even noticed myself stimming.

The stimming is a funny one for me, because I never consciously noticed anything before (though if I think back maybe there are some memories) and occasionally it seems like I'm almost "putting it on" - but even in these cases it feels natural and comforting.

Honestly reading parts of your post reads as if I had written it, especially your second paragraph.

I can add to the list executive function problems that I now see for what they are. Ironically there was another point to add here that's just disappeared into a working memory hole.

For me, it was dropped in as an observation during a meeting last year that I may have a lifelong condition.  Upon opening up to friends/some colleagues it was clear that I had Autism/Asperger's.  I had the telephone interview and referral for further tests.

I have done some background reading (fixation on my condition) and suddenly everything starts being put into place like a jigsaw.  My management/team would not recognise it until I had a diagnosis even though I had recognised Anxiety/Stress for the past 12-24 months.

Identification of the issues got easier and I also saw myself proposing coping mechanisms all the time but Management do not want to be told they are wrong because I am not normal.

I strangely stim a lot, when bored or focussed, with the "air drummer legs", finger tapping and probably other things I have still not realised.

Other things have become clearer too, disruptive chit-chat with the cliquey "NT's" where I isolate myself even more.

The situations that give me the greatest stress/anxiety is around the directing/dictating/bullying NT management that "know better than I do" but have proved the opposite:

• Innovation - nobody is interested in your ideas but I have lots of recognition for them.
• Tools/Process Help/Support, etc not valued/stop doing but everyone in the department still come to me first (or others come via IT recommendations.
• System design/troubleshooting but there is no role for you to do that in the company (worldwide shortage of that skillset too)

I have stuck it out for a year, mentally going through the floor, and have been off for nearly three months and they still do not get it.  

All my life I have never suppressed something I did not know I had but I know I put up a front/mask as a kind of protection mechanism that the NT's think I am eccentric.  It has been fine for most of my 50 years until the current bullying manager (control freak "puppet master" who knows better NOT).