Published on 12, July, 2020
I don't feel accepted and supported, I just feel defective, judged by everyone, and guilty for what I've done to my family. I know we're all entitled to our opinions and feelings, and that we all think differently, but I just really don't understand why some autistic people 'celebrate' it and think it's OK to be autistic when I honestly don't think there is anything less OK in the entire world, particularly when you're a woman and it's such a man's condition. I often feel my strong sense of identity as a female is being stolen from me.
I am a bit worried by this:
Sickle Moon said: I just feel defective, judged by everyone, and guilty for what I've done to my famil
Are you family actually judging you as defective and guilty of being in their life?
In that case it is very sad that your family are so discriminatory and abusive of you. You need to cut contact with them.
Call WomansAid
I think you are being abused and it erodes your self esteem and sense of self generally. You need to get away from that and rebuild yourself, push back.
It is always OK to be you.
If you are autistic, it is always OK to be autistic, because it is who you are. Love yourself.
If other people don't love and value you for who you are, it is their loss, they are toxic for you, stop contact with them.
If they are close family, you really need to kick them out of your life. They are not doing what family is for. Family is for unconditional love and support.
I really appreciate your concern and understand how you read that into what I said. You're clearly a very caring person. However, my family are not even the slightest bit abusive. My family have loved and protected me my whole life, and I repay them by being autistic. What a fantastic daughter I am - not.
Sickle Moon said:It's something people have been trying to do to me since I was a tiny child. Nobody wanted me to be a little girl, they wanted me to be a little boy. Nobody believes this, or they say they don't believe it, but I've got eviden
Sorry, Sickle Moon, I'm a little confused... so who were you talking about here if not your family?
(Being autistic wasn't your choice and any family worth keeping would understand that.)
Sickle Moon, I am very sorry if I made things worse. It's just a theory. Of course you can have your gender, no one can change that - you are who you feel you are.
Flont, you are correct in that I was discussing other people's perceptions. I do go off at a bit of a tangent sometimes exploring issues and trying to work them out, but I was alarmed to see that I might have made things worse when I was trying to make them better. I will apologise - thank you.
Sickle Moon - no one can take away your gender. You are female. Nothing will take that away from you. It's not even up for debate. You were female, you are female, you will always be female, and nothing anyone says or does will ever, ever take that away from you.
I don't want to speak for Pixiefox as she is very articulate and intelligent, but I can see you are upset so I just want to quickly point out that Pixiefox was discussing perceptions and interpretations of stereotypical male and female interests/behaviour. Stereotypes and perceptions are not reality, stereotypes and perceptions do not define whether you are a particular gender or not.
I can see you are very worried about your gender being taken away from you, but it is indivisible from you. It is an integral part of who you are and cannot be extracted from you by outside influences.
We don’t think like males. I’m aware of the ‘extreme male brain’ theory of autism but I’m autistic and female and I know that my brain works in a female way (albeit with less advanced social skills than NT females) as compared to men (either NT or autistic). There are more differences in brain functioning between the genders than just social skills ability. I’ve read the book ‘men are from Mars, women are from Venus’ which very accurately describes the differences between how male and female brains work and I am confident that these differences apply regardless of whether the male/female is autistic/non-autistic
Why do people do this to me? I try so hard to treat people well and do things right, and the whole world and everyone in it is against me.
I'm sorry - the fact that we apparently think like males has really really upset me, I can't be male, i just can't, I've never wanted to be, I try so hard to be so female. i have very typically female interests. Why can't I have anything? Why can't I even have my gender?!!!!!!