Published on 12, July, 2020
Obviously I know I'm not; I'm the same person, but it seems more apparent. For example at work I've started using a stress ball; I'm more aware of taking in distracting noises and feeling unable to work when there's a lot of distraction.
I'd tailor my stims in public to, for example scribbling lines and lines of figure 8's or drawing squares, whereas now I'll openly rub my neck or forehead. I've also had two meltdowns at work, whereas previously I'd somehow manage to avoid this happening at work.
I don't know whether any of this is a self-fulfilling prophecy type thing, or whether it is just a greater self-awareness and me feeling more able to be myself, with the strength provided by the diagnosis.
Anyone else experienced this type of reaction?
This concerns me. How do we know we're not just buying into the symptoms more and then acting 'more autistc'? as a result. For example, if you're having heart palpitations and then you read up about a heart attack you can convince yourself you also have chest pain, you may even start to feel chest pain because you convince yourself so much. Sort of like a placebo but rather than a placebo to make you better, it's a placebo that makes your worse? It could be a genuine 'unmasking' as people are saying, or it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not sure which one it is myself. The reason I went for a diagnosis was that I realised I'm often overly stressed, that I'd spent a lot of my life sort of locking myself inwards so as not to act certain ways that are..... well...autistic! Although the act of locking myself in often appears autistic too since it makes me very aloof, which I already naturally am to strangers, neighbours, just regular acquaintances but I mean it makes be extremely aloof because locking myself inward is a sort of shut down mechanism. And I started to realise due to certain troubles I keep repeatedly having, going through the cycle of thinking I can 'correct' myself next time, and then inevitably repeating the same behaviours, trouble, moods etc that I don't seem to be managing 'correcting' myself. And that a lot of my stresses are unknown and not verbalised. Often due to a lack of appropriate words, I could use to really explain a lot of the things I'm feeling. That plus I think I don't always know how I'm feeling, other than knowing its bad. Since diagnosis, I feel like the mask has been slipping. I was never able to mask my social awkwardness very much, and the fact I have trouble looking people in the eyes. But the things I've often masked is my true response to things, urges to 'stim' as it's called etc. I'm finding the mask has gone a bit on my moods too. Before I'd get stressed, have meltdowns and then lock the feelings back inside and never let anyone see. It's hard to know if it's a built up pressure thing over all the years and now with the diganosis I've felt more able to just let it loose or if like you say it's a self-fulfilling prophecy I guess I could see how years of pressure could build up to actually, in the long run, make you worse, as it frazzles your brain more after so much silent suffering. The silent suffering may seem like resilience at first but maybe it's just something that will make you become less resilient as time goes on and so eventually it's inevitable to deteriorate to be 'worse' at least for a temporary time. It's like having a bridge that is still managing to stand but its foundations are faulty and somewhere down the line those foundations are going to deteriorate further and also deteriorate other elements of the bridge due to the added pressure of being faulty.
I'm not saying autism is a 'fault' so don't read into that. But if you're struggling internally with something and then finally you feel like you can let it out, it seems to me it possibly would be worse for a while...But I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not at this point. A part of me feels guilty, like maybe I'm using autism as an excuse now.
I feel like my patience for things has gone to zero. I used to put up with much, in many ways, but now I'm a lot more direct. I do say "I can't help it" and I get back "you can't use autism as an excuse". I don't know if this is better or worse. I think overall it's better to know you're autistic. But certainly it messes with how you've programmed yourself to live in an NT world. I've definitely been told I behave differently now. But in some ways that could also be attributed to getting older and caring less about what other people think (or less about trying to come across as "normal")