"I’ve stopped saying I ‘have Autism’ – being autistic is brilliant, not a burden"

I sorta share your view there Luftmensch, but I'm becoming dimly aware of whilst my life has been and in many ways still is a grinding struggle, my Autism allows me to attempt and succeed at things that no allistic in my position would ever dream as being feasible.

Simply because I don't perceive the hard (and often false) limits that they do.

Now I've adapted my life to having no real money or possibilties, of it, it does not frustrate me so much as it did, and I can enjoy the cats and machines and let all that other crap, simply slide.

I only do voluntary work, or work for friends now, because the money and negotiation side of things is to tedious and soul destroying to contemplate. You really don't need to be rich to get yourself into the wonderful situation of saying, "No thanks, I don't need the money".

I do have to go without an awful lot, of things like nights out, nice clothes, holidays, "new" things, paying fees, fines, disbursements, tarriffs, interest, Aviation, and taxes, etc. but a "Wombling" life, does have many, many compensations. 

You have to get to a point where you own SOME land, SOME gold coins, and a lot of tools, and owe no one any money, but then you are pretty "set" I am finding. 

It's like Jesus almost said, "be in the system but not OF the system". (but he said "world" and I substituted "system".

44 years ago I learned that if you owe someone regular repayments, then your life is no longer under your control, AND you are giving regular chunks of your hard won money to someone or an institution that would not pee on you if you were on fire!

The sort of people who give you an umbrella when it's sunny, and snatch it back as soon as the clouds start to appear..

To be totally honest, I don’t like it. The cons have outweighed the pros and I have suffered a lot. I can get fleeting moments of pleasure related to it. But I know it’s all just bs. I resent this existence and I resent the set of requirements that society heavily implies I must meet in order to be ‘happy/satisfied/productive’. Especially now in this covid age, where I’m just supposed to accept the added risk of mixing because either 1) I’m supposed to be gormless and lax enough to just assume that no restrictions = it’s safe now, 2) ‘we’ have to live with it = ‘“la la la not listening, I cannot survive without my regular fomo bs gourmet burger, craft beer and bs smalltalk with fairweather friends’, and/or 3) “my work is not feasible unless I am present in person, so la la la, not listening!” People are s***. I’m out.

I try to practise gratitude, which is not the same thing. And if you think this is just "a glass half empty" then I obviously have not communicated what I feel very clearly. 

Luftmentsch said:

(I’m going to get hated for this.)

Nah, you're OK.

Some people are a glass half full person (like Simon) and some are a glass half empty person (such as yourself).

This can change with effort and a will to make your life a happier place, but it is a long slog and you may not even want to do it, so go with what makes you content.

Are you happy being this way? Great if yes, but if no then you are the only one who can change this.

I'm mostly positive these days but when things get a bit dark then I find myself regressing and need to remind myself of all the positives (whether Autism related or otherwise) and I get that warm fuzzy feeling again - eventually.

After all, happiness is a state of mind.

Me being autistic ;-) I pick and choose how I present being autistic. 

(I’m going to get hated for this.)

Your mileage may vary. Or, my mileage.

I don’t really see my being autistic as “brilliant.” I’m not as negative about it as I was a year ago, but it still seems that, for me (I stress, FOR ME), the negatives massively outweigh the positives. Yes, it’s nice that I can name 300 Doctor Who stories in order (or could, before the last few years nearly destroyed my enthusiasm for my longest-standing special interest – I’m going to get hated for this too), but that doesn’t compensate for struggling to get and hold down a job, being unable to work full-time, giving up on the career I wanted because I couldn’t find a suitable workplace, struggling to make friends, not fitting into the religious community I want to be a part of, being increasingly unable to tolerate busy shops and public transport, etc. etc. etc. I just had a moderately difficult day at work (and not even a whole day) and an hour and a half wedding planning Zoom meeting and my head is ready to explode, and has been since about half-an-hour into the Zoom. This is not “brilliant.” Some of this we can blame on structural ableism (ugh, don’t like that phrase), but I’m not convinced all of it is in that category (another discussion for another time).

I don’t think allistics are horrible people living their lives in a totally alien way to how I would like to live mine. I know some nice, thoughtful, considerate allistics who are quite like me in terms of personality, but can do a full day of work or a trip to the shops without feeling that they’ve been wrestling a gorilla by the end of it. My point is that my personality is not the same as my autism and I don’t think the latter is necessarily responsible for all of the former.

If you can make your autism work for you, I’m very happy for you, but this is how I feel about MY autism. Basically, the only thing that is positive about my autism is that it’s very unlikely that my wife would have married me if I wasn’t like this: my “Renaissance Man” attitude (as my therapist put it) of having both religion and worldly knowledge and culture (although I’m not sure how autistic Renaissance Man really was – in some ways that seems the opposite of autism!). Which is obviously a massive positive, but I worry that for the very same reason, we are going to struggle, because I am never going to earn enough for our combined income to be enough for our needs. (My wife says she wants to be with me anyway. She’s amazing.)

If I can make the proofreading side hustle (ugh, don’t like that phrase either) I’m trying to set up work, then maybe I’ll feel more positive towards autism. My proofreading skills are probably another rare autistic gift, but like Superman near Kryptonite, they fail embarrassingly in the office, perhaps under the stress of masking. However, at the moment, I don’t feel great about the proofreading, as I struggle with the self-promotion and networking needed to succeed (again, not naturally autistic skills). But, as I said, if YOU think YOUR autism is a benefit, then I’m very happy for you (I mean that genuinely).

I really like this article. Thanks for sharing.

Absolutely! I couldn’t agree more, I love being autistic! Being autistic is beautifully intense.

It is certainly more fun than being allistic. It outweighs cons.

I prefer to think of it as I have autism and that comes with it's own set of pros and cons*, I'm different, not lesser than a non autistic person. I used to avoid saying the word autistic back when I had internalised abelism and a lower self esteem that kind of gaslit me into thinking I deserved to be "othered" but now I don't shy away from it because I'm not ashamed to be autistic and I don't think treating it as a "dirty secret" is ever going to be the way to normalise autism acceptance.
So I'm more: I've started saying I am autistic - because being autistic is brilliant, not a burden.

*For me that most frequently looks like a reduction of energy and cope-ability compared to my closest allist but also compared to them an increase in perception and efficiency. To make it work in their allistic built world I need to carefully manage my time, stress, and energy expendature.
Like yes I'm high maintenance, so is a thoroughbred racehorse compared to a trekking pony. Some days I'm skittish and don't want to leave my box. Haha. In that way we are doubly metaphorically "horses for courses".
Being autistic in an allistic oriented world is like being the Linux of Operating systems. :)