Published on 12, July, 2020
Until the age of 20 (having been diagnosed at 8), I didn't really embrace the fact I'm autistic. I still treated it as like a disease and a separate entity to me.
Eventually, I managed to feel a bit more comfortable with it and learnt more about it over the years. I was firmly on the "autism is great" train for a while, exploring autistic joy and so on.
These last few months, I've felt differently. I've spoken about my massive screw-up a few months ago quite a bit here. I saw a comment from someone who questioned if I'm actually autistic. Many doubtlessly thought I was using autism as an excuse.
As a result, I've begun wishing I wasn't autistic all over again. I do believe that none of that would have happened if I wasn't autistic.
Not being autistic would turn me into a different person, but I think I'd rather be a different person. The person I am is forever tainted and considered the lowest of the low.
Admittedly this is somewhat contradicted by the fact that I've begun wearing my sunflower lanyard when I go out and about sometimes, but I do it because I don't really care about what people think about it.
I do often forget that I'm autistic and don't ask for support when I need it and things end up going wrong, but I don't know what I'd rather. Ignoring it didn't work, but embracing it meant I got myself into situations which led to this avalanche.
I wish I could completely start my life again sometimes.
No... I don't wish that. I'm sorry that I didn't realise sooner though, it would have saved me a lot of fear, doubt and pain, as I struggled to cope in a world in which I absolutely didn't fit, assuming that there was something very wrong with me, for which I was somehow responsible- as I had been told since childhood. I tried, without great success, to 'fit in' as I had been constantly told I must - although none of it really made sense to me, if I'm honest. I was forever playing a role, masking as I now know - and it just became an exhausting part of life. I had a lot to hide - acute social anxiety, fear of entering unfamiliar spaces - it could take me days to do it sometimes, if I managed it at all - and a 'antisocial' desire for solitude and the space and time to do what interested me (which never included others). Intelligence - nobody wanted that, so I hid that too, to avoid further persecution.
Understanding that I'm autistic has made sense of pretty much everything 'different' about me, so actually, I'm happy about it.
Now, I can finally be myself.