Published on 12, July, 2020
I'm new to posting here so apologies if this doesn't make sense.
I am an autistic woman in her early 20's and was diagnosed pretty early on (around 2 years old). For years, I have felt something was wrong with me because I am autistic and also have clinical depression. I was always getting comments throughout my education in regards to being too quiet, needing to "step out of my comfort zone", needing to socialise more etc. These comments have been a part of childhood trauma where I was also abused by certain family members (who I am on a no contact basis with now).
As of recently, I have had a family friend/colleague say these things, also saying how will I cope if my parents were gone and how I need people (even though they fail to understand that I have childhood traumas and cannot trust people easily). I have to keep explaining myself and when I do I get the "I know you have a disability" comment but I have to look past it, I have to cope etc. This is something that will remain for the rest of my life. At one point I used to have good self esteem but now feel like I am reverting back to childhood again where people are using and abusing me.
and everytime it is like the equivalent of a hammer beating into my head to the point where I can no longer function. I feel inadequate and a failure of a daughter as no matter how hard I try, I can never be the person people want me to be. I suppose I have come far in life, I have finished education despite ongoing issues and have been capable of holding down jobs for a total of nearly 5 years. I am working in a full-time job which I recently started 3 months ago but right now have taken time off for today due to having a panic attack at work. Bereavement piles on to this because I lost someone close to me and I feel I have lost a piece of myself.
It is hard to know who I am because certain people tell me who I am is wrong. I feel like I want to off myself.
Yes. Between the ages of around 16 and 21 I lived an utterly miserable hopeless existence, utterly perplexed at why I was so different and separate from those around me and why everything was so difficult. In many alternative timelines I would not have survived this.
But then I started consciously and deliberately masking - studying what other people said, wore, did and then I started working and discovered I had a talent for software design. I buried myself in my job, where I could feel like a useful and worthwhile human being. Over the years I built layer upon layer of capability and coping strategies. I’d regularly raise my head, look around, realise I was still alone and unhappy, then concentrate on work again.
This appeared to work tolerably for twenty years or so until I broke in 2020, suffering extreme burnout. Since then I’ve found it very difficult to ignore the (massively important) aspects of my life that have not worked out.
But opting out would have caused massive hurt to my parents and others around me so it wasn’t an option. Now that it perhaps is, I keep putting one foot in front of the other, hoping that I can make a change.
And I can’t let me furry feline friend down.