Published on 12, July, 2020
Does anyone else feel like this? It’s so hard to regulate emotions after someone screamed at me or I had a misunderstanding and feel like a total idiot and loser for not understanding or asking questions. Strong light, sounds of scanners, people talking and laughing loud, strollers being moved on the floor and many other sounds that usually don’t make me feel disregulated today made me crazy and crying I had to hide so no one sees me crying. It was so hard to calm down and soothe myself. I pressed my forehead with my hands and sat for few minutes. This is why I feel like a child in an adult body. Terribly embarrassing. I’m high functioning- I’m a child functioning in adult world and trying to cope. Does anyone have any thoughts, advice, experience, stories to share, I’ll be happy.
Yes me too. Child like and vulnetable but most of the time capable.
I often wonder if we are allowing ourselves to be stereotyped and labelled as “vulnerable” which could attract and invite negative attitudes towards us, by those who insist on condescending attitudes and “talking down to” us and invalidating our opinions just because of our autism, especially post-diagnosis - this is yet another reason why I firmly believe and maintain that post-diagnosis assessments are absolutely essential, crucial and vital for us to identify both our level of autism and levels of appropriate autism post-diagnostic support required, enabling us to to both move forward in life and identify a clear sense of self
That's a good point. I think maybe I decided not to pursue a formal diagnosis partly because I thought it might make me appear vulnerable. I've always felt that I'm quite an independent person - I don't really like asking for help, and as I've had problems in the past with people not taking me seriously, I might have subconsciously thought it would make that worse.
Luckily I've now had some years to get used to the idea of being on the spectrum, and I've got old enough not to care what anybody thinks of me.