Published on 12, July, 2020
So folks,
I don't come here very often. It's been 10 months since I received a formal ASC diagnosis at the age of 47. Since before then I have had counselling with a psychotherapist who specialises in autism, spoken with a 'friend' who leads a counselling team at a local University, with my wife and others who can all see autistic traits in me. I have several autistic kids. I have created a journal of experiences and memories which all demonstrate autistic reactions, traits and behaviours and yet I'm still really struggling to accept that I'm autistic. To the point of (and this is contradictory) that when I refer to myself as autistic and try and own that identity I get a visceral reaction that sometimes includes the arm flailing that first developed as a teenager.
Trying to move on and yet feel so held back by this inability to come to terms. What did any of you do to reconcile with your diagnosis?
Thanks in advance.
NAS84405 said:Trying to move on and yet feel so held back by this inability to come to terms. What did any of you do to reconcile with your diagnosis?
I found it worked best to accept that autism is just another aspect of what I wam - much like my skin colour, my blood type, my gender (controvertial statement these days but not the topic here), my right handedness and my eye colour.
All are unchangable and I had no say in what they are so it is best to simply accept that they are part of you.
Once you educate yourself about autism, identify your strongest traits, how the traits impact you and how you can work on makeing them less of a problem then you now have the tools to tackle the bad bits.
Think of the analogy of skin colour. If you were very pale skinned and the result was you burned easily in the sun. A reasonable approach would be to cover up, wear sunscreen or avoid going out in the sun. Simple.
If you were left handed and found most tools in your workplace were right handed then you would work on becoming ambidexterous.
I won't go into the gender thing here as that will have the woke mob onto me LOL.
You get the idea - it is your approach to it that makes the difference. Once you accept it is there (like having a Friday in a week) and decide to work on dealing with the bad things it brings to make them better then you are taking control - owning it and taking its power slowly away.
NAS93721 said:I don't WANT to be autistic, and it worries me that my eldest daughter is displaying many of the same traits as me.
I'm sorry it is an issue for you but you can't change it so work on it - the same advice applies here. Learn, respond and educate are your best weapons here.
It is never an easy path but the results are worth it.
Thanks for that analogy. This provokes me to think that part of the problem I'm experiencing is not accepting the (dare I say it) 'normality' of autism - it does feel like a massive paradigm-shifting foundational thing, yet perhaps it would indeed be better to see it in as a 'natural' thing as with the things you alluded to.