Published on 12, July, 2020
My question is - do you have any place (community, environment, online,,, anywhere) where you feel you belong to and can be 'as you are' without masking or concealing the autism diagnosis?I'm an autistic adult who recently found out I'm autistic, in my 30s.Currently I feel a little lost, that I am reluctant to disclose my diagnosis at work, to my friends, even to my family... I feel I never experienced 'unmasking' too. So I'd love to hear some others stories who have places like you feel home.Thank you!
It had always been important for me to find a life partner who understands me and I think once I found him life got immensely better. With him I am definitely myself and our home feels so much safer that any other place I had ever lived. Took me a while to find him and to realize how different it really feels. I think he is the reason I found out about my autism. I felt so safe with him that everywhere else became unbearable over time and through rsearch I realized I was just masking too much before I met him.
This is so nice story of you... thank you. My partner is obviously not autistic and I'm just afraid my partner's reaction when he hears I'm autistic. (It should be obvious because I knew I'm pretty different, so maybe I should just try...)
I am not sure if my partner is autistic. We discussed the possibility but he had no issues in his everyday life. I think I am just very lucky not just to have found him but also that he dated me from a distance at first and he hadn't gotten a chance to see me mask and camouflage around my old friends. Somehow it just made sense to not mask with him. On the other hand, he does have family members with autism.