Hi all,
I'm new here - I was diagnosed with both Autism and ADHD just a few days ago.
I've told my family about my diagnosis, and they have been very empathic, but not in a way that feels truly understanding! I tried to explain about masking and the lifelong sense that I've been pretending to be "normal", and how the result of that for me has been a sense that I don't know who I am beneath the masking. They responded by saying things like, "I gave up trying to be normal years ago".
I can understand that response - I don't like the idea of "normal" either. But I'm this case, it just feels like a platitude that allows people avoid trying to understand how hard it is to be an autistic person in a neurotypical world. I don't know that anybody really believes in "normal", but at the same time autistic people struggle in ways that most neurotypical people never will. I don't know how to help my family to understand that.
Does anyone have any experience of this?
Peter
