Embrace your autism

If you've recently just got diagnosed with autism or you believe that you're autistic, my piece of advice to you is to not stop thinking about your autism. Autism isn't one of those things where you can believe you have it or get diagnosed with it and then that's it and you can move on with your life. The fact of the matter is that a lot of your problems come from the fact that you're autistic. And I don't mean to say that in a way of like autism is so horrible and everything, cause I do think that I love my autism. I love that I'm autistic, but I struggle with connections. And I don't struggle with connections because I'm bad at connections. That there's like a personality flaw or that there's some. There's something I'm doing wrong. It's literally a disability. My brain doesn't work in the same way as the people that I want to connect with, and it doesn't allow me to connect to them in the same way that they connect with other people.

This is why thinking about your autism and reminding yourself that your autistic is so important. Because it's so easy to fall back into that pattern of thinking that there is something wrong with you, but there is nothing wrong with you. You are autistic. And although autism is a disability, it is also a beautiful variation of how the mind works. And yes, it comes with it's own challenges but it also comes with so many beautiful things that neurotypicals wouldn't be able to experience. So don't push your autism away. Don't ignore it. Think about it, and embrace it. 

Parents
  • It is good that you are so positive about being autistic as we can easily get bogged down with the difficulties we can face in daily life.

    my piece of advice to you is to not stop thinking about your autism

    I take a different approach. I don’t think about being autistic all the time and I don’t want to think about being autistic all the time, simply because I’ve other things to think about and I don’t want to be more inward looking than I already am. It’s not that I’m in denial of being autistic, it’s more that my autism is how I am and it’s how I’ve always been, it’s an essential part of my makeup that makes me the person I am. Trying to think of being autistic all the time would be like trying to think of the colour of my eyes all the time. 

    embrace it.

    Yes, self acceptance is essential for mental health.

  • That makes sense. For me, consciously reminding myself helps me avoid self-blame but it sounds like it’s already fully integrated into how you see yourself, so it doesn’t need that same level of attention.

  • consciously reminding myself helps me avoid self-blame

    I relate to that. I continue to work through selected old CBT worksheets on ‘guilt’ and ‘self-blame’. 

    Diagnosis was a huge relief and it enabled me to get rid of much guilt and self-blame. 

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