Do you ever feel ashamed of being autistic?

It's not for me to tell anyone else how to feel.

But some of the comments here have made me reflect on how I feel about it. I'm waiting for an assessment, but I strongly suspect what the out come will be.

I'm 56, so can't really be ashamed of a label I haven't had for 56 years. It makes sense of so many of the things that were hard for me, as well as my strengths. But yes, it's been a very stressful life and the biggest stressors of all have been rooted to the sensory processing issues and the issues in family relationships. If you don't want your mother to hug you as a tiny baby, you do end up living a life with no support from the one place most people turn to.

No one knew about Asperger's really until 1981. There was no support in school and I was blamed for the things I found hard. When I was bullied relentlessly in school to the point that play ground melt downs occurred, the advice of the head to my parents was to "give me a good slap", while games teachers just screamed at me for being useless on the rounders pitch.

Had anyone known, would I have met with more sympathy? Would I have been more protected from the nasty kids? Would my inability to hit a ball have been recognise as a disability rather than a lack of effort to be punished? Would my mother have recognised I wasn't cold and unfeeling or ungrateful just because I didn't want her to hug me or play with me? The mental health impacts for me are certainly born of a life time of unrecognised and unmet need etc

Or would they have put me in a special school with nothing to challenge my intellect and tortured me with ABA? Would the expectations of what I can do have been lowered and my ambitions squashed  such that I never got a university education or to earn my own living?

For sure, I won't be ashamed! I'll be proud of myself that I've achieved so much despite the fact that I didn't start out on a level playing field. The fact that it wasn't level I can easily see had not to do with any defect with in me; I'm not defective, but in the fact that society sees those who are wired differently as not simply valuable in a different way. 

In many respects I have even benefited. All that intensity of focus and attention to detail have brought me successes too. My candor and moral codes have in the right career environments brought me respect. Even if I have been permanently stressed and exhausted in the process.

I have to wonder whether I can even see this as a disability. This is a trickier question. The sensory issues have lead to phobias so chronic as to be truely debilitating to be sure. Indeed, because the are medical and I'm struggling to access medical treatment, life threatening. But again, has this become disabling because of the way this was handled when I was young. Could even that have been avoided?

I think I'll just be relieved to have this recognised now. The explanation (I pray) might lead to a solution good enough to let me live a few more years and enjoy them.

It's not for me to tell anyone else how to feel.

But some of the comments here have made me reflect on how I feel about it. I'm waiting for an assessment, but I strongly suspect what the out come will be.

I'm 56, so can't really be ashamed of a label I haven't had for 56 years. It makes sense of so many of the things that were hard for me, as well as my strengths. But yes, it's been a very stressful life and the biggest stressors of all have been rooted to the sensory processing issues and the issues in family relationships. If you don't want your mother to hug you as a tiny baby, you do end up living a life with no support from the one place most people turn to.

No one knew about Asperger's really until 1981. There was no support in school and I was blamed for the things I found hard. When I was bullied relentlessly in school to the point that play ground melt downs occurred, the advice of the head to my parents was to "give me a good slap", while games teachers just screamed at me for being useless on the rounders pitch.

Had anyone known, would I have met with more sympathy? Would I have been more protected from the nasty kids? Would my inability to hit a ball have been recognise as a disability rather than a lack of effort to be punished? Would my mother have recognised I wasn't cold and unfeeling or ungrateful just because I didn't want her to hug me or play with me? The mental health impacts for me are certainly born of a life time of unrecognised and unmet need etc

Or would they have put me in a special school with nothing to challenge my intellect and tortured me with ABA? Would the expectations of what I can do have been lowered and my ambitions squashed  such that I never got a university education or to earn my own living?

For sure, I won't be ashamed! I'll be proud of myself that I've achieved so much despite the fact that I didn't start out on a level playing field. The fact that it wasn't level I can easily see had not to do with any defect with in me; I'm not defective, but in the fact that society sees those who are wired differently as not simply valuable in a different way. 

In many respects I have even benefited. All that intensity of focus and attention to detail have brought me successes too. My candor and moral codes have in the right career environments brought me respect. Even if I have been permanently stressed and exhausted in the process.

I have to wonder whether I can even see this as a disability. This is a trickier question. The sensory issues have lead to phobias so chronic as to be truely debilitating to be sure. Indeed, because the are medical and I'm struggling to access medical treatment, life threatening. But again, has this become disabling because of the way this was handled when I was young. Could even that have been avoided?

I think I'll just be relieved to have this recognised now. The explanation (I pray) might lead to a solution good enough to let me live a few more years and enjoy them.