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Do you ever feel ashamed of being autistic?

LivAgain

Hi,

I know it sounds like an awful thing to say and I'm sure it will spark controversy but this is just a question I have never felt able to ask other autistic people and tonight I just thought, "Why not? People are welcome to disagree with me if that's how they feel."

Anyway, I've been having a rough time lately and feel very ashamed of a lot of things. One thing I'm certainly ashamed of is being autistic. Everything about it feels like a threat - a threat to my femininity, to my appearance, to how others will perceive me. It's hard to put into words but it's almost as though the symptoms don't worry me (I don't actually have a great deal of symptoms, really; not nowadays anyway) but the label itself is damaging me more and more every day.

I feel so guilty for feeling like this but I don't want to wonder anymore. Does anyone else feel like this?

Thank you,

LivAgain 

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  • Former Member
    Former Member

    A good friend of mine gave me a book on this a few years ago when, pre diagnosis, I was going through a very Victor Meldrew phase. Everything was going wrong, I was arguing with people in shops, I couldn't seem to get anyone to understand me and I was angry, stuff was getting broken, life was s$*!.

    The main message in the book is that there is simply no point in being angry. Anger only attacks the self, it doesn't make anything better. If you can realise the futility of anger as an emotion then you can start to move on.

    This thread has brought out a lot of hate and anger at the label that diagnosis gives us. It can give us an excuse for things to be miserable. In my case, the diagnosis has been an explanation for a shed load of stuff that caused me immense grief until I found that I could refer to books and this forum to figure out what to do to make my life better. I'm not cured and know and accept that I will never be cured. What is the point in worrying about something that you can't do anything about?

    There is a modern stream of HR management that says that people should identify their strengths and work on exploiting them. This is found to be much better for staff happiness and productivity (the two go hand in hand) than identifying peoples weaknesses and beating people up because they are bad at something.

    Guys, can you think of the things that you are good at and start to think about how to use those strengths rather than keep reminding yourselves that you have a label that excuses you from being yourselves. We are all different, not better or worse, to everyone else. Don't beat yourself up because of something that is just part of you. It isn't a defect, it's a difference.

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  • Former Member
    Former Member

    A good friend of mine gave me a book on this a few years ago when, pre diagnosis, I was going through a very Victor Meldrew phase. Everything was going wrong, I was arguing with people in shops, I couldn't seem to get anyone to understand me and I was angry, stuff was getting broken, life was s$*!.

    The main message in the book is that there is simply no point in being angry. Anger only attacks the self, it doesn't make anything better. If you can realise the futility of anger as an emotion then you can start to move on.

    This thread has brought out a lot of hate and anger at the label that diagnosis gives us. It can give us an excuse for things to be miserable. In my case, the diagnosis has been an explanation for a shed load of stuff that caused me immense grief until I found that I could refer to books and this forum to figure out what to do to make my life better. I'm not cured and know and accept that I will never be cured. What is the point in worrying about something that you can't do anything about?

    There is a modern stream of HR management that says that people should identify their strengths and work on exploiting them. This is found to be much better for staff happiness and productivity (the two go hand in hand) than identifying peoples weaknesses and beating people up because they are bad at something.

    Guys, can you think of the things that you are good at and start to think about how to use those strengths rather than keep reminding yourselves that you have a label that excuses you from being yourselves. We are all different, not better or worse, to everyone else. Don't beat yourself up because of something that is just part of you. It isn't a defect, it's a difference.

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