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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 

Parents

  • Oh yes, I have definitely felt ashamed of being autistic. I have had very little relevant support growing up - mostly I've just been told to "behave" by my mother. I never got to read any books about Aspergers or autism when I was young and grew up thinking Aspergers basically made one "crazy". That is literally the only way I've thought of myself - "crazy" or "mental". I was badly behaved at school, mostly through frustration at people seemingly deliberately misunderstanding me constantly as well as bullying from pupils and staff alike. I was made to think I was inherently bad from a very young age.

    As a result of this, I have been modifying and hiding nearly every aspect of my behaviour almost non-stop through my childhood and teens. It got to the point where I don't even know who I am anymore. I have essentially become half a person.

    But here's the silver lining: I now know that I am not alone in feeling like this. The more autistic people I speak to, the more I realise that there are so many others in the same boat as me. It is horrible that we are made to feel ashamed of ourselves as we really shouldn't be. Society needs to change to the point where having a "disability" doesn't make you instantly be seen as weak and less-than-human. Humanity needs to realise that there are over 7 billion individuals living on this planet and we need to start accommodating for that instead of trying to force us all to be the same. Together we can beat the ignorance

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  • Oh yes, I have definitely felt ashamed of being autistic. I have had very little relevant support growing up - mostly I've just been told to "behave" by my mother. I never got to read any books about Aspergers or autism when I was young and grew up thinking Aspergers basically made one "crazy". That is literally the only way I've thought of myself - "crazy" or "mental". I was badly behaved at school, mostly through frustration at people seemingly deliberately misunderstanding me constantly as well as bullying from pupils and staff alike. I was made to think I was inherently bad from a very young age.

    As a result of this, I have been modifying and hiding nearly every aspect of my behaviour almost non-stop through my childhood and teens. It got to the point where I don't even know who I am anymore. I have essentially become half a person.

    But here's the silver lining: I now know that I am not alone in feeling like this. The more autistic people I speak to, the more I realise that there are so many others in the same boat as me. It is horrible that we are made to feel ashamed of ourselves as we really shouldn't be. Society needs to change to the point where having a "disability" doesn't make you instantly be seen as weak and less-than-human. Humanity needs to realise that there are over 7 billion individuals living on this planet and we need to start accommodating for that instead of trying to force us all to be the same. Together we can beat the ignorance

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