Well, this is me…

I’m in my fifties, I spent my life running away from my differences, feeling ashamed of my family’s shame at the way I was in the world , with an enormous drive to try to prove myself to be someone else, someone important or sexy, which was very counterproductive in terms of my mental health - according to who I tried to be I became very lazy / rebellious / tense / angry / religious / arrogantly intellectual / demanding / overworking / burnt-out, none of which was particularly helpful.   Slowly I started being able to feel more, tackling the conflicts inside and siding with the person who is most connected to my body and feelings in state of relaxation, trying to relax and “come out of myself”, come out of the hard shell of who “I am meant to be”, into something which is just myself relaxed as I am, even if that is quite weird-looking to people who have the usual social wiring, which I do not possess.

Currently the ASD thing seems to fit as a whole, but I’m yet to filter through all the bits and pieces, the categories and behaviours, to really figure out which bits apply to me, to what degree, and which do not.  Watching Fern Brady talk about this stuff rang a lot of bells - I think mostly from the emphasis of putting so much effort into denial, and always feeling more comfortable around weirdos, or situations where I wasn’t forced to behave normally,