Published on 12, July, 2020
I figured it'd be the polite thing to introduce myself before I go blundering about the forums writing random stuff, as tends to be my wont.My reason for being here is, well, I was actually directed here by an online acquaintance after discussing video-games and what-not since conversations seldom stay on topic. Or at least they don't where I'm concerned. So my actual reason for being here is as a "person with autism", though strictly speaking my diagnosis is of Asperger Syndrome, as was. I kinda knew it was significant, and would probably answer a lot of the assorted and creative "issues" that I seem to experience, but y'know, there's time for that later. I guess later has now arrived, considering I'm 46 years old. Better late than never, I suppose.I also have ADHD, just to make things a bit more interesting. Or actually a bit less interesting, as I have no concentration, unless something is randomly interesting, in which case I have too much concentration and growl at anyone who disturbs it. Though the "H" part of the diagnosis went in my late teens and I got fat. So I seem to be spending much of later adulthood trying to lose weight with variable and random success.I'm one of those people who doesn't view Asperger's as a disorder, for me it's just a personality type: sometimes one that's creative, sometimes one that's annoying and limiting, but if there's a "disorder" anywhere I guess I consider it one of society for really only catering for a rather limited set of personality types (or just the one, for that matter, whatever "Type A" looks like. I think it looks like Katie Hopkins. But I digress. Again).Er, was I making a particularly relevant point or just waffling? I forget now. I guess I was just trying to understand what it's all about, and to make life a bit easier to deal with, both for myself and my long-suffering partner who has to put up with my randomness and (usually intentional) absurdity.Oh, and my real name is Christine. I just think Vometia is more "me".I'll stop prattling now. Fortunately I've run out of concentration. Yay.
I think it's a matter of perspective: it's more a case of accepting who I am and being that person than trying to live as someone else. So for GID, that means living as the gender I identify with. And with ASD, that means accepting I have ASD instead of trying to pretend I don't. I spent so much of my life pretending, I pretended I was a gender I wasn't, I pretended I was NT when I wasn't. Embracing either isn't easier, but it makes life an awful lot simpler; in my case accepting my GID and running with it made a huge and very positive difference. I figure by that metric it's not an unreasonable idea that accepting that I have ASD and that it's not going to change is going to make me a lot happier too. I became quite skilled at pretending I don't have ASD, and becoming quite successful at it. It hasn't made me happy: in fact it made me stressed and miserable.
I guess from my perspective the best and most effective route to happiness is to be true to what we are. Though of course the possibilities for doing so tend to be very dependent on a person's individual circumstances.
So for the gender stuff, I now just identify as female. Not trans-woman, MTF or anything like that. Just female. Because that's all I am. And for ASD... I identify as ASD. Because, likewise, I tried being something I wasn't. I tried being NT. And I was convincing, but utterly miserable. So why bother? Okay, rhetorical question, there <i>are</i> plausible reasons to bother, but none of them appeal to me and none of them have worked. Let me just get on with being myself, idiosyncrasies and all. Because "idiosyncrasy" sounds kinda more awesome than "warts". :D