"You will love again the stranger who was yourself.”
Love after love by Sir Derek Alton Walcott.
Short Version:
- notice what causes your suffering as an Autistic adult and both be kind to yourself and find ways to practice self-compassion.
Long Version:
Until recent years, there had not been a lot of study and research around the benefits of self-compassion by Autistic adults in potentially reducing the future experience of anxiety and depression.
It is becoming clearer that an Autistic adult learning to practice self-compassion is really important, more key for Autistic adults than had previously been appreciated.
Unfortunately, due to difficult experiences Autistic adults may have previously suffered earlier in their lives, there may be the need for Autistic people to battle beyond barriers such as self-doubt, blame and stigma to be able to embrace self-compassion and benefit from it.
There had been studies around self-compassion in non-Autistic people and some about Autistic children and adolescents. It is only recently that the same work has started to be applied to Autistic adults.
What sort of things are examples of self-compassion?
- respond to negative comments by talking to yourself in a kindly way (as you would to a loved one or a good friend in a similar situation),
- acknowledge that everyone makes mistakes sometimes, whether Autistic or not (you might read in books / articles / research papers this is referred to as "common humanity"),
- be aware of yourself in a positive mindful way (instead of identifying too much with negative emotions).
There have already been some guidance or good advice to Autistic people along similar lines. What is newer information and data is the evidence for the protective potential to help reduce the level of future anxiety and depression in Autistic adults.
Even more so than mindfulness, self-compassion challenges us to learn ways to respond differently, more supportive to ourselves, when facing things we suffer, or things we had thought of as failure and it involves finding ways to limit negativity causing us stress.
The priority is learning to be in the present / now - rather than either continually beating ourselves up over past perceived "failures" and learning to reduce the "what if" catastrophism around potential outcomes which haven't happened and may be unlikely to happen.
Masking to "fit in" doesn't serve us well in the pro-self-compassion endeavour; as masking risks unwisely and unhealthily reinforcing the myth: that our naturally Autistic ways are open to be judged somehow inferior (to the natural ways of a non-Autistic person).
Perhaps particularly relevant to late-identified / late-diagnosed Autistic adults; is by being bold in applying the new Autism knowledge to ourselves: by finding ways to take onboard and applying the mantra that our experiencing suffering needs to be met with both our kindness to ourselves and our self-compassion.
Our self-realisation / formal diagnosis of Autism (as each Autistic individual personally experiences Autistic life) helps to provide us insights into the "what / why".
Our work on our self-compassion offers us the opportunity to begin discovering the "how" of finding and applying adaptions and reasonable adjustments to contribute to better supporting our mental health (thereby, potentially helping to reduce the likelihood / magnitude of future anxiety / depression).
A small example with which I have been experimenting:
I liked the mindfulness idea of (but in practice didn't gel with) adult colouring-in books.
Instead, I joined a quiet style of art group.
Unfortunately for me (hypersensitive to sound), somewhere within the first 30 minutes is the venue's weekly fire alarm test.
The nature of the venue means it would be unreasonable to request they reschedule their fire alarm test.
Therefore, I adapted in pursuit of self-compassion:
- by ensuring I add ear defenders / noise-cancelling headphones to my art bag,
- I shall protect my ears for the first half an hour of attending the art group,
- I will work on dissipating (as the fallout of many decades of masking); being self-conscious / self-judgemental about being so "Princess and the Pea" as I am initially startled and then disregulated by (for at keast an hour) a fire alarm test!
Now I know that I am Autistic; I need to embed: that there is no call for embarrassment / judgement (yes, I find the fire alarm painful and distressing, but I can mitigate that experience, it ought not curtail my art group attendance, it will be OK as I am safe, I don't need to suffer and anticipate with anxiety the alarm (when I can protect my ears), why miss out on art group and be depressed by that barrier to participation or suffer the fallout from the full alarm audio, show up and attend ...on my Autistic-enabled terms).
Anything (healthy) we can do, as Autistic adults to stave off / reduce the spectre of later anxiety / depression should be classed as a priority for confirming to ourselves ...our worth.
What self-compassion measures have you devised and implemented / could you trial - to support your own mental health as an Autistic adult?
