Sense of Identity

I think one of the difficulties when people say things like, 'it's the same you, but with a label' is that they're right, but that lable makes a huge difference to how you feel about yourself, how explain yourself to yourself if that makes any sense? No, we're not all on the spectrum, unless the spectrum is so vast as to be meaningless, its like when people ask you to grade your pain on a scale of one to ten, my 10 might be higher than someone elses, its an imperfect measuring stick.

It's odd how people seemingly say almost anything to "make you feel better", when actually you need what you've just said acknowleging and allowed into daylight and not gaslit, which is what so many of these things feel like to me. So what you're high functioning in many areas, but what about the ones where you're not? For me this is one of the hardest things to get across to people, there are things that many find really siple and easy that I totally go to pieces over, like filling in a form, total melt down. Yes' it is odd that I would find writing a 10k word essay on something easier than filing in a form, but I can make my own arguments in an essay in my own voice, how do you do that with a form? 

I did feel a huge sense of relief when I was first diagnosed at 50, finally things started to make sense, I had a diagnosis, I can work with a diagnosis, now 13 years later, I've found little actual help or people who are willing or able to work with me, there are plenty of people who will tell me things and have expectations of how I will react to certain things or not. It's like being back at school where they say they want to foster indvidualism and confidence and the first thing to do to acccomplish this task is make you wear a uniform to look like everyone else, it feel like a load of BS because actually they want me to fit in with their idea of autism.

I think one of the difficulties when people say things like, 'it's the same you, but with a label' is that they're right, but that lable makes a huge difference to how you feel about yourself, how explain yourself to yourself if that makes any sense? No, we're not all on the spectrum, unless the spectrum is so vast as to be meaningless, its like when people ask you to grade your pain on a scale of one to ten, my 10 might be higher than someone elses, its an imperfect measuring stick.

It's odd how people seemingly say almost anything to "make you feel better", when actually you need what you've just said acknowleging and allowed into daylight and not gaslit, which is what so many of these things feel like to me. So what you're high functioning in many areas, but what about the ones where you're not? For me this is one of the hardest things to get across to people, there are things that many find really siple and easy that I totally go to pieces over, like filling in a form, total melt down. Yes' it is odd that I would find writing a 10k word essay on something easier than filing in a form, but I can make my own arguments in an essay in my own voice, how do you do that with a form? 

I did feel a huge sense of relief when I was first diagnosed at 50, finally things started to make sense, I had a diagnosis, I can work with a diagnosis, now 13 years later, I've found little actual help or people who are willing or able to work with me, there are plenty of people who will tell me things and have expectations of how I will react to certain things or not. It's like being back at school where they say they want to foster indvidualism and confidence and the first thing to do to acccomplish this task is make you wear a uniform to look like everyone else, it feel like a load of BS because actually they want me to fit in with their idea of autism.