Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi,
I got diagnosed with autism last year, at the age of 21, due to a joke which then turned quite real. Even though I had a good therapist, I was left with too many questions to answer.
I tried to find answers in articles online or in books but the situations were all different, they all had family which understood and was supportive.
I wonder, why autism never gets discussed in my family. The only thing I heard was that I don’t seem like the typical autistic person and that it doesn’t make sense to them that I was diagnosed to begin with and if anyone else has these issues.
I wonder if anyone else’s problems just get downplayed by other people when they try to open up. Every time I say that I have autism people react with the same sentence “is it diagnosed then?” this reaction just blows my mind. I wonder why I never seem to fit in anywhere, even if I try so hard. I don’t even feel like I’m a past if my own family anymore. There is nothing that connects me to my parents an when I visit them, there is nothing we talk about. My masking also doesn’t work very well anymore. Did anyone else experience their masking abilities to just disappear or weaken?
There are so many more questions I have but I have no one who can help me with that. I’d love to have a few people to talk to (:
So I don’t really know where I was going with this, maybe just letting off some steam? If you wanna say something then you are welcome to do so (:
It’s my first time in a forum so please don’t be too harsch on me!
Lisa said:Every time I say that I have autism people react with the same sentence “is it diagnosed then?” this reaction just blows my mind.
Me too. Also the kind of unspoken question I get is "Oh, so, now you're diagnosed you can get back to normal soon then & satisfy all of my needs & assumptions?"
This has just made me think of the following analogy.
Imagine a world where everyone is cube-shaped; big boxes with little legs and arms sticking out. Along comes Ms Sphere, who is really spherical but is squished into a cube-shaped box because that's the shape that everyone else presents and she wants to fit in. One day she tells some people that, underneath her outward cube-like appearance, she's actually spherical and suffering a lot because of being squished into a cube all day every day. "Oh?" people say, "Are you diagnosed spherical then? You don't look spherical to me.....". ["That's because of this ****ing box you put me in!"]
Hi there, I really like your name by the way!
It does not make sense to me why people feel the need to ask if I am diagnosed. It’s not like I diagnosed myself. I don’t know if people realise that it hurts and that it’s such a dumb and unnecessary question.
i really like your analogy because it perfectly describes society.
I get that (:
I feel the same about expectations like that.
hope you enjoyed you drink
Thanks :-). It will seem stupendously trivial to some I'm sure, but "giving in" to familial pressure to send Christmas cards for decades has not only been an aspect of masking for me but also a source of significant stress. A lot of my masking has been similar, i.e. saying yes to stuff I'd really rather not do and get quite stressed if I do. That and pretending not to care about things I actually care about, and pretending to care about things that I'm not really fussed about. I'm rambling, there is whisky left over from the weekend that won't drink itself :-)