Published on 12, July, 2020
Lately I've felt like I don't fit. Like I don't struggle enough to be considered autistic. I do struggle, of course. I probably struggle more than neurotypicals do. And I know that being autistic isn't only about struggling. But sometimes it feels like I am faking it. Like it's just another mask that I put on. These sentences are so hard to write. It's like trying to catch a specific snowflake in the blizzard that is my brain. So I'll just stop here. Have you ever felt this way?
I had an imposter syndrome some time ago. But I threw it out of my head. Not all autistic people must struggle, not all of us struggle equally and not equally in different stages of our lives. We all grew up and live in different environments. Some of us may thrive because they found what serves them and makes them happy and fulfilled. Does this mean that they are not autistic anymore? It’s a developmental condition, it does not disappear once you manage your life to be bearable for you. I’m much happier now than I was in my youth which was terribly traumatic. Now I just understood why I am the way I am, why I couldn’t find myself in this world and my place in it. But now I found. Everyone has struggles. Other ND people also have them and NTs have them. I would say It’s not the level of struggles classifying us with conditions. It’s rather our characteristics, traits, experiences.
I think everyone goes through imposter syndrome before or after diagnosis. It's one of the stages of accepting it.
However, I think struggle is very much part of the autistic life and the diagnosis criteria specify that the difficulties must “limit and impair everyday functioning”.
Yes, I agree. I suffered a lot when I was younger. Now I feel much better because of the knowledge and I also let myself mask less. The fact that now I struggle very little or not at all (with help of meds) is because of the knowledge of my condition and ability to manage my life the way it serves me. So currently I don’t need diagnosis I don’t have high support needs but it does not change who I am. If I have still worked in the call center like I did 3 years ago, I would have probably developed some serious conditions like heavy anxiety and I would have suffered till now as I did before. Thank goodness I quit it. I realised that I don’t have to pretend that I’m like others when I’m not. If I have to meet new people everyday, I would feel much worse. This knowledge helped me decide to look for a performance based job, which I found, where my attention to detail and good memory are praised and I don’t need any soft skills.
Pixie, I'm pretty simialr to you I was given the diagnosis of Aspergers, but lately that diagnosis dosen't seem to be valid, we're all included under the umbrella of autism, which is great in many ways, but in others I think it confuses. I think it confuses others more than autists, because, as you say it is such a wide spectrum and can't be plotted that easily and no assumptions can be made about someone capabilities. I do know a couple of people who are getting wary fo the whole idea of spectrum disorders, just because there are no clear diagnostic criteria like the are with a disease like measles or chickenpox. But those people are very straight line vertical thinkers who do no tangents or shades of grey, everything seems very binary to them.