education

Yes, Really, I’m Autistic

autismacceptance
Autism acceptance symbol

Three years ago, I started to suspect I was autistic. I had just been diagnosed with ADHD, and starting medication for it had greatly improved my ability to function and my quality of life.

I had come across accounts of other women’s experiences with autism, and the number of times I found myself saying, “Wait, I do that!” went up every time I read something new.

I brought it up with my doctor and therapist, who were skeptical. I didn’t match the autistic profile, I had social skills, I was functional, etcetera. Never one to accept arguments from authority figures, I went looking for more information. I collected some resources about women and autism, including some women’s personal accounts, and gave them each a packet of articles.

After reading these resources, they both agreed that actually, I was onto something here.

The informal diagnosis didn’t have an immediate, drastic effect. It didn’t make all my other problems go away, but it did put a lifetime of observations, quirks, and difficulties into context. The more I read about autism, the more often I found myself thinking, “Oh that’s why I do that.”

Over time, just knowing I was autistic made a huge difference in the quality of my life. I started to question my own assumptions about myself. Instead of brushing something off as “just a silly thing” that I had to get over, I started paying attention. I started asking myself if these experiences were actually causing me distress that I had been socialized to ignore.

Now I know that ambient noise overwhelms and tires me, so I wear headphones when I’m in noisy places. Now I know that food texture is often an issue for autistic people. Now I know that it took me so long to figure this out because I was socialized to blend in and ‘not be a problem,’ something that’s very common for autistic women.

Now that I know about my autism, I’ve been very fortunate to find support. I’ve spent time with people who share some of my experiences, people who understand what it’s like to live in a society that’s, at best, indifferent to neurodivergence and, at worst, is actively hostile to it. The validation I get from talking about these things with other autistic people is such a relief, I can’t even describe it.

Last week my doctor told me that she was grateful I had pressed the autism issue with her. The resources I gave her expanded her understanding of autism and how to identify it, and she’s been able to use that information to directly help other patients with similar issues. I cried.

I’ve been going through a very dark time recently. There have been moments where I questioned whether life was worth living. I’m very lucky that I had the love and support of my friends to keep me from completely losing hope. I clung to the idea that helping other people, that making the world a better place, was something worth living for. Knowing that I’ve helped other people has given me strength, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that this has saved my life.

So I have to keep doing it. I have to keep talking about this, and about a thousand other things, because I know it makes a difference.

Resources

Organizations

Note: you will not see Autism Speaks on this list, nor will you find any support for them in anything I write. You can find plenty of reasons why if you want to know. Personally, I don’t think autism is something that needs to be cured. It’s just a different way of thinking. I think instead our society needs to be a lot more understanding of the needs of neurodivergent people (and disabled people, and people of color, and queer people, and poor people, and so on), instead of labeling us as a “problem” to be “solved.”