Honestly, this year's Autism Awareness/Acceptance/Appreciation Month has been very challenging for me and many others because it has been filled with lots of harmful and hateful governmental nonsense about those of us who are autistic.
I have been feeling many "big feelings" about that nonsense, but I have been struggling to put those emotions into words (no thanks to my tendency towards alexithymia*.) Overall I have found this month has just been a very low-spoon** month.
Since Mental Health Awareness Month starts tomorrow and I plan on being more active here during May, I am going to be "gentle, gentle***" with myself today and instead of spending lots of spoons trying to organize all my thoughts and feelings, I am choosing to simply reshare a post I wrote last April summarizing part of my ongoing autistic journey.
If you want more context please check out some of Dr. Neff's recent content:
Is There Really an Autism Epidemic? Understanding the Rise in Diagnoses with Historical and Human Context (A really good, easy to understand history of autism)
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Overview of My Personal Wibbly Wobbly Autistic Journey.
In honor of Autism Awareness, Acceptance, and Accommodations Month, I am outlining some of the stages of my personal, wibbly, wobbly, autistic journey. Of course, there was a lot of overlap between these stages, and this is not an exhaustive list.
Since clearly Wentworth Miller and Captain Cold are a few of my many special interests (I personally like the term special interests and use it, but recognize that some others who are autistic disagree because they think the term carries baggage), when Wentworth stated that he was autistic, I jumped online and took a range of free "autism tests" online.
Because of how literally I was reading the questions and the fact that I had been unknowingly masking for my entire life, I tended not to have enough "points" according to these tests. It is important to point out that many autism tests were written with cisgendered white boys in mind and therefore can be easily misinterpreted by those of us with different identities.
In addition, part of me felt it would be too greedy to have three identities in common with Wentworth (the other two are being part of the LGBTQA+ community and having had struggles with mental health). So while I connected to much of what Wentworth said was his experience of being autistic, I did not think being autistic was an identity that applied to me.
Yes, I know saying I was not autistic because it would mean I had too much in common with my parasocial best friend Wentworth sounds odd. Oh, brains can be very creative sometimes. Or, in the words of Leo McGarry, welcome to my world.
Stage 3: Deep Dive Part 1 (Summer 2021-Today)
While I didn't think I counted as being autistic, it became a special interest. I started by reading as many fanfiction stories with autistic characters or characters who were otherwise neurodivergent as I could. Because when there is a concept, especially an identity, I want more information on, I tend to reach out to my closest friends, aka fanfiction. (Same place I had already been going for wonderful Ace works as well as mental health-focused works.)
Stage 4: Maybe I Really Am Autistic or Neurodivergent (Summer 2022)
I saw a therapist very briefly in the summer of 2022 (for about 3 sessions in total), and at my second appointment, they suggested that I might be autistic. (Full disclosure: in the first session, they suggested that I might have an extremely high IQ, so they probably are not the most reliable LOL)
At this point, I did some more thinking, went, Oh, ok, I guess I really am autistic, and wrote a quick blog post, The Process Of Recontextualizing Myself, at which point my therapist was like, Sounds good, you are all set. You don't need any more therapy.
Note to that therapist: giving someone even an informal diagnosis of neurodivergences should really be the starting point, not the end point of that conversation. Also, that therapist was odd because they didn't like the term therapy, not that they said what term they preferred. I ended up writing a blog post about that too: What Is Therapy?
Stage 5: Deep Dive Part 2 (Summer 2022-Today)
This time on top of fanfiction I also read a bunch of books written by people who are autistic.
Stage 6: Removing Masks/UnGatekeeping Myself (July 2022)
This was a period where I started to think more about how being autistic might have impacted my relationships with other people and communities. Some excerpts from a blog post on the topic are below:
Typically the spaces I have most felt like I belonged in were fictional in nature such as currently with my adorable band of misfits called The Legends Of Tomorrow or Aziraphale or Crowley or Sherlock or ... all who I typically hang out with in fanfiction universes, fanvid universes, or daydream universes.
When it has come to non-fictional communities I think on some deep level that I was not aware of I knew that even if on paper I fit I was still seeing the world differently than others which made me doubt if I really belonged or if I was just trespassing in someone else's community.
I knew parts of myself but I did not have the whole picture for who I was so saw any not understanding the social context of the group as really meaning I was not part of the group or at that I should not have been part of the group in the first place.
Stage 7: #ThreeAvenuesBookshopMagic (November 2022-Today)
In what might sound like unrelated news, in November 2022, a new bookstore opened nearby. Three Avenues Bookshop is a wonderful family-owned bookstore that centers disabled and neurodivergent voices in addition to queer and BIPOC voices.
While, for example, mental health was a common topic in my social circles, so I knew lots of people who also had mental health challenges, I did not personally know as many people who were autistic or were otherwise neurodivergent. (I mean, I love Wentworth, but I don't actually know him outside my imagination.) In addition, I had imposter syndrome because I knew it was unlikely I would ever get a formal diagnosis for cost and other reasons.
Honestly, how I remember it, it was sometime during disability awareness month in spring 2023, and they had a wonderful display of books on disability, including neurodivergence. I complimented them for having a section that included autistic voices, and we got to talking.
Three Avenues was also probably one of the first spaces where I felt like I could honestly claim my autistic identity in a meaningful way. Like I was not trespassing on someone else's holy ground. In addition Three Avenues is wonderful because they fully support self-identification understanding the various hurdles to formal diagnoses. I never felt like I had to have proof of my identity.
Stage 8: Deep Dive Part 3 (Summer 2023)
When I went home during the summer of 2023 I was able to read several of my report cards from preschool and elementary school. These were very insightful and had language that showed I have always been autistic even though they did not use that word. This was important so I knew I was fundamentally autistic and I was not just mirroring others who were.
Stage 9: Integrating the Past/Moving Into the Future (Present)
So at this point, I am comfortable saying I am autistic and have integrated that into my life, but I am still working on how to take that information and be able to thrive, not just survive. I also think I am still working through autistic burnout, which makes some long-term planning more challenging.
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