immortalwave

reggyjester:

Trigger warning: ableism, abuse, bullying

Generally speaking, self-diagnosing myself with autism meant first
and foremost a reality check: comparing the persona I created, who I
want to be or at least how I want to be perceived with what I
actually am like.

This is exactly why coming to terms with the fact I might be
autistic took me so long. A couple of years ago, I used to look into
diagnostic criteria for autism and brush them all aside: “Nah,
that can’t be me! I’m so *extroverted* and *spontaneus* and *good
with people*” … Wishful thinking much?

So diagnosing myself meant acknowledging and accepting my true
personality, my needs and limitations. This was really hard since my
carefully hand-crafted mask of an neurotypical person has been worn for
so long it almost fused with my true face.

Plus, since early childhood I’ve learned repressing many autistic
traits the hard way: through abusive, ableist parents who would
punish not only neurodivergent behavior, but any behavior that rubbed
them the wrong way. And through being bullied by classmates
throughout my whole time at school for being the weird kid.

I never understood why I was being bullied. I tried so hard to fit
in, to be nice and polite and friendly to the other kids, yet they
always found something about me that didn’t fit into their innate concept of
how a peer should look, talk, behave. So through a lot of pain and
tears, kid-me concluded that there must be something inherently wrong
about me, that I am doomed to be different.

I remember how one of my bullies in elementary school used to
threaten to beat me up after school. I couldn’t wrap my little
9-year-old head around why he was so aggressive and I asked him
desperately: “Why? Why would you do this? What have I ever done
to you?” His response was as short as it was cruel: “You’re
weird, and that’s annoying.” Another bully told me: “You’re
an alien, you’re out of this world.”

The fact that I used to move around a lot as a kid (I have lived
in three different countries all across the globe before the age of
10) didn’t make it easier to understand which problems were due to a
lack of social skills common in autistic kids and which ones were
simple cultural misunderstandings. But honestly … since I’ve never
fit in, no matter the culture or the language (which I learn
extremely fast by the way, it’s my only talent), I suspect that my
problems with peers were really due to a lack of social skills I have
a hard time admitting.

And in adult me, this lack of social skills is really hard to spot
– you have to know what you are looking for to look past my bubbly,
extraverted persona. Being bullied and lonely made me obsessed with
fitting in, with being popular. So I studied human behavior
meticulously and adapted traits from different people I deemed cool.
(Yet again, since I am autistic, how the hell do I know if
neurotypical folks might also find the same traits to be cool?)

I worked really hard to become approachable and to appear
confident. And I have succeeded: Nowadays, I make friends really
easily and many people tell me I am an really cool and unique person
and a great listener. Everyone thinks I am that confident person who
can chat up anyone, which is the reason why my employer loves making
me go to networking events. If only all these people knew the cost at
which my social skills come …

All these experiences are the reasons why I have a hard time
discerning autistic traits I had since birth from trauma reactions or
learned behavior. It’s like trying to untie a knot, or solve a
Rubic’s cube.

This is why I am planning to write a series of posts
about my individual autistic traits. As an orientation, I will look into diagnostic criteria and write a blog post in which wayy they fit me. So stay tuned, my lovely
followers! In the mean time, you can read how my self-diagnosis
affected my life.