Thread by @NeuroRebel

I found out that I was Autistic, at the age of 29, fairly late in life.

When I would tell people this newly discovered information, often, they would have a range of reactions, from not knowing how to respond, to disbelief.

In my experience coming out, Autistic has been a lot like coming out Queer -you have to come out over & over again.

It is an endless process with each & every new person you meet (if you choose to disclose that information).

When you do decide to disclose this information to people who may have been close to you in your life, you may lose people, because some humans will be unable to accept the new information, in relation to the way they think of you.

People tend to have a very narrow, preconceived, idea of what it means to be Autistic.  That idea may not match the person that is standing in front of them, because representation of Autistic People in the media has historically been very limited.

Something else that I’ve seen happen, when an Autistic person is explaining their experience of what it is like to be Autistic, you may hear, someone’s say, “Oh, well, doesn’t everybody experience that?” or “Everybody feels that”.

No. Everybody is not a little Autistic. There is no little Autistic. Autistic is a yes or no checkbox. You are, or you are not Autistic.

Years ago, many years ago, long before I was diagnosed and found out I was Autistic, I remember sitting and listening to a woman sharing about the fact that she was Autistic.

I remember thinking, as she shared her experience of what it was like to be an Autistic person, “Well, it doesn’t everybody’s stories that?” “I experienced that too?”

I didn’t know I was Autistic.

Not everybody experiences those things, but I didn’t know that back then.

I know two people now who have made these comments. “Well, doesn’t everybody experience that?” who have then later identified to be Autistic.

I’ll leave you to think about that for yourself.

I would say that out of all of the reactions, to my disclosing of my late autism diagnosis at the age of 29, my childhood best friend’s response was probably one of my favorites.

When she said, “Oh, suddenly everything makes sense” I didn’t have the need to now justify what I had just divulged.

Many other responses, such as “I’d never guessed”, or “you don’t look autistic” or, “but you must be so high functioning” left me needing to do further explaining, because these responses seem to portray doubt.

One difference I want to notate between coming out Autistic/Neurodivergent and coming out Queer.

When I’ve come out in the past as a Queer person, people don’t typically question it – tell me that they “would never have guessed:“don’t believe it”/“I don’t look Queer”.

For some reason, people feel like these responses are appropriate when you disclose being Autistic.  I think that has a lot to do with stigma.

We still have a lot of stigma around being Autistic.  When you tell someone you are Autistic, right now, a lot of people are going to automatically assume that is a bad thing, because that’s what they’ve heard – “being Autistic is a bad thing”.

They’ve heard that having Autistic child is a bad thing, because that is what the message of the mainstream media has been saying for so long.

You share “I’m Autistic” and someone says, “Oh no, you’re not, I wouldn’t have guessed”. Because they think you are saying something bad about yourself.

When we hear people self-deprecating, even though that’s not what we’re doing, when we share that we are Autistic, a lot of society’s instinct and cultural instinct is to tell the person, “Oh, there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not broken”

This is assuming that Autistic people are broken.

We’re not broken. 

I didn’t always know that Autistic people are not broken.

I didn’t always know that I was not broken.

Read more on my website: neurodivergentrebel.com/2021/03/31/ret…

#AutismAcceptance #autismappreciation #AutismAcceptanceMonth #AutismAwarenessWeek2021
#AutisticPride #AutismAcceptanceDay