🤗
And you belong here.
Take up space.
It is yours.
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You are seen.
You are deserving.
You are a valued and valuable member of the autistic community.
And MOST importantly...
You deserve validation.
You deserve support.
You deserve acceptance.
Please don't let anyone convince you otherwise.
Your autism is causing you to struggle in significant ways.
Your autism has cost you in ways no one else will ever fully understand. Especially well intentioned people who love you but don't understand autism.
But here's what I also know.
Even though you don't have a piece of paper confirming your diagnosis...
Your autism is real.
I know that even though your self-diagnosis is FOR YOU, all the people telling you you are claiming to be autistic for attention can make you feel like an imposter.
I know that even though you have spent your entire life BEING autistic and you are PAINFULLY aware of the internal autistic experience better than anyone questioning your self-diagnosis, those people still get in your head sometimes.
I know that the fact that people in your own life don't believe you makes you question your painstakingly acquired knowledge about autism.
I know that even though you have read the DSM criteria, countless articles, and have spent countless hours learning about autism... the fact that you are not a diagnostician makes you question yourself.
I know that even though you are 99.9% sure you're autistic, that .1% still makes you wonder sometimes and the constant invalidation only makes you wonder more.
If you're self-diagnosed autistic this is for you...
I know the constant invalidation can be a lot.
I know the people claiming you aren't autistic because you don't have a diagnosis sound so confident that it can be hard to ignore...
It took me 36 years to figure it out on my own and 38 years to finally be diagnosed.
This is high masking, highly internalized autism.
If you know, you know.
Having lived 42 years of life with intense daily anxiety specifically tied to my autism, it boggles my mind that it was never once suggested that I might have anxiety OR autism.
Not once.
Life as an autistic person when supports are inaccessible...
If you're autistic, I'd love to know if this resonates... ❤️
Because in an EXTREMELY unpredictable and unreliable world where most things are not within a person's control, THIS is one of the FEW WAYS we can reliably ensure our needs are getting met.
And autism awareness would be much farther along if more people understood this.
And if more people understood this, more people would understand autism.
Because this is not just another thing worth knowing about autism.
It's a CORE FEATURE of how autistic brains function...
Think of a routine changing like a person with heart medication no longer having access to that medication.
No one would question their anxiety in that situation. It would be completely understandable.
Well, that anxiety is similar to the way autistic people feel when routines change.
So when a (highly calibrated, carefully constructed) routine changes, we're not anxious "just because" something changed.
We're anxious because it means our NEEDS are no longer BEING MET.
And when an autistic person forms a routine, especially when they can control most, if not all of the variables, each element is there intentionally.
Not accidenally. Not randomly. Intentionally.
And each one is there to get a specific need met.
Not want. Not preference. NEED.
We're not anxious about the change. We're anxious about what the change MEANS for our autistic brains.
Our routines are made up of thousands of micro-elements that all serve *extremely* important purposes.
I don't think most people understand what "routine" actually means when it comes to autism.
They think routines are just things we've gotten used to repeating over time... and that when autistic people have meltdowns over routines changing, it's just because we're anxious about the change.
Nope.
We’re not just being annoying. We have brain wiring differences that cause internal NEEDS that we can’t magically make disappear.
And more people need to understand this.
But I think it's important that people understand what's actually happening inside our brains and bodies when we correct others.
Because it's part of what makes our autism a social disability.
I'm not suggesting that autistic people can't or shouldn't work on this. I think there is a fair and healthy balance that can be achieved for both people in a conversation where this shows up.
Which is why we rely on our internal coherence for survival.
And why what others see as excessive and nitpicky, our nervous systems see as absolutely necessary.
I understand how annoying this can feel to others (even other neurodivergent people).
So, as we learn the hard way what those “rules” are, each hard-earned lesson becomes etched into our mental model of the world, which then becomes a CRUCIAL part of our internal coherence.
No matter how small it may seem to others.
As autistic people, most of us have experienced mistreatment for not understanding the world around us.
For responding or behaving “incorrectly” or “inappropriately” before we were ever explicitly taught the “rules” that define what “correct” and “appropriate” even are.
We don't correct because we want to annoy people. We correct things that our nervous systems interpret as a threat. Because we rely on our internal coherence for survival.
