Months later, I’m finally ready to talk about the realizations that were, at first, pretty unwelcome. I mean, no one really wants the stigma that comes along with any sort of disorder or condition, but it also really, really helps to have a name for the overflowing bag of quirks that you didn’t realize were actually all interconnected. It’s relieving in that way!
Researching for days and days, reading tons of blog posts about the different ways symptoms manifested, it all made me realize the autism spectrum is a lot broader than the public’s stereotyped view allows for. I mean, I “knew” this, but I didn’t really understand it until I read about it in depth for hours and hours. When I finally talked to my husband about it, I was crying even though I wasn’t sad, and he told me that he kind of knew for a long time, but didn’t think it was worth mentioning. “How did you know?!” was all I could think, but of course… he lives with me, his two siblings are on the far end of the spectrum, and he’s pretty perceptive. I don’t really think I would have believed him if he’d told me before I was ready to hear, anyway. Which is probably why he didn’t say something.
I was really annoyed to learn about the under-diagnoses in cis women, mostly because I ended up realizing that the standards are usually set for cis men, specifically. There are a lot more things to be said about that, but I suppose it’s neither here nor there.
One of my big fears in talking about this to anyone was anyone at all thinking it an “excuse” for anything I say or do. To me, it’s kind of like… something that helps me categorize my thoughts and understand which ones aren’t what most people are thinking, and it helps me understand a lot of big communication problems I’ve faced. It offered me a lot of relief in that way! It was like… “finally, this makes sense, the way these people explain it, this is exactly how I think!” - and it made me so happy to be able to relate to someone else’s thought process!
I don’t want to sit here and list off the dozens upon dozens of tiny realizations I had, or things that I thought were “normal” actually being quirks, but I do want to say that I’m really glad I figured this out sooner rather than later.
And man, people ask me all the time how I’m able to work so much and focus on things… but you know, that’s kind of… all my brain lets me do… work and focus on the 2 things I’m interested in… and it’s what I’m happy doing!
I’m really glad I was able to shatter the limited view I had in my head of things related to ASD stuff; I just don’t really know what else to say other than I really didn’t realize the specifics, so I hope this comic might encourage people to do some research for themselves about it. (Sorry, this isn’t like an educational post or anything as much as it’s me trying to express how I felt about figuring it out!)
Please forgive me if I’ve worded anything badly, as well. I don’t really know how to talk about this very well yet, but I’m trying.
good primer for anyone not already familiar with it