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Share your experiences with autism.
April 2nd is World Autism Awareness Day. The big thing about autism is that not many people truly understand what it’s like to have it, and sometimes it can be frustrating when people assume the worst about you when they’re unaware that you have autism, this coming from personal experience as an autistic man myself. So for this challenge I would like all of us to come together and share our personal experiences with autism, whether you are on the autism spectrum yourself or you know a family member or friend that is of the spectrum. When did you learn about the diagnosis? What struggles have you encountered? How did you cope? Has any family or friends been able to help? What end of the spectrum are you/they in? Another thing about autism is that people with autism usually tend to have special interests, so share those special interests with everyone here. Maybe they’re really cool. I understand that this may be a difficult subject to write about, trust me I know from personal experience, but I believe that this can help spread awareness here on Prose, and it will help bring us together as a community. If there are some that feel that this is too personal and do not wish to join, that's alright. I completely understand. You are not being forced to partake, it is your choice. Fill free to tag me and as many people on Prose as you wish if you're willing to enter, that way we can help us understand what autism is really about. Thank you.

Differently Labeled

We all knew I was different. Friends and family used all sorts of words to describe it -- eccentric, emotional, quiet, weird, blunt, gifted, shy, geeky, quirky. Those words were mostly fine with me; I even added crazy to the list on occasion. I don't know what words other people used.

It's been less than a year since "autistic" got added to the list of descriptors. There were a few reasons no one realized what was going on sooner. For one thing I was female, and even now a lot of providers don't understand female autism. I excelled at school, so no one thought to look for something typically associated with delays. I was homeschooled, and since that CLEARLY meant I spent all my time chained up in the basement with no interactions with kids my age, no one thought to look for why I had issues with social skills. (*Disclaimer: Yes, that was sarcasm. Many autistic people enjoy using it*). I think the biggest reason, though, was that we had all only heard of autism as something bad, wrong, and terrifying that meant the end of everything. I had problems, sure, but little ones, nothing a little love and patience couldn't overcome.

Therefore, it was only as I was preparing to begin graduate school that my family and I pieced together all the little things that added up to something glaringly obvious in hindsight. The need for structure and routine, the problems dealing with groups, the anxiety, the sensory sensitivities, the lack of a filter, the face blindness, the difficulty discussing emotions -- all of them, symptoms that were chalked up to the way I was. I suppose that's true in a way. Of course, there were other traits I had that pointed to autism: loyalty, at times overwhelming empathy, rational decisionmaking, honesty, hyperfocus, curiosity, and intense passion for topics that interested me. I think it's important to emphasize the good points of being autistic, since everyone and their pet goldfish already know about the bad.

In some ways I'm glad I didn't get diagnosed until late in life. I didn't have to put up with the stigma surrounding autism, from well-meaning condescension to fear and malice. I was able to explore my passions without worrying about what I was and wasn't supposed to be able to do; as far as anyone I cared about was concerned, I could do anything I put my mind to. It also meant that I got the diagnosis on my own terms, though even then the psychologist I saw came close to writing off everything as a product of homeschooling before settling on Asperger's Syndrome.

In some ways I wish I'd been diagnosed earlier. It would have meant a lot to know that I wasn't the only one who struggled with faces and not just names, that there were other people who had to think about how to tell the truth without hurting feelings, that other girls like me also skipped makeup because it wasn't worth feeling it on their faces all day. In other words, I wish I knew I wasn't alone. Maybe then I wouldn't have felt quite as much pressure to pretend to be like everyone else.

I may have been resistant to peer pressure, but some expectations got pounded into me through sheer volume. Listen when people talk (and you're not allowed to get mad even if literally everyone else interrupts you). Judge people's intentions by what they say (and then they get mad at you because they meant something other than what they said). Smile for the camera, no not like that, show your teeth! (Thus why there are almost no pictures of me actually smiling). Unspoken corollary: "appear happy at all times at all costs" (hence why I still bottle up my feelings). Sometimes it feels like death by a thousand cuts, where even if I follow the strange rules I still get in trouble one way or another.

Long story short, my autism may have caused me problems, but a lot of them are because society expected me not to be autistic. It's something I wouldn't change if I could, not just because it's a part of me, but because of the positives listed above. Then again, I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who would say my perspective doesn't count because I've lived most of my life undiagnosed and because I couldn't possibly understand what life is like for people on the "low-functioning end of the spectrum." (I personally find that language problematic -- see this link (https://the-art-of-autism.com/understanding-the-spectrum-a-comic-strip-explanation/) for a good starting point if you're interested. This website is also good: https://autisticnotweird.com/).

On a lighter note, here are a few of my special interests over the years: earthquakes, volcanoes, rainforests, caves, the Enigma Machine (in particular Marian Rejewski's role; Polish WWII codebreaking contributions STILL don't get the credit they deserve), UFOs, and planetary science. Probably also TV Tropes and Rejected Princesses if I'm being honest with myself.