#also sorry we cant give solid ages still trying to put our childhood memories back together

[wellthatschaotic]

ok so can we talk about how like, a flip switches when you get diagnosed with autism/someone finds out you're autistic/you tell someone you're autistic

(tl;dr at the end)

my brother, being amab and with more "obvious" symptoms, was diagnosed at a very early age. (can't remember an exact number but like, 4-5?)

this led to my former guardian (not calling her m0m anymore) saying things like "you need to give him clear instructions*" and "he doesn't understand ___", basically babying him and infantilizing him because of stereotypes of autism and her own lack of knowledge/misunderstanding.

(*give clear instructions is typically good but the way she did it was specify parts that didn't need to be specified, it's hard to describe)

not only did this lead us to believe autism was a "negative" thing, it also made us think there was a Right Way to have autism- our brother loved (and still loves) lots of hugs and things, while we hate physical contact. he's very active, while we prefer to not be (though some of our closed-off-ness could stem from other past events)

since we weren't portraying the Right Signs Of Autism, there was no way we could have it (/sarc) and we were just a bad kid.

she'd let our brother have all sorts of sensory accommodations, including getting him a whole new wardrobe of a Good Texture (which we are very happy for him). then she'd turn around and say "ugh, it's just a shirt" if we complained about the tag.

this not only forced us to mask more both at public places and at home, and solidified the belief that we were just a "bad kid". that something was wrong with us. kind of like heavy internalized ableism from age 6(?).

finally at age 12(?) our middle school went "wait a minute" and gave us a test (we didn't know what it was at the time) and diagnosed us with both autism and ADHD. we didn't know how to react- we didn't think autism was a bad thing, like, we supported it- but it wasn't something we ever thought of having. ADHD is always played off as "can't sit still disorder" so we didn't know what to do about that either.

since then a lot has happened (/pos) we got away from the former guardian to a safe household (still trying to convince the whole system that safe does exist) and have learned a ton about mental health and our disorders, and are now proud of them!

the thing is, since we're used to masking so heavily and are just now starting to break that down, we don't "look autistic" and get weird reactions when we say we are. i've even gotten someone who overheard say "prove it!"

i've been talking with people, off-handedly mention i'm autistic, and they go like- baby-talk almost? nothing has changed about me?

TL;DR

(in our current society) it sucks on both ends. on one end, you're forced to mask and feel broken; on the other, people treat you based off stereotypes in the media.

(this applies with many other disorders but here is a personal story talking about our autism)