This isn’t going to be some technical, dictionary or DSM definition. You can look that up on your own — although, definitely take anything that dictionary websites say with a grain (or pound) of salt. They definitely need updating.
I didn’t know I was autistic until I was nearly 30.
My ex, many years before that, told me they thought I might be autistic, but said it with such rancor that I denied it (without knowing what it was), and never looked it up.
I worked in a public school system during that time, and slowly became aware of autistic students. One may have been diagnosed Asperger’s. They were mostly confined to the Special Education / Behavioral Adjustment classrooms, and many of the kids in those rooms, autistic or not, were seen as trouble.
But I still didn’t know what it meant. I don’t think I gave it much thought one way or the other.
Fast-forward several years and my Mom told me that as an infant, I would have been considered hyperlexic because I could read so early. And that word is the one I looked up.
And then I discovered it nearly always overlapped autism. There was that word again.
But this time there was nothing awful attached to it; no unfriendly tone of voice. Somehow, I lucked out and did not stumble across any of the hateful autism sites which unfortunately still exist. (This is not to say that I didn’t run into the problem of internalized ableism as I went along, unfortunately, because boy, did I.)
So I looked autism up too.
Sensory integration / Sensory processing issues soon followed.
Oh.
Now I had a sense of wonder and peace. I wasn’t crazy, picky, trouble, stupid, foolish, slow, dumb, too sensitive, over sensitive, touchy, or any of that.*
I was autistic.
This is why I think differently than my friends. Sure, all (I say all, like I had a bunch, which isn’t true) my friends think differently from each other, but they still adhere to a certain way of perceiving the world and responding to it. In a way completely separate from myself.
There would be a long road ahead to a diagnosis and further understanding of self. Really understanding me for perhaps the first time.
But…
I felt exhilarated.
Autism is me.
*Several of the words in this sentence are ableist. Not using them is something we have to train ourselves to do, because for so many years, and still, they were/are the go-to words. But we, as a people, have a LOT of words. And we each need to take care to learn non-ableist words. I use them here because those are the words, among many more, I specifically have had attributed to me my entire life. But I ask you to learn not to apply them to others. Remember the commercials several years ago that Wanda Sykes did about why people shouldn’t say, “That’s so gay!” to describe something they don’t like? This is the same concept. Learn new and better words which really express what you mean. Just because everyone does it doesn’t mean you have to use those words as well.
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