Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month

Just in time for Autism Awareness (or Acceptance) Month (April), I got to celebrate my autistic awareness (or acceptance) with my very own official diagnosis.

This has been a long time coming. I started looking into the possibility that I might be autistic at the beginning of 2023. It’s the main reason that my blog posts since then have been much sparser than they were in 2022. It was hard to find the motivation to write about my mental health when I couldn’t be as open as I was used to being.

I’ve been waiting all this time for that diagnosis, and towards the end of March, I finally saw the psychiatrist who gave it to me. It didn’t come as a surprise, after three years of reading books and articles and studies, repeatedly completing psychometric measures, studying the diagnostic criteria, and accommodating myself “as though” I was autistic (with world-changing results). It also didn’t feel as conclusive as I had expected – some other facets of my diagnosis are still a bit up in the air.

The imposter syndrome turns out to be much stronger now that I have an actual, official diagnosis instead of just doing things that might help “if” I was autistic. It’s a strange thing, that. I keep thinking of things, things I didn’t even get a chance to mention at my assessment appointment, that seem like good examples of how I meet the diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder. Turns out, it was obvious even without all the little bits of evidence I keep providing myself.

I’m hoping to write more about how my autistic self functions in the future, but for now, I’ll leave you with a couple of recommendations, in case you’re immediately interested in learning more about what it’s like to be autistic. But keep in mind that, although there are common traits, every autistic person’s life experience is different.

• Parts one, two, and three of Autistamatic’s “How I Made Autism Make Sense” series. For me, these videos do an excellent job of explaining what I experience in my day-to-day life.
• This website, the internet home of the theory of Monotropism, or this video explainer on it (from I’m Autistic, Now What?).  Monotropism is a theory of how autism works, from the minds of autistic scientists. I find it resonates strongly with me, as well.
• I’d also just like to say that the number of autistic-coded¹ characters in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld should not be underestimated.²

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¹ Meaning, “not explicitly labelled as autistic, but boy do they ever act it” – the most salient, although certainly not the best, example of this is probably The Big Bang Theory’s portrayal of Sheldon Cooper.

² And what kind of recommendations list doesn’t include Terry Pratchett’s Discworld?