It wasn’t that long ago when I had zero self-worth and no self-esteem.
It was obliterated by a lifetime of people bullying me because I’m different, but I didn’t know I’m autistic most of my life.
Because I didn’t know, I landed in so many bad situations I blamed myself for getting into. Naively trusting people and taking their word literally. I didn’t know that my autistic default was to forget lying exists.
I’d say things in social situations that would get me mocked and disliked and I didn’t know why what I said was bad, so I just assumed I must be bad.
I have been so easy to manipulate all my life. Because of how I felt unloved all of my childhood and adult years, I was desperate to be loved and thought no one would ever love me. I figured it was because I was defective and my fault, but I didn’t know I am autistic.
Once I broke it down and took the walls down with myself in January, I realized I didn’t know my autistic self at all. It’s been a 5 year long process.
I didn’t even know what I wanted to do with my life until I had been running The Autistic Innovator for 2 years.
I spent so much time pouring all my heart and love into the store, and it was 2 years in that I realized I really love what I do and the community I serve.
If you are new to your autistic self, please be patient with yourself. You will learn who you are and find the strength to withstand the hardship of existing as an autistic in a neurotypical world.
Remember, even though I’m as out as it gets, it still took me 5 years to know my autistic self.
Tell yourself, “Who I am is good” and “I deserve a happy autistic life” and one day, you will believe it with all your heart.
@ashleyspencer@actuallyautistic
It took me pretty much 5 years too. It's a lot to get your head around. Not least all the false beliefs and assumptions we've made, that have to be seen for what they are. The endless repeated mistakes, because our base defaults leave us open to being abused, or to trauma and so often both.
Honesty, trust and a desire always to see the best in people, or at the very least a chance for them to prove us wrong and so very often the belief in what we're being told because of this. The way we open ourselves to trusting others because of this, because we believe that others will be like us. Even when we've learnt, in the very hardest of ways, that they are not. Still we end up doing it anyway, it is our way.
Realising that we are autistic, gives us, at least, the answer to why we are this way and the knowledge of why others aren't. And above all else, the understanding that we are not the broken ones, the ones to blame. It gives us the strength to be ourselves and to know that we were never wrong to be so.
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