June 30

Early reflections on important things that I’m learning on this journey into understanding who I am as an autistic woman. It’s been one week and six days. The lessons are coming in and I need make sure that I take note. 

Learning to Trust Myself

Trusting yourself is important. We have heard this before. Advice relayed to us in some kind of parental fashion from one adult or another. But this is a far different mindset from addiction recovery. They often say in early recovery that you can’t trust yourself. You can’t trust your first thought. You cannot trust your alcoholic mind. I do recognize the value in questioning ‘the first thought’ when you’re still trapped by addiction’s obsessive thoughts. However, this new phase will require that I trust my intuition. So I am going back to the grandfather’s wisdom of trusting oneself.

When I was getting sober I needed a kind of approval that I was doing the whole thing correctly. After decades of drug & alcohol abuse, I relied heavily on the suggestions of others to keep me on the path. A crucial growth period where new healthy habits are formed. Stages of recovery development through the repetition of actions that were foreign to the addict I had become.

But, after some sobriety when you have begun to string the days together, we should start trusting ourselves again. This is not always the case in recovery circles. There is an indication that we will be ‘sick’ our whole lives. We spend a lot of time as alcoholics recognizing that we are ‘sick & suffering’ in active addiction. But, I am not sick and suffering any longer. I never thought that was a beautiful way to reflect on your own existence. But I have taken the suggestions to stay sober.

Paradoxically, in order to understand who I am as a woman with autism, I need to trust myself. I need to trust my intuition over the many external voices that cannot understand my inner experience. People seem to have an opinion about in which direction I will take this new discovery. Mostly it seems to others that it isn’t that big of a deal.

I need to remind myself that other people’s opinions don’t matter.

Others Will Avoid Your Pain

I find there are several reasons why people could have an opinion. Similarly, this was true for those who admit to alcoholism as well. It is that people want to save you from the pain of having a diagnosis. They believe that by discrediting and reducing it, they are helping you feel less pain. They assume that making the nature of the situation smaller helps you feel better about it. Instead, it makes my experience less important. Less relevant. Less real. It quantifies and qualifies my experience into something that is defined by someone else. Someone who wants me to feel less ultimately so they can feel less pain too.

I’ve seen this time and time again with families of alcoholics who don’t want them to be alcoholics. You might think that a loved one only hopes for a solution that would reduce the suffering. But I have found people to be selfish with their tolerance for pain and even empathy. There is a limit to the depths others are willing to go. But for the person living this, we must go as deep as necessary to find our truth.

In honor of the other’s own experience, which I don’t pretend to fully understand. They might not even be aware of it. Yet, the truth is, other people do not like to watch you go through pain. It’s too much to bear. So the idea that we can avoid it becomes palatable. If we deny the existence or gravity of a situation, then it can be managed.

Well life is painful at times. Growth often requires discomfort. Not all experiences are to be managed. They should be honored. Looked at. Breathed life into. Given validation through admitting, this IS happening. How else can we move into acceptance and healing?

I had a conversation recently with a friend of an alcoholic who is still drinking. There was a thought that she had some kind of a brain tumor because her tremors were so bad. Everybody involved was hoping that it was something to do with her brain and not alcoholism. Because that path is a long one. It was actually preferred there was a brain illness that potentially had a ‘surgical’ solution. As if we can simply extract our issues right out of our lives with no work.

In doing so we might easily avoid dirty little secrets like addiction or the reality that others are born differently. What if we are required to feel something in order to grow? We might have to look straight into the fear of the unknown and show up for one another. Alas, the comforting answer is to slide right past it. Reduce it to barely mentionable, no big deal. For myself, I cannot heal in that manner. I have learned to lean in. The only way to get through a situation, it to go through it.

“You Have Accomplished So Much”

Another reason that people might have an opinion about the status of my neurology and nervous system. Which is actually quite funny, but yes, people do have opinions. The reason they may have one is that it doesn’t look like I have a lot “wrong with me”. Therefore, the idea is that I’ve gotten through life successfully thus far. Or because “I have so many gifts and talents.” This diagnosis isn’t that big of a deal.

Yes, I have several degrees and a successful former career as an Intelligence Officer. I have owned and still do own a business on my own. I have travelled the world mostly solo. I have a lived a lot of life. So, I actually wrestled with that over the last couple of days. I found myself thinking, maybe it isn’t that big of a deal. I even asked myself why is it such a big deal?

An Imposed Imposter Syndrome

I began to question what I KNOW deep in my soul to be the truth. That I am autistic. That I was born this way. It has always been there underlying absolutely everything, always. It made sense immediately. I began listening to those who support me via feeling less. I started to take stock of the proof that I have made it successfully thus far. As a result my own instincts got muddled.

I actually asked myself and checked in with myself, is it OK for this to be a big deal?

That is 100% influence from outside affecting the way I am experiencing this life-altering situation. When the fact is, I know how I feel about it. It IS a big fucking deal.

It’s not necessarily that people are cognizant of their desire to make themselves comfortable. They do not outwardly want me to be small. The truth is people do what they do based on their own traumas and lessons, loves and let-downs.

I am Learning Who I Am, Again

My whole life has been derailed by alcoholism, but alcoholism was really the solution for a long time. We all know that. So this diagnosis is the most important thing I’ve ever known about myself. Literally alcoholism comes secondarily. I never thought I would say that. But the reality is alcohol fixed for a time the underlying condition that nobody realized I had! So to not know this truth about myself is detrimental. I am not sure how much longer I could have kept up the balancing act that I was imprisoned by.

To not know that I am autistic caused a lifetime of pain. It caused me to need pills and drugs to survive my own mind. It’s the whole fucking reason that everything in my life is the way that it is. So it’s finally time for me to know the truth about myself. There’s no bigger truth so far in my life. So I won’t listen to people that want me to be small. They want me to be tiny. They want me to reduce the effects of what’s actually happening. I cannot tolerate another persons opinions about how this should affect me so that they’re more comfortable.

For someone to say, Vanessa it’s actually more common than you think. It reduces my experience. It reduces what is happening to a common occurrence.

This is the train that has hit me. Not in a devastating and violent way, but in a way that is still powerful and impactful nonetheless. I need to honor that.

Honor the experience of others in a way that is defined by them

A suggestion for early diagnosis that was so helpful to me. Keep track of the roller coaster of emotions. This is important in the days following a realization, self-diagnosis (which was me originally), or a formal diagnosis. These reflections become clearer as I write them. The feelings take less hold and just become part of it. A part that ebbs & flows. And that is the release, the pressure valve, the relief. It is how I honor myself.

I’ve been doing the best that I can. This is an incredible experience. I don’t want to forget the way that the feelings washed over. The emotions came up and how I processed them. So for me it’s going to be important that I keep track of it.

This is still hard to understand. I’ve only said the words ‘I am autistic’ out loud a handful of times. Each time I talk to somebody about what is happening it is tender and everybody has something to say. It’s like when you see someone at a funeral and you don’t really know what to say to them. Or when someone tells you something devastating, we always want to gear ourselves towards saying things that are positive. Even if the situation doesn’t warrant a positive reaction. We want life to ultimately just be shiny all the damn time. So we don’t know what to say.

I’ve noticed with the five or six people I’ve talked to that everyone has had a bit of a different opinion. I think it’s hard for people to know what to say. So I chose the people that I share this with very carefully right now.

My Heart is Tender and Vulnerable

I noticed in my heart that I got my feelings hurt after talking to a few folks. So, I decided to go inward for a while. I wanted to be protected. I have kept very much to myself as the world seemed harsher than normal recently. I have felt extremely vulnerable. So I stopped sharing with new people for a bit. I retracted.

It may be that neurodivergence is becoming ‘common’. But it’s not common for me, the experience is not common for me. The processing that I’m going through right now is uncommon. And that’s just it. It doesn’t have to be anything for anyone.

Back to my original point, nobody can explain what our experiences should look like or feel like. I have to remember that how I feel and how this affects me is 100% valid. There are no two people on the planet that are going through the same exact thing at the same exact time. Even if we are in a shared space. Our interpretations and our lenses alter what is felt.

Finding the neurodivergent and neurodiverse community online has been paramount. I feel validated in each post I read. Each reel I watch. Every podcast that helps me recognize that this wild internal world is different, but I am not alone. I am so grateful for everyone who has the pure bravery to speak their truth and not be silenced. If you are feeling alone, you are not. Keep seeking.

What I’m going through, this opening to self-awareness is my own. It is my path to walk. I cannot rely on what others will tell me. It is too soft, too unprotected and too new. Reductionist opinions are like daggers on soft exposed flesh.

Yet the Path is Still Below Me

Here I am at nearly 46 years old. I am coming to realize that I have been different my whole life. Attempting to be anything but. My life has had a set of hurdles, turns and twists. Some of them like burnt into my heart. But I am still here.

I will do the best that I can to work through this. Process through this. I will continue. I have learned and I have been shown the way. To pick up the tools, take the pack on my back and walk a path of recovery. To voyage on a journey of self-reflection, introspection and healing. Painful at times and unbearable at others. But I am blessed. I am graced to be within a Universe that has provided this gift to me. It is only now that I am fit to embark on understanding myself without losing my mind. For all of these things, and the words to express them, I am grateful.

#myautisticjourney