vampireapologist:

vampireapologist:

vampireapologist:

i just saw a new psychiatrist and I know he’s not Right For Me bc the reason I went undiagnosed with autism for so long is that I’m very social and I painstakingly adapted a lot of behaviors throughout my childhood to be more socially “acceptable” going so far as having family members help train me to make eye contact and when I told him I’m recently diagnosed he said “is that a diagnosis you identify with a lot or that you’d be okay with changing” and I’d only been talking to him for like…..25 minutes and he was like “because you seem very social, so I wouldn’t have made that connection”

YOU’VE KNOWN ME!!!! FOR LESS THAN HALF AN HOUR!!!!

it’s just frustrating bc I get this response a lot from people who are meeting me after two decades of intensive behavior checking bc I didn’t know I had autism and thought I was just weird and needed to fix myself.

I forced myself to never stim, I’ve struggled with volume control and an auditory processing disorder every day, my brother actively trained me to make eye contact at age ten, I learned to use humor to cover my total lack of situational and social awareness, and after 20 years of struggling like this, ppl will be like “but you don’t act autistic”

bitch you’re right!!!!! I don’t!!!!!! because I wasn’t allowed to and it’s had emotional consequences I’m only just now beginning to unravel!!!!

sapphorb

it’s so wild when ppl say “i wouldn’t have made that connection” like it’s synonymous with “that connection isn’t there to be made”

this is so wonderfully articulated I’m keeping it thank you.