Living with Autism

All my life I have been called strange or misinterpreted. My face was always a blank slate growing up that others would project onto or use as a sign that I am not interested in therm. My actions were not ever taken louder than my face. Usually my face is taken as being different or stoic. It has been harsh lately when my face was taken to mean I was looking irritated, something it has never been taken as before until I met passive aggressive people.

This made me realize how hard it is do me to be around passive aggressive people. They did not take my words at surface. They dug until they found reasons and meanings in everything that weren't there, of course mostly projections. As an autistic woman that does not have extreme support needs, but enough to still have more needs than most neurotypical women it would be nice to have a dollar every time someone accused me of being selfish. I am used to constantly working to meet people where they are at while they tell me my needs are not worth visiting because they don't feel sorry for me being an attractive woman.

Autistic women are less likely on average to struggle with envy. I stay to my own lane most of the time and don't veer elsewhere or like to make trouble or competition for others. I deal with jealousy plenty though and it is frustrating when I don't have the energy to participate in it but am dragged in every time.

I grew up mostly nonverbal and slowly became more comfortable over time with full sentences and phrases. Kids used to make silly fun at me about how much I didn't talk growing up. It could range from, anything that was just having a laugh with me to of course fully bullying. Usually just seemed like curiosity of course but I did not come to knowing I was autistic until late college. This makes me feel wonderful but sad all at once. I found out a time I was scapegoated, cyber bullied, and accused of being narcissistic many times. I felt as if I was trying to be good to people but I was misinterpreted so much and hurt, wanting to get better. I came to find it was not because I wanted to hurt others on purpose, I was just different.

I am excited in knowing who I am and the reason why I struggled growing up. I have looked into progression of autistic research and am shocked to know it took until the 1980s (info from time magazine) for the change of autism to be dropped from a relation to schizophrenia. I don't see much relation but others from the outside looking in for some reason see this when they make snap judgements about people just like me. Probably has a mixture between being weird to others and intelligent at the same time!

I always remember only being able to mostly hang out with the gamer girls and book club people growing up. I was pushed to popular girl groups throughout much of my time, but I eventually went from a cheerleader to band nerd and loved those with special interests and curiosity. Being free to be myself has always been an important aspect to my life I like to keep in line with and hope others can also understand to help the autistic community feel free to unmask and be themselves. For people like me, on any point in the spectrum wheel to live a comfortable happy life is what I hope for!