Being Late-Identified Autistic means finally getting the map and the language through which to understand myself.

Before diagnosis I never thought I had meltdowns but in the assessment the stories I was most ashamed and confused about revealed so much to me - mostly that there was never anything to be ashamed about.

I am still learning myself through my unlearning and I am glad of the pain that helps me to see what was never right for me but which I withstood at any internal cost for external acceptance.

I’m glad to be changing that gameplan.

* Of course, this is the ideal restaurant for some and and I thought this used to be for me when (assumed NT) I convinced myself I could do the easy breezy fly by the seat of my pants kind of living - and many can - oh how I wanted to be that girl!!! This post is to remind us to lean towards the life (and sometimes this means the restaurants) that suit each of us.

As an Irish woman I am particularly sensitive to the word special. I can’t speak for other countries but here special is intertwined with being mentally unwell and being mentally unwell intertwined with being a danger to self and society and a danger to self and society a reasonable justification for incarceration in a local ‘mental hospital’. We all have one - they were plentiful in Ireland until very recently.

We have a tragic and shocking history of unjustified and lifelong incarceration in asylums in Ireland for reasons as varied as ‘grief, fear and anxiety’, ‘religious excitement’, ‘domestic quarrels’, ‘ill-treatment’, ‘pride’, ‘anger’ and ‘love, jealousy and seduction’ - who was safe?
Not Autistic people that’s for sure.

The word special may feel cute, kind, or banal but in the context of our society I personally find it dangerous, misleading and offensive.

Language matters.

Feeling more and more at home in who I am and remembering deeply what it felt like to not 💔

Thanks for reading this post and I hope you found it helpful. I’m Christine and I am a late-identified and neuro-affirming Psychotherapist passionate about unlearning the myths of Autism and opening up a more inclusive and curious conversation on neurodivergence. I use this page to express my Autistic voice. I am informed by my neuro-affirming training, my experience as a late-identified Autist, my work with Autistic clients and my research of recent neuro-affirming studies and literature. Ultimately my views are my own and reflect a presentation of being Autistic that I struggled to find and is under-represented in discourse.

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Now knowing myself to be Autistic allows me to view my experiences through a lens that I inherently understand.
For a late identified Autistic, to finally have a lens through which everything finally makes sense, is everything ♾️