When I Said it Out Loud

The first time I told my parents I think I may be autistic, they laughed at me.

For context, my family uses humor a lot.  Everyone teases each other, makes jokes in almost any scenario. In some ways I’m sure it made communication easier. There’s a familiarity and casualness to playing around like that. It also probably taught me how to determine if someone is serious or joking with me.

Well…kinda. Sometimes I still don’t know and it makes me super uncomfortable.

Anyway, my point is, the fear of being teased, being laughed at, caused hesitation. I couldn't always be vulnerable. So when I told my parents over the phone that I took an online assessment and scored VERY high, indicating that I should consider pursuing formal diagnosis, their response was unsurprising, but discouraging. The conversation ended awkwardly because I had to explicitly say “I’m being serious right now, don’t laugh at me.” My mom appealed to me a tiny bit to ease the tension, but I was already putting up a wall.

You can guess what I did, can't you? I pushed the idea away. Again.

Fast forward several years, and I’m binge-watching Love on the Spectrum with the rest of the internet world and relating to the participants on a VERY deep level. Like "Holon' this feels a little too close to home!" I can’t explain how deeply connected I felt to their experiences and thought processes.

I was tired of pushing the idea aside.  By this time, I'd been in therapy for over a year. Therapy Girlie will take me seriously, right? RIGHT?!

I decided that when the time was right, I’d ask about it. I refused to keep pushing my own feelings aside.

That’s all for now.

I’ll talk to you soon.

- Me