I’m autistic, and it’s important that I not hide that fact

Firstly: thank you for agreeing to read this article. Before I continue, I want to establish – for myself and for all readers – why I have written this piece.

Why am I doing this? (today)

Coming out to people in your life that you are, in fact, autistic, is pretty intimidating. You are not the first person to learn this about me, however. My wife wasn’t the first, either. The first person to learn this about me was… me.

I often say: “it’s hard to say you really ever ‘know’ a person.” One thing family and friends might know about me is that I struggle with generalities. I’ve always held a firm distaste for them. Another thing they may have noticed about me is that I’m very detail-specific.

In many ways, I can’t help this. It’s who I am. But, it has made the idea of ‘coming out as autistic’ very difficult to process. Sure, it’s intimidating to be vulnerable. Many of us would say this. My biggest struggle, which has been my greatest source of procrastination, has instead been the swaths of mental detail to sort through in even writing this.

Important questions have needed optimal answers. Who would I write this for? What would it contain? What would the ‘mood’ of the piece be? What would be its medium? What would I reveal? What would I reserve?

A video content creator I subscribe to on YouTube is well known for saying, “you have to just hit ‘record.’” His point? We can ruminate for hours, days, weeks, months, and years about what we should do – how things should come to exist, eventually. But if we stay there forever, we never actualize. I feel inspired to write this piece today, spurred both by his words and the words of Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl (from his timeless work, Man’s Search for Meaning):

“… there is no reason to pity old people. Instead, young people should envy them. It is true that the old have no opportunities, no possibilities in the future. But they have more than that: Instead of possibilities in the future, they have realities in the past -the potentialities they have actualized, the meanings they have fulfilled, the values they have realized -and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.”

And so, today, I will make this aspect of my life – the more public proclamation that I am autistic – the past, so that I can move on to an even grander future, full of truth and opportunity.

The beginning: anecdotes and anomalies

I don’t have much in the way of video of myself as a young child. I do have memories, a plethora of photographs, and stories from family.

In many ways, as a baby and toddler, I was then how I am now: seemingly stoic, heavily observant, and, at times, fairly expressionless. I’ve been described as a “very serious child” – noticeably “different” in my behavior from other children. I’d often experience staring spells, lost in my mind and seemingly detached from my body.

Two of my biggest challenges were socializing and sensory issues. I’ll start with the former and work my way to the latter.

Difficulty socializing

I can’t say I’ve always seen the point in socializing. As a preschool-aged child, it confused me quite a bit.

As I prepared to go to preschool, I was curious about what it would be like. I was told: when you get there, go up to and talk to the kids.

Most of my pure interests are things I become somewhat obsessive over. The idea of going up to and talking to kids about my interests seemed like it could be fun. So, that’s what I did. I went up to kids and instantly starting talking at them about my interests at the time.

And then, I noticed they would walk away. That was my first taste of social rejection. I didn’t know then why they walked away, or why they seemed almost repelled by me.

When I came home to deliver the bad news, I was asked to describe what happened. To a keen socializer – or even a basic one – one of my biggest problems was painfully clear. I was talking ‘at’ the children in my classroom, not aiming to ‘converse.’

At that point, I was instructed to ask them questions. I must have cataloged a list of questions I could ask. I didn’t feel myself connecting with anyone, and went into a shell.

This “shell” was one I went into for decades. At first, “kids” were a group of ‘others’ that I did not feel I belonged to. They shared energy with one another I could not see or comprehend. That doesn’t mean I stopped trying. “People” became a special interest of mine for many years. In some ways, people (why they are the way they are, do the things they do, behave the way they behave) are still a special interest of mine.

This period in preschool was a critical moment for me. Through years of therapy in adulthood, I began to understand the following about that time in my life – true or false, for better or worse:

• It taught me I did not have ‘good’ or ‘trustworthy’ instincts,
• It taught me that others would reject me for sharing anything I cared about with them,
• It taught me to fear and avoid my cohorts – people my own age who looked like me

Sensory issues

From an extremely young age, it was also clear I experienced a heavy degree of what I now know to call “hypersensitivities” to sensory stimuli.

Food with contrasting textures could not touch, much less ever enter my mouth at the same time. If at all possible, I could not wear certain clothing types – they would cause severe unease.

I still remember the first time jeans were placed on me. I remember the organization of the room, my panic, and pleas to make it all stop.

Going to a Catholic school from grade school through to high school, I was required to wear a uniform. We did not have a choice on which brand or texture of clothing we were to wear. Even if we did, I’m unsure I knew enough to suggest proper alternatives (something I’m much more adept at today).

It is difficult to describe how I feel when I am wearing a texture that does not agree with my system. A starter-level descriptor might be to say that I feel “overwhelmed,” but this probably doesn’t infer much for you. I cannot focus on anything else. It feels as if I’ve lost my blood supply. I feel cold, pale, and stiff. I begin to feel nauseous.

Imagine feeling like this almost every day – and not even completely knowing ‘why.’ This was my grade school experience. Paired with my social difficulties, this was not a highlight of my life.

The middle: adaptation and acceptance

Once I’d made it to high school, I was extremely eager for a fresh start.

Mimicry and suppression

I recall my first day on the school bus, with mostly unfamiliar faces. I thought: “I can be anyone I want to be – I can be someone new.” I observed the dynamics beginning to develop between peers. Intently, I began to force myself beyond my fear and general aversion of cohorts – something I’d developed in preschool.

In those days, my mind would commonly race. I still had the same sensory difficulties I had as a child – same as I do now, for the most part. Only, I had developed a habit of suppressing these issues and pretending they did not exist. On the surface, this allowed me to try new foods (even ones with contrasting textures!), and even wear a button up shirt every day without completely shutting down.

I became an expert at mimicry. Looking back, I believe what I did in high school was observe and hand-select traits from others that seemed desirable. I’d manifest these traits into several personas – leveraged at just the right times, for certain people. I recall explaining to a therapist during those years that “it was too much, managing nearly 30 personalities.”

Needless to say, I was not developing a sense of who I was during those years. I’d stewed in difficulty and self-hatred through to my adolescence. At that time, developing a greater sense of ‘self,’ to me, meant continuing on with being someone I’d dreaded being. Therefore, it made no sense to continue.

Environmental and social models

I believe many people would look at factoids from my high school experience and evaluate it as a fairly successful one. I had people I called “friends” (some actually were!) and scored high marks academically. I even secured a full academic scholarship to a prestigious university.

When my high school experience came to a close, I remember feeling a great sense of loss. Looking back, I don’t think it was just because a relatively ‘normal’ time in my life was ending. This was the first place where I’d really felt accepted – even if it wasn’t really ‘me’ that was gaining the acceptance.

Something I’d come to understand later is: I was also losing all utility for the environmental and social model I had built from the ground up for this place, one that would no longer be accessible.

One thing I know I need to expect and balance today is my system’s capacity to take in new stimuli (which must inform new environmental and social models) and my ambition to grow (requiring, much of the time, new experiences). This is an aspect of my person I was wholly unaware of earlier in life.

When I arrived at college, this became pretty apparent – though, at the time, I did not understand what was going on with me. I had difficulty keeping track of multi-person conversations. Lectures were torturous, as the speed and method of delivery of most professors often did not work for me.

Worse yet, I experienced extreme degrees of anxiety and depression. I didn’t really even know why. I felt incapacitated. These days, I know: depression can be a response my body has to an overwhelming amount of new sensory information. In later years, I’d feel depression in new buildings, airports, etc. I know why now; I didn’t then.

My system was also working overtime to build new social structures. At that time, I was socially surviving on behavior models built on mimicry, and there were many of the same old questions my system newly had to answer. Who should I mimic? What should I mimic? What could I do to gain acceptance and not become ‘me’ – the person who could only shut down, not fit in, and not relate? In other words: how could I avoid going back to my grade school existence?

In the end, I wasn’t really able to. Luckily, I had many great non-university classmates in my life by that time. But, to this day, my college experience still haunts me from time to time.

Today and tomorrow: awareness and activism

It’s been many years since my college experience concluded. During that time, I have gotten married to a wonderful person, with whom I’ve produced two wonderfully weird and secure children. I’ve made new friends. I have learned a great deal about myself.

This statement, however, deserves to stand on its own: I have never learned more about myself than I have over the past couple years.

Autistic in our mostly-allistic world

Through the help of fantastic therapists, I’ve realized just how much of my outward and inward identity had been muted and stowed away, due to the aforementioned traumas experienced during my earlier years. For almost my entire life, I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression. Many times, I’ve struggled to feel anything at all.

For late-diagnosed autistic people, this is not at all uncommon. Devon Price, a hero of mine and the author of Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity, explores this at great length in his work. Here are a few lovely quotes from Devon’s magnificent book:

“Most of us are haunted by the sense there’s something “wrong” or “missing” in our lives—that we’re sacrificing far more of ourselves than other people in order to get by and receiving far less in return.”

“What unites us, generally speaking, is a bottom-up processing style that impacts every aspect of our lives and how we move through the world, and the myriad practical and social challenges that come with being different.”

“Refusing to perform neurotypicality is a revolutionary act of disability justice. It’s also a radical act of self-love. But in order for Autistic people to take our masks off and show our real, authentically disabled selves to the world, we first have to feel safe enough to get reacquainted with who we really are. Developing self-trust and self-compassion is a whole journey unto itself.”

Why am I doing this? (tomorrow)

As I’m already beyond 2,000 words here, I feel it’s appropriate to stop. I never intended this piece to act as a full autobiography or slate of symptoms. At the beginning of this piece, I wrote that I intended to write this “so that I can move on to an even grander future, full of truth and opportunity.” A large part of that grander future is rooted in selflessness.

I have amazing privilege. I’ve made it through hard times to have a successful career, people who love me, and many opportunities at my fingertips. I’m entering the prime years of my life and career. Why, then, would I choose to publicly reveal that I’m autistic, at the potential peril of some of those things?

Exactly because of that last part. I sense there are many people who feel the need to hide that they are autistic. Their right to disclose what they’d like (and when/where they’d like) is a right that, I believe, should be theirs alone. For me, personally, I am taking this leap precisely because I believe it should not have to feel like one.

Societally, there is much development that needs to take place for disabled people. I am part of our society, so I am included in that statement. For one: most people don’t even know what “disabled” means – in this sense, I believe, I will always be learning myself. Secondly, I am fortunate to be where I am. I feel compelled to help make things better for others. To help them feel less scared, less alone, less hopeless.

I will not be able to do that for everyone. That isn’t my goal. My goal is to try to do it for someone, through relatively radical openness, honesty, and vulnerability on my part.

If you are autistic and (reasonably) afraid to talk about this aspect of your life, know that I understand. I’ve written this piece, in part, for you. I hope you find happiness and fulfillment, even if you choose to always keep that aspect of your life to yourself. ??