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Key points
- Autism can be a gift.
- There is intersectionality between gender dysphoria and autism.
- Loving yourself can bring happiness if you are autistic.
Yesterday, my private practice, Tree of Life Behavioral Health, set up a table at Trans Pride in Huntsville, Alabama. This was very difficult for me because loud, crowded events are very hard for me. They are overwhelming. It was hot. It was chaotic. However, the overlap between gender dysphoria and autism is estimated to be anywhere between 40% to 60%, and reaching out to this population with our autism services was essential. I haven’t written here much about this intersectionality between gender dysphoria and autism because I feel that it is something best written about by people who know it better than me, but there is no way you can work with autism as much as me and not also be an ally. So, I sat in the heat surrounded by people and noise and networked with other people who work with autism and gender dysphoria. Networking is something else I find difficult, yet in that moment I had a profound realization.
I am happy and I am lucky, and I am happy and lucky not despite my autism but because of it.
Pride was beautiful. It was a place where people were free to be themselves. Lots of autistic people stopped by our table to pick up resources and there was no masking and no pretending. Everyone was deeply themselves and it was beautiful. In this landscape, even the people who are normally crippled by their anxiety could be free. There was no judgment. There was no anger or attempts to look normal. I looked around me. I was surrounded by my colleagues and friends. I met a lovely woman from Alabama’s Neurodivergent Alliance who is working to do amazing things for autistic people in Alabama. I sat beside our autism coach, Rainn Stone (who is our expert on intersectionality), and all the other counselors and social workers that work on our team and realized that I had built something beautiful. People came and offered to volunteer with us. People came and asked about our Dungeons and Dragons group. People asked about our groups and our testing and our counseling and all of this was possible because I have autism.
In that moment, I realized profoundly something I have known for a while but never been able to fully articulate: When we are allowed to be ourselves, autism is the greatest gift we can be given. I would never argue it doesn’t come with disabilities and suffering, but now that I am fully unmasked, I realize it has been the part of me that has given me a remarkable life.
This morning I woke up and looked at my Facebook memories. I had memories spanning back over 12 years laid out before me. I looked back on my trips to Iceland, Ireland, Jordan, and Mexico. I looked back at my trip up Mt. Kilimanjaro. I looked back on my remarkable sons and their unending passions and hyperfocus. I looked back on the hardships, friendships I have lost, my failed marriage, failed loves, and lost siblings. I looked back at all the times I was conned by strange cat ladies and odd landlords. I saw pictures of jobs I couldn’t hold and failed attempts at marketing my fiction novels and when I looked at all these things side by side through the lens of my practice and the good we have done and the joy that is wrapped up in the beauty and the failure and the utter and complete oddness of my existence, and I realized that autism is one of the things I am most grateful for.
It is true that I don’t have many lasting relationships. It is true that I embarrass myself in public often and am awkward and clumsy, but I have sons I love, and a practice surrounded by neuroaffirmative therapists that support me and have the same vision as I do. Many people in my family support me and have helped me with my autistic support needs. My mother and my father and my aunt are always there. I have a couple of friends that respect my need for distance. I enjoy being alone. This is a gift many people will never have. Being able to find beauty in solitude is a magic I can never explain to neurotypicals. I enjoy the work I do that I would never have found if I hadn’t had autism. I love the trips I have taken that most neurotypicals wouldn’t have taken because I got so hyperfixated on things that I chased them regardless of the cost or what I had to break to get there. My life isn’t ordinary. I love the hyperfixated rabbit holes I have lost myself in so deeply that it was like being lost in joy itself. I don’t have a husband and friends and 2.5 children and a 401K, but I have so much more, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. People stare at me in public. There are people that profoundly dislike me because I am too blunt and bad at human interaction.
When you are diagnosed with autism late in life, it is easy to want to hide who you are and hide your autism. It is easy to want to give in to people who say, “You don’t seem autistic to me.” But I want every autistic adult to know that if you let go, if you allow yourselves to be the beautiful weirdos you are, this life is better than any normal life ever could be.
Let go of relationships that hurt you and know that just because you are autistic doesn’t mean you have to take the blame for everything with people. Set boundaries around your unique needs and your safety. Love yourself in all your strange loveliness and know that there is a life out there for you that will bring you peace even if it is nothing like the life you are supposed to have. Even if you need help along the way. Love yourself. Fight for yourself. Autism can be a gift if you let it.
