The Stages Of Discovering You’re Autistic
Sure, it’s different from everyone, but from what I’ve read from others, as well as basing it on my own experiences, it goes like this
1) If you’re informed by someone else that you’re autistic, you deny it, or have a hard time accepting it: At this point, you probably didn’t know much about autism aside from all the ableist stereotypes portrayed, so you may not have had the right idea of what autism is
1a) Alternatively, if you find out by yourself, you may start immediately trying to read more about it
2) You begin to accept you’re likely autistic: Whether you like being autistic or not, this is the point where you start to realise that autism is actually quite likely
3) You become more aware of your symptoms: Suddenly, you notice many of the autistic traits you have. Many of these may have been things that you thought happened to everybody
4) You begin to worry that you’re faking: You’re more aware of your traits, but you’re wondering if that means you’re faking them. I mean, deep down you know you’re not, but what if your brain is making you pretend to have thee traits?
4a) You begin to compare yourself to other autistic people: This is related to the last point, you may begin to look at other autistic people and think, “Mine is nothing like that. Maybe I’m faking” (even though you know you’re not)
5) If you’re able to get a diagnosis, you worry what the psychologist will say: What if they get it wrong and say you’re not autistic? What i I did a certain task wrong? What if i accidentally made the psychologist think I’m not autistic by how I’m behaving?
6) Eventually, you accept you're not faking: It may take a while, but eventually you accept that there's no way you're faking, and that you definitely see autistic
