I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years trying to answer that question. I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until my 30s, and I’m still figuring out the whole autism thing. When you’ve been masking your entire life, it becomes hard to tell where that ends and the reality begins.
In my 20s, I was practically a hermit.
In my early 30s, I would drink until the bars closed at 6 AM and then stumble to work a few blocks away.
In my late 30s, I was a fully domesticated family man with a wife and six cats, one of whom just happened to be a dog.
In my early 40s, the cumulative toll of trying to be someone I’m not finally broke me, and I ended up hurting both myself and the people I loved.
The Algorithm™ must be working for once, because I’m getting bombarded on social media with clips of other neurodivergent people describing their experiences, and I’ve openly wept more than once at finally, for the first time in my life, seeing another human being express a trait or quirk that I have struggled with my entire life.
I’ve learned that over the years, people have managed to convince me of things about myself that are simply not true.
I am not lazy. I will push myself to the limit and beyond for the people I care about if it matters. But I need to know that it matters, and if you don’t tell me that, it’s not my fault that you assumed my brain works the same way yours does.
I am not selfish. I have always been a giver. I would rather help someone who didn’t really need it than risk neglecting someone who did. But I don’t know always know what you need, and if you don’t tell me, it’s not my fault that you assumed I knew something that I didn’t.
I do not have to justify how I feel. There are tastes, smells, textures, or any other sensations that I cannot stand, that my brain, sometimes in error, rejects as if they are dangerous, and that does not have to make sense to you to be legitimate.
I do not have to justify my needs. Sometimes I need to be alone. Sometimes I need to be in the company of others. I do not need to apologize for that.
I do not have to prove myself worthy. I deserve love and acceptance. Full stop.
I do not have to change myself because you don’t understand me. The responsibility of adapting to a society built by and for people whose abilities are different from my own is not mine alone to bear. I am just as entitled to live my life as someone who can’t see or can’t walk.
I do not have to justify what makes me different. The fact that you can’t see how I’m different from you does not absolve you of your responsibility to treat me like a human being.
When I was a kid, there were always people who seemed to have an immediate, inexplicable dislike of me. Being a fat kid and a nerd well before nerd culture became pop culture, I just sort of accepted being an outsider. At some point I assumed it was something you grew out of because it happened less frequently as I got older.
And then when I discovered that I’m autistic, I realized that my entire life, I’ve had the exact same reaction to people who are “more different” than me.
I’m the fucking Bob Barker of autism. You can be as neurodivergent as me without going over.
Well no more of that shit. I want to embrace my people.
Because if you think I’m “too much”, then maybe you’re just not enough.
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