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A new lens
Nov. 18th, 2019 09:19 pmCN: severe depression, hospitalisation, self-harm, suicide attempts, sexual assault, alcohol abuse, tangential child porn mention. Please exercise care in deciding whether to read beyond the cut.
Well that was interesting. Since getting my diagnosis a few months ago I've been gradually poking at what it means for me to be autistic, and looking at various behaviours and experiences from my past and present through that lens to see if it teaches me anything new about myself. And there've been a few things that made me go 'hmm', but it's all felt fairly minor.
And then this morning I read a piece of excellent fanfic which has very little to do with autism but a lot to do with processing trauma, which set me off ruminating about mine, and in particular the extent to which it related to having undiagnosed neurodiverse conditions. And then tonight I had dinner with Brian (WINODW), whom I didn't know at all well, and spent the better part of three hours bending his ear about the impact on my life of having undiagnosed neurodiverse conditions, and the attempts I've been making over the last few months to start unpicking that impact. So I guess suddenly it doesn't feel so minor after all.
I'm not sure how much people reading this know about my childhood and adolescence. It's not something I'm deliberately secretive about, but I don't really talk about it much because it was so long ago and it's not terribly pleasant to think about. This isn't what I talked to Brian about - that would not have been fair. But I think I do need to talk about it. ( Read more... )
Well that was interesting. Since getting my diagnosis a few months ago I've been gradually poking at what it means for me to be autistic, and looking at various behaviours and experiences from my past and present through that lens to see if it teaches me anything new about myself. And there've been a few things that made me go 'hmm', but it's all felt fairly minor.
And then this morning I read a piece of excellent fanfic which has very little to do with autism but a lot to do with processing trauma, which set me off ruminating about mine, and in particular the extent to which it related to having undiagnosed neurodiverse conditions. And then tonight I had dinner with Brian (WINODW), whom I didn't know at all well, and spent the better part of three hours bending his ear about the impact on my life of having undiagnosed neurodiverse conditions, and the attempts I've been making over the last few months to start unpicking that impact. So I guess suddenly it doesn't feel so minor after all.
I'm not sure how much people reading this know about my childhood and adolescence. It's not something I'm deliberately secretive about, but I don't really talk about it much because it was so long ago and it's not terribly pleasant to think about. This isn't what I talked to Brian about - that would not have been fair. But I think I do need to talk about it. ( Read more... )
