One Year Later

It's been a year since I was given a ASD diagnosis and I still don't know what to think about it.

I've switched therapists in that time to one who has more experience with autism. Although, I think most of her experience is with autistic children and their parents, rather than autistic adults. Also, even though it's been a few months, we're still feeling each other out. It's not bad, but please let it get better.

I wrote about my experience getting the assessment in March. I didn't know how to think about the diagnosis then, either. I thought six more months would help.

I've only officially told seven people about my diagnosis.

My mother and my father were all up in my business about why I was out of town two weekends in a row and the only way to get them to stop bothering me was to tell them.

I told my direct supervisor because I had noticed some behaviors that were called out in the past were, at least, partially driven by my autism and I wanted to explain to her. She also had a very kind reaction to the news.

Both of my therapists were told because I'm still trying to work on the whole depression and longing to be in Utah thing.

Finally, I told my brother and his son as we drove to a comic convention.

I don't feel ashamed by the diagnosis, but I don't want to put up with weird or shitty reactions.

Like, this summer I was at a birthday party for my cousin's three sons. (Two are twins who were born the day before their older brother's birthday.) I wasn't sure if the party was going to be indoors or out, so I brought my earplugs, just in case. At the party, other cousins were talking about their children and ADHD. One of the kids is twelve and the other is six. Eventually, they started talking about noise sensitivities. The cousin with the other child mentioned Loop earplugs and then tried to explain how they are different from normal foam earplugs, and the explanation did not go well. So, I pulled out my earplugs and handed the over telling my cousin to take a look.

I was being helpful.

The looks on my cousins' faces, and my mother's face (she was sitting next to me at the table), were not... good. Sort of questioning and angry and uncomfortable. My mom looked especially angry. There were no follow-up questions after they looked at and returned the earplugs. Still, the looks made me very uncomfortable.

So, yeah, there's all that.

My other brother, sister-in-law, and their son are visiting in a couple of weeks. My nephew was very curious about autism when I told them all about the assessment back when I visited them during the assessment. I may tell them when they're up. Maybe.