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[…] an autism diagnosis can be a tool for empowerment. It’s an answer and an explanation, it’s a way out of cycles of self-blame and guilt, it’s a passport to an entire community, and if we’re lucky, it’s a connection to the understanding, supports, and services we need in order to truly thrive, sometimes for the first time in our life.
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Looking back over my life through a different lens adds perspective and dimension to my experience.
It explains and validates.
It helps me to accept myself and changes my internal dialogue.
It is a raw process. It is taking this part from here and looking at it in detail, deciding if it helps or hurts, then grafting it where it belongs. It feels more comfortable over all to have things in their new places, but the edges sting where they were pulled at, and sometimes there is an empty space left where it was that I am not sure what to fill with yet.
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Speaking about past events using the present’s conception doesn’t necessarily aim to deny the perception that was dominant in the past. Nonetheless, there is often a pervasive subtext that the present speaker considers this past conception to be deeply wrong, and so uses the present’s language to describe the past in an attempt to say it right, according to the present time.
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Access to a collective autistic wisdom, absent for a lifetime, is a powerful force. Through it we can discover the language and concepts we need to ease our passage towards more congruent identities
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Having {frameworks} for experiences can be profound, the difference between mute suffering and solidarity and strength in the face of adversity.
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It really helps to have a community who don’t react to my descriptions by saying “that’s weird” or “surely you mean you’re [insert different emotion/reaction]”, and also to have read so many other first-person accounts from other autistic people that chime with my own. Having the language to communicate my feelings with others who can relate is amazingly powerful, and it feels like every new revelation helps me to figure something new out, and describe it better. It makes me think a lot about how important community can be, how much we can learn by having people we can relate to in our lives, and how valuable it is for us to have ever more accurate and authentic representations of different ways of seeing and experiencing the world.
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[…] Remind yourself that seeing your limits just means you’re seeing more of the parameters in the equation. Remind yourself that most people don’t know their own limits that well, and they can’t plan for it. They’ll hit the wall at full speed. So knowing this is a power that you have.
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[Diagnoses and/or labels] can often be adopted by people […] in order to structure and explain their experiences.
Some people find that having names for their [experiences] provides them with a sense of order and a way to reconstruct their lives.
Finding ways and new meaning in which they can participate in community and re-write their own personal and collective histories, enables a reclamation of voice; a re-naming that encourages re-positioning and the gaining of power and agency.
Monika Dos Santos, Jean-François Pelletier
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Even without an official diagnosis, many people [can] benefit from learning coping techniques with people who have similar life experiences.
Worst case scenario, someone who isn’t autistic learns how to function more easily from people who are autistic. [It’s] the curb cut effect: Disability accommodations can improve the lives of more than just their target audience.
Autism: Explorations 