Two Years Since My Autism Diagnosis

 It is two years since my Autism diagnosis and nothing has changed other than I am still the same person , I don't expect anything from my diagnosis except that it is more me .I am still the same person I was before the diagnosis and the diagnosis gives me validity to how I feel.You don't have to get a diagnosis for your autism to be accepted but that is a whole different debate.I think being diagnosed now especially when you're younger does make things easier in accessing services and education but still there is a gaping hole within this sector.If I had being diagnosed when I was lounger then I think I would have ended up at a special school which would not have been suitable for my needs.Where as what I needed was helping in actually mapping out my ideas etc because I can have all the knowledge and know all the detail but not necessarily know how to commit that idea to paper.

When I was younger and life was in the moment I clung to those feeling s and moments of friendship and couldn't understand why I was shunned before I had even spoken it was if I had given off some sort of vibe .Children are awfully perceptive and they will be point blank with you most of the time and myself being left out was just one of those things that shouldn't have been.I would be punched and kicked and called names and there was nothing anyone could do , it was very much like Lord of Flies at school and though there were pockets of niceness school was pure hell.Not even my intelligence could save me as I moved to the higher set but maths was a no go as I can not handle numbers.You learn to play the game and you mask and you try to blend it but you just don't get it because you give social signals that people just don't understand.

It goes like this I can take and talk and think I am explaining myself but it is like I am talking say a multitude of languages all at once with people saying 

"What are you trying to say ?"

Interaction is both my nemesis and my want it is quite frankly like magnets repelling .

This is why I loved acting as a child and an adult I could be something I was nod and no one said otherwise but sadly I couldn't take it at GCSE as moving to a higher set it clashed with my GCSE choice.

Camouflaging is a way of autistics coping with the world but it comes with a great social cost, including heavy exhaustion and extreme anxiety.And one of the costs of this is not working which I did for many years as SEN teaching assistant amongst working in the cvil service but again in many of my jobs it was the situation where like the wounded gazelle I was hounded out of the job because I just didn't fit the social click.

And I was just about reclaiming my way in the world with helloing as a volunteer in a school and going to choir then who would have guessed a pandemic struck.