My autism diagnoses

I self diagnosed at the age of 30, after seeing, in the female lead of the netflix series “queens gambit”, behaviors and “peculiarities” that mirrored my own as a child. Forgotten behavior’s I’d long since learned to forsake. Not very accepting of autistic characteristics, was the society to which I was born…

Sorry South Africa, I’m going to hate on you a little bit. You kind of deserve it. Well, small town South Africa does, at any rate. I cannot speak from the perspective of someone growing up in a city…although I am of the opinion that there is a kind of nation wide abuse (casual cruelty and teasing culture) going on that no one really acknowledges. What is the IMPACT guys??? Resist the urge to be a dick! Fight the cruel thoughts. Don’t let them manifest. Choose good over evil! Just be nice for goodness sakes. Do you know how many addicts and psychopaths you are churning out?

South Africa does have its own individual brand of trauma and the way that said trauma manifests is unique to the people of our very complex and diverse society. So too do Germans, so too do Americans…Asians…Malawians…and on and on. It’s all at once fascinating and incredibly sad…the degree to which my and previous generations of humans were traumatized. The scientist in me is fascinated with the cause and effect of it all…the artist in me is distressed at the sheer enormity of this generational/collective trauma, and the spiritualist in me is aghast at the impact that this trauma will continue to have until one generation is brave enough to stand up and say”enough!

This world, the way that we live and treat eachother and relate to eachother…it’s all been formed by the minds of traumatized men. The trauma will continue until humans develop an advanced state of self awareness and transcend the collective traumitised ego.Why? Because only traumitized people become addicts. Become psychopaths. Become narcissits, meglomaniacs. Only the ignorant can remain “evil” and ignorance is a side effect of an unhealed human heart and mind.

I digress, back on topic.

At this point I would like to clarify that I do have an official ADD and autism diagnoses. Not that I really needed one…

I know from experience that the term “self diagnoses” will result in an immediate raising of the collective eyebrow. I really wish that this was not the case. It is a very frustrating thing, to have your theories, hypothesis, ideas and opinions totally invalidated by the knee jerk reaction of a species that has been brainwashed into believing that we are not allowed to use our own minds to make psychological or physiological deductions. I am labelled a layperson and told to stay in my lane. I say, if you have the intellect (as I am sure many or even most of us, do) to educate ourselves we will of course be able to identify whatever is amiss in our minds and bodies. In fact I’d go so far as to say that this is part of the process of becoming Self(and self) aware. Something that the powers that be are trying to avoid, perhaps?

Moving swiftly along (removes tin-foil hat….)

At first, I was in denial about the whole thing. When a google search revealed that the protagonist was written to have (what was then termed) “Aspergers”, I was like…

“pffft. I DO NOT have aspergers….”

.

.

“Wait, what is Aspergers?”

And so my search began. And it didn’t take very much digging before the initial denial became certainty.

I WAS Autistic.

And I was going to tell the world.

Because maybe, just maybe…if they knew the WHY of me, they’d be more accepting. If they know my limitations, they will not push me beyond what I can comfortably manage. If they understand that I am different than they are, they will no longer expect me to act the same as they do. If they realize what is special about me, they would make room in their hearts and their minds for someone who was put on this earth to create and challenge and explore and discover and to teach…as opposed to opposing my aspie energy at every turn.

Discovering my autism was life changing, but mostly internally. I no longer consider myself unloveable, I am simply misunderstood. I no longer carry guilt of not being able to fit in, I was not made to fit in. I no longer yearn to be the same as they are, I love what sets me apart.

Externally, not much has changed. People have expectations. They pass judgement. They think cruel thoughts. They lose patience, they invalidate. It took me awhile to accept that humans…we are slow to change. Psychological evolution, like its biological counterpart, is a slow process. All we can do is be consistent, and persistent, in our quest for equality, acceptance, understanding, justice, peace and kindness. We’re already moving in this direction.

It is an exciting time to be alive and autistic.

TataKoza.

Heidi