I did such a good job at accomplishing this goal that I made it through school, college, and university before someone even contemplated that I might be autistic, myself included. I had written my entire undergraduate dissertation on why males are more likely to be autistic, and at no point had I reflected that I too had many of those traits and was struggling a great deal to conceal them. I knew something was throwing me off balance. I’d studied psychology at university, diagnosed myself with every possible psychiatric problem on the planet trying to figure out what was wrong with me, and autism had completely bypassed my radar. In my ignorance, autism was something only boys had, something that was diagnosed in childhood, and the traits were obvious for all to see. (...) Sure, if I hadn’t hidden so much of my autism then some people might have considered me more of a ‘problem’, but with that may have come more support and acceptance.
After being diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, a form of autism, I went through many stages of emotions. From the high elation of finally having an answer, of knowing I was not to blame, << to the grief and anger that no one had known and helped me sooner. Then followed a sad depression and loss that I did not know who I was and never had >>, and, finally, a feeling that somewhat resembled acceptance and compassion for myself. But this is not a linear process, and I can regularly jump through all these emotions in a single day, even 10 years later. [...]
This isn’t about stopping camouflaging altogether; it’s about gaining a greater awareness of your thoughts, your beliefs, and your goals. As you will read multiple times in this book, camouflaging isn’t necessarily bad: it’s a skill all humans adopt and use to grow, and it is how we learned to socialise as a species. In many ways it helped us survive, and for that we should celebrate how clever and incredibly strong we were to learn to do that at such a young age. But here’s the thing: just because a strategy we used was once helpful, it doesn’t mean it’s relevant to our lives now. Sometimes cutting ties with our old habits and behaviours can help us to grow even further. In an ideal world autistic people would be able to access mental health support and work on these things one-to-one with a trained therapist. However, given the lengthy waiting lists many are facing to even be assessed by mental health services, not to mention the expense that private therapy as an alternative can cost, I wanted to publish the tools that helped me most so that they can be made accessible to as many people as possible.
After being diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, a form of autism, I went through many stages of emotions. From the high elation of finally having an answer, of knowing I was not to blame, << to the grief and anger that no one had known and helped me sooner. Then followed a sad depression and loss that I did not know who I was and never had >>, and, finally, a feeling that somewhat resembled acceptance and compassion for myself. But this is not a linear process, and I can regularly jump through all these emotions in a single day, even 10 years later. [...]
This isn’t about stopping camouflaging altogether; it’s about gaining a greater awareness of your thoughts, your beliefs, and your goals. As you will read multiple times in this book, camouflaging isn’t necessarily bad: it’s a skill all humans adopt and use to grow, and it is how we learned to socialise as a species. In many ways it helped us survive, and for that we should celebrate how clever and incredibly strong we were to learn to do that at such a young age. But here’s the thing: just because a strategy we used was once helpful, it doesn’t mean it’s relevant to our lives now. Sometimes cutting ties with our old habits and behaviours can help us to grow even further. In an ideal world autistic people would be able to access mental health support and work on these things one-to-one with a trained therapist. However, given the lengthy waiting lists many are facing to even be assessed by mental health services, not to mention the expense that private therapy as an alternative can cost, I wanted to publish the tools that helped me most so that they can be made accessible to as many people as possible.