g’s Reviews > The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult > Status Update

I have spent my life obsessing about how I think & explaining my experience to others curious as to why so few of them seemed to want to do the same thing.I never dreamed that I was a “type”;rather,I thought I was a one-in-a-billion occurrence,just a guy holding a unique point of view that he couldn’t let go of.That’s how I got started describing autism from the inside, without any of the medical terminology / stigma

Autistics die of suicide at higher rates than nonautistics across every age group and gender.We are overrepresented in the field of mental health issues. It’s not a coincidence but a confluence of problems pushing one another onward. I don’t think that our late-stage capitalism is a great environment for anyone, but for those with an extrasensitive nervous system, the evidence points to it being even more challenging

“You are often creating a mean version of yourself, full of the voices of the people who have tried and failed to socialize you into someone you’re not. They are the chiding voices of parents, teachers, coaches, and preachers coming through in your own voice and telling you who you are.”

“Unmasking means gaining agency in your own life and allowing yourself to control how much of you shows up at any given time. It means letting yourself shine through your circumstances, building on who you are, and no longer imitating who you think you should be”

“Let’s come to this understanding: Your mask was also you. It wasn’t your full self or your chosen self, but it was an aspect of yourself that you selected from a spectrum of selfhood. You didn’t fool anyone into liking you or feeling for you — never, not once. They like you, they feel for you, they chose you, they accept you”

“Spending a life pretending to be someone you’re not has led you to conclude that who you are is not good enough for anyone. You’ve convinced yourself that you’re not worthy of doing what you desire, spending time with the people you want to, and becoming the person you aspire to be.”

“Autistic adults in the thick of burnout will often notice that their skills seem to have declined. Their long-term, short-term, or working memories tend to be impaired. They can’t remember names or numbers, and in some cases, nouns don’t even come to them quickly enough (…) They can’t concentrate on books, and suddenly an avid reader feels like they’ve lost their ability to understand anything at all”

“Having built our lives on masking, we become the person we are expected to be, which often means stretching ourselves in many directions or working harder than we should. Autistics and ADHDers hear that you’re supposed to “give 100 percent” at your job and take this literally, thinking there is a binary where you are absolutely slaying each and every minute or on the verge of being fired.”

“We can often feel like we have no control in our lives and are just hanging on, white-knuckling every day”

“Autistics spend much of their lives and energy masking, which means hiding great portions of themselves and mimicking neurotypical thinking styles. We can never fully do it, but we can look the part, and in doing so, we edit ourselves so much that our contributions amount to very little”