Dance Through Trauma

April 17, 2021

A few hours ago, I was thinking about how people can misread how autistic people communicate because of our differences. I have unintentionally offended so many people in my past because they didn't know about my autism nor did I know of myself, but people still shouldn't get angry at someone for doing something that may come off as socially inappropriate to neurotypicals because they may be diagnosed or undiagnosed with autism. A self-diagnosis is still a diagnosis to me because with enough research and the diagnostic criteria for autism in the DSM-5 being available on the internet, people can self-diagnose themselves. Of course, if they're able to see a professional, then they should do it if they would like to, but healthcare isn't free for the people in every country. I currently have medical insurance, so I can't go seek out a professional diagnosis because that would require money that my mother and I don't have. Once I have insurance, I will try my best to get a professional diagnosis, so I can finally have medical evidence of my autism to show to any other doctor or anyone who needs to see my diagnosis when necessary. I would like to try out more speech therapy, so that I can communicate better with people in person, but only if I don't have to pay for it. Otherwise, I'll just stick with my self-diagnosis. There's no way I don't have autism. When you know you have something, you have it. All my life, I've felt different from others, socially. People always saw me as an outsider, which was how I felt like due to my lack of understanding neurotypicals. Some of my autistic traits are stimming, sensory overloads, strong obsessions with a specific topic from time to time, obsession with numbers, unable to make friends in person, unable to socialize appropriately on neurotypical terms, touch sensitivity, inability to pick up social cues, inability to understand almost all human body language, frustration with small changes in daily routine, uncomfortable with eye contact, emotional sensitivity, reading comprehension problems, auditory processing issues, visual fascination with lights, unable to verbally communicate properly, lack of understanding the social world of humans, and much more other traits. The biggest one of them all is my lack of understanding the social world because it shows that I clearly have autism. Autistic people have trouble understanding the social world. I don't understand how two people can just come together naturally and how people can join each other in groups and talk so easily. I always thought it was just social anxiety, but when I didn't have social anxiety anymore, I still couldn't do what neurotypicals could do, so I always wondered why. I noticed more about my lack of understanding the social world from watching TV shows and movies because of the neurotypical characters. Watching them let's me see more of what neurotypicals see, but I still don't truly understand it. I know what they see, but I can't see what they see. I'm completely socially blind, so I can't sense anything that neurotypicals socially sense. I've always felt like an extraterrestrial being because of this, and it's not scary. It's cool actually because it's interesting to see other humans with differences. I just wish the neurotypical society accepted neurodivergents instead of discriminating against us. Autism isn't a disease. Autistic people just need more support in some areas than neurotypicals. The same goes for people with ADHD and others who identify as a neurodivergent. The only bad things about my autism are the sensory overloads and sensitivities. When I experience a sensory overload, everything seems to be too much. I hear every single sound, which can be so annoying. I feel uncomfortable with the temperature of the air because it feels as if I can feel every single warm or cold air molecule on my skin. Then, there's either too much darkness or too much light in the environment that I'm in. All of this causes intense headaches, an uncomfortable feeling in the chest, inability, and exhaustion. During a moment like this, I feel like my world is ending. I start craving for whatever my body needs in order to feel better like for example, if there's too much light, I may turn some of the lights off. I would turn all of the lights off, but then I would start craving for more lights and feel too sensitive to the darkness. So, it's good to keep myself balanced with things because too much of something and too little of something isn't going to help while all of my five human senses are either overstimulated or understimulated. I've found out about my autism back in October 2020, so it's not that far from April 2021. I have Asperger's syndrome, which is a type of autism. It was never considered to be part of the autism spectrum until 2013 in America (DSM-5) and 2019 worldwide (WHO). I really want the medical diagnosis for my autism though because I want to be validated. Without the diagnosis, some people will assume the worst about my self-diagnosis. Just because I don't have the medical diagnosis for autism, it doesn't mean that my signs of autism aren't real. I'm not self diagnosing because of whatever worst thing people nowadays will assume, but because it helps me understand myself much more. I've always felt like there was something different with me, but I could never find out what it was until October of last year. The missing piece was autism! All my autistic traits perfectly fit the diagnostic criteria for autism. I've done so much research and read about what other autistic people experience, and I can relate to them so much. So, if someone still invalidates my self-diagnosis for autism, they just want to be negative. There is probably already someone who doesn't like my self-diagnosis of autism, but it's not surprising with how negative humans are in this world. I swear everyone is looking for trouble these days. If healthcare was free everywhere, there would be less hate in the world because then therapy and medication would be accessible to everyone who needs it. There's so many people out there with undiagnosed mental illnesses and undiagnosed neurological conditions and differences. Look at me, I didn't even know I had autism a year ago today. I always thought that I made too many "mistakes" with people whenever I socialized because I thought that I was "dumb." Since 2015, I've had online friends, but before that year, I had friends in person. With all of my friends in the past, there was always something that my friends didn't like because it was socially inappropriate. I'm just different, not wrong. I barely text any of my online friends anymore, but they all know that I have autism, so I hope they don't misread whatever I say to them whenever we have a text conversation because I never have bad intentions. Evil just doesn't run in my veins.

- April 17, 2021