this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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Don't be hard on yourself, we're all socialised from birth in an ableist world, so when we're identified as part of the "other" (or become ill, or have an accident), it isn't surprising that those feelings we were taught to have about autism and disability carry over and end up aimed at ourselves (or others like us).
I was only diagnosed as an adult and for a while I would say I was "mildly" autistic, mostly because that's what I was told (you'd think even if you don't know what masking is, that the professionals would, but no..) but also because I didn't want to claim something I didn't feel a part of, but with time, and learning about autism from actually autistic people, I realised just how much of my life long and daily struggles were autism related, and (with the help of others sharing information) that actually functioning labels were simply not reflective of reality.
No one knows everything, we all learn different things at different points in life, and that's fine. The important thing is if and once we learn something we do harms other (or ourselves or both), to do our best not to do it again (and be willing to be held accountable if we do, because no one is perfect and everyone occasionally messes up). You can't do more than that.