Common Phases of Accepting You’re Autistic

It can take years to embrace a disabled identity. Here’s how that journey often looks.

I received a question in my Tumblr ask box recently from an Autistic person who is finding it very unpleasant to unmask:

Over the years, hundreds of Autistic people have reached out to me, sharing that as they began exploring an Autistic identity for themselves, they were overcome with waves of self-doubt and grief.

The difficulties they’d had at work, in school, managing their personal relationships, regulating their emotions, and taking care of their bodies all suddenly had an explanation — but that explanation offered no easy solutions, only the promise of more anguish in the future.

They had a disability that wasn’t going to get better. Their skills seemed to be regressing, and the gulf between themselves and “normal” society seemed larger than ever before. And so, some part of them longed to turn away from the truth, and return to a state of ignorance when their problems were unnamable and a fulfilling life as a neuro-conforming person still seemed possible for them.

Most of us begin the Autism unmasking process looking for greater self-acceptance, but don’t realize what a messy, uncertain, weakened, traumatized, resentful…