Discovering as an adult that i am autistic has meant re-framing the cornucopia of my life-long struggles.

For example, i have shitty fine-motor skills; i suck at balancing; i sometimes look away in conversation; i bite my cheeks; i have sweaty extremities; i am pained by bright lighting; i repeat things spontaneously.

Or, i’m weird; i’m awkward; i’m different; i’m flawed; i’m gifted; i’m wrong; i’m special.

The best thing about this discovery? I’ve finally identified a single “cause” for every single one of the above labels/behaviors!

The worst thing about it? Asking my-self: which of my labels/behaviors will i now accept to fit, and which will i reject to improve?

That’s not to say that i can’t accept who i am now, future-improvements aside.

I can and do (try to).

What i’m saying is that discovering i am autistic has meant realizing that there may be some behaviors/struggles that i need to reject in order to acknowledge that they can be improved.

Here’s why i think this:

(1) If i am autistic (because of my behaviors), then i will always be autistic — as most everyone agrees.

(2) And if my behavior is what makes me autistic, then in theory i could only be able to improve (read: change) my behavior if i could become un-autistic.

But that’s clearly impossible, as established above in point one, so i need to untangle this fallacy if i’m gonna make any sense out of it.

Take two of my behaviors, to illustrate: cheek-biting and balancing.

Since i was a kid, i have only received negative remarks around my cheek-biting: “What are you doing?”; “Stop doing that”; “That looks weird”.

Many of these came from my dad, or teachers/professors.

Well. It’s been 20+ years, and i haven’t been able to stop, so where does that leave me?

This is precisely where the power of acceptance comes in.

Improvement failed in this case. I tried to quit biting my cheeks, and i couldn’t.

So i’ve made peace with that and the adults who shamed me otherwise.

I have not — on the other hand — accepted that balancing is a lost cause for my-self, instead continuing my martial arts practice of 12+ years in the face of all the progress i have made improving my balance thus far.

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This leaves only one explanation as far as i’m concerned:
My behavior will always be autistic, regardless of what it looks like (i.e., improvements or none).

In other words, autism is both a disability and a different-ability, wherein some aspects can be impervious to change (e.g., sensitivity to bright lighting) (while also being accommodated, e.g., by dimming/changing lightbulbs), and yet other aspects can be impervious to change for some but not others (e.g., difficulty balancing) (while still being accommodated if necessary, e.g., by providing hand-rails).

So i will continue biting my cheeks in pride.

And i will continue improving my balance in pride, respecting where it is in time.

❁

Thoughts? Leave a comment; start a conversation! Thank you for reading.