Able and Disabled

Hey! I hope you are well! I've been SUPER busy with my new job so apologies if I've been a bit quiet online recently. In the search for coping mechanisms to help me manage my own well being and working full-time I've been dive back into the online autistic community and it's raised a question for myself: what if I had been diagnosed earlier? That's what I want to talk about today. One of the loudest arguments I hear for the hesitation around diagnosing young people as autistic is that it places a label on them too early in life. As someone who was diagnosed a bit later than you'd normally expect I see serious issues with this argument. As an undiagnosed autistic person I spent years having labels put on me; weird, socially awkward, annoying, basically every label but the correct one; autistic. All these incorrect labels were the truly detrimental ones, the ones that knocked my confidence. The correct diagnosis of autism isn't just a label, it's under...

It can be hard sometimes to maintain confidence when you can find things objectively more difficult than those around you. This is a feeling I've struggled with all my life; why are things harder for me? We're told to be grateful and I swear that I try to be; self-pity has never really been my style, but it can be hard not to be a little jaded after a period of reoccurring meltdowns or nagging back pain. Sometimes I get frustrated with the idea that I shouldn't be angry or feel that it's unfair, that I should lucky 100% of the time that I don't have it as bad as some other people. It can also be extremely difficult not to become critical of myself, not to hate my brain and body for not working the way that I want them to. I am 20 years old and more often than not my various conditions can leave me feeling simultaneously 12 and 70. My anxiety, emotional vulnerability and executive functioning difficulties can leave me feeling like a scared child while my creaking j...