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Deep In Autistic Grief: I Really F***ing Miss My Mum
The Only Way I Can Describe It Is I Feel Like An Island
When I found out I was autistic, after my daughter's own diagnosis, everything made sense. The part that made the most sense was finding it so, so hard to understand how to people. My masking is phenomenal and in being a personal trainer and working really hard to do some really cool shit in my career — I have no problems striking up conversations and establishing relationships; then after that, I guess I kind of panic.
I can’t keep up with traditional social conventions. I just don’t have the social or energetic battery to maintain the flow of consistency often valued by others. When I’m exhausted, I can’t mask; I can’t look interested and more often than not I’ll find a way to escape or avoid social situations or eyes-down my way through things if I have to.
Like at the school gates. It doesn’t even matter if I tell people I am autistic as a way of gaining some kind of understanding as I try to forge some kind of social connections so I’m not in an eternal state of loneliness; something which makes single parenting from pregnancy that smidge harder. Having said that, in being truly honest with myself — I wouldn’t have it any other way, anyway.
