How did I become comfortable being open about my Autism diagnosis? | SUBSCRIBER QUESTIONS

hi friends my name is claire and today i'm answering one of your burning questions so please stick around hi friends my name is claire and this is my channel woodshed theory here i make videos about what it is like to live on the autism spectrum as an adult and whatever else feels good to me so if that sounds good to you please go ahead and click the subscribe button ring the bell friends i believe we are about to hit 600 subscribers and that is so amazing and awesome thank you for helping me work on getting to my goal of 1000 subscribers the other day i got a comment from a sweet subscriber named garth he asked the following would you consider making a video about how you became comfortable being open about being autistic why yes garth i think that that's a great idea i know that many people on the spectrum struggle with confidence in being open about their diagnosis especially if you are late diagnosed or perhaps brought up being taught that it was something to be ashamed of or something to hide because the only neurotype that anyone wants to see is a neurotypical neurotype okay garth so the short answer on how i became comfortable with being so open about my diagnosis is i haven't i haven't become very comfortable with being so open about my diagnosis and in that i have become more comfortable and i will explain please be patient with me as i explain because i feel like there's a million different directions i could take this video so i'll try my best garth when i first learned i was on the spectrum i was fairly open about it with my closer friends and family open enough that i told them about it but really it was more out of a disbelief i couldn't believe that a grown adult human with an education bills responsibilities etc could go through 31 years of life unaware that they had autism spectrum disorder it just seemed like something that one would know because i look at the dsm-5 i look at me i look at the dsm-5 i look at me it's like looking in a mirror however coming out as autistic on youtube has been a completely other thing this isn't just close friends and family this is the world at large although i only have around 600 subscribers at the time of making this video i think that that is way more people than i ever thought would know that i am neurodiverse i have mentioned in a few videos that my first video was very difficult for me to make i was so nervous about even saying the word autism out loud when it came to myself it didn't matter how much the diagnosis autism perfectly fit my experience i knew from life experience that people can be mean and that people can be cruel another thing that frightened me about coming out as autistic was the stereotypes around autism i can even admit that there have been times in my life where i've pigeonholed people because of one piece of information that i was given on them i don't love that about myself but here we are and i'm trying to be honest with you to show my point i was and am still afraid that once people know that i am autistic they will somehow view me as less they will lower their expectations of what i can accomplish as a human they will exclude me from things that they may have once included me in previously these are all things that i experienced as a child and before diagnosis so i felt that being open about my diagnosis would make things a hundred percent worse so i braced for the worst because i knew that obviously this was not going to be well received by the general public and that i should be ready to go on the defensive against the haters the haters but you know what that really hasn't happened at all the response has been overwhelmingly positive so much so that i feel more and more comfortable sharing my life with our community i get almost 99 positive comments people have emailed me dm'd me messaged me to reach out in friendship or to tell me how much they appreciate what i am doing i am meeting people from all over the world who are part of our community and it's pretty amazing but i would be lying if i said that i'm all of a sudden super comfortable with all of it i am sometimes still very uncomfortable sometimes i'm still afraid sometimes i worry if this will eventually have a negative impact on myself or my family i am afraid my goal of making it at this youtube thing and getting my channel monetized won't happen because people will reject me and reject autism in a way i worry about people who think that asd people are somehow sub-human shells that need to be filled up and modeled into proper neurotypical beings i worry about the kind of people who have literally killed autistic people because of their autism during our human history i worry about the kind of people who are using electro shock therapy on asd people in america even today it is pretty scary out there like i'm a pretty private person trying to live a little quiet life tucked away with my garden and my bunnies i worry about being open about my disorders and how that could come back and affect me negatively i don't know if you've noticed but the usa right now was a little bit disjointed so what is the say that asd people won't be the next target to some idiot's ignorance there's nothing to say that so yeah it's a little bit scary being open about my diagnosis but there are reasons i am pushing myself to be more comfortable with being uncomfortable and why i will not stop in my mission first i'm pretty stubborn and resilient and i like to see my projects through second and the biggest reason is that asd people deserve so much more we deserve so much better we don't deserve to not be diagnosed until we're in our 30s and 40s that is just bananas to me as i talk about often a lot of my viewers went through late or later diagnosis of their autism this means that we spent years without the support we needed to thrive as people we have lived our entire lives just treading water and trying to figure out how to make it work for us all the while waiting for just the bomb to drop like we know that something is wrong and that it's not getting any better but we just keep trying anyway eventually the depression catches up with you and all you can do is keep going through the motions so yes i have become more comfortable with talking about my diagnosis because i need to let the world know that asd people are out there there are more of us than you think and that we're worth so much more and that we don't need to be cured we need to be cherished and we need to be considered for the gift that we are to humanity and i really mean that our difference is what makes us so great our difference is why i feel comfortable letting people know that i'm on the spectrum i could say a lot of other things for example i'm over 30 and once you get to that point you become a lot more comfortable with who you are and a lot more comfortable with yourself i also know that i'm more comfortable because i have started working for myself and making these videos with a goal to you know be able to support myself from them i'm just gonna keep working but i know that i don't have to ask for accommodations at work because i'm my own boss i can accommodate myself so i know that i'm not facing some of the same challenges that i used to face or that my community is facing now but i just feel the further i open up and the more i talk to people who are on the autism spectrum and the more i reach out i used to think that there weren't other autistic people like me and now i know that that is not true i know that there are other people who experience autism in a very similar way to me and that has made me so much more comfortable because i'm finally getting to see representation i need to be the person that i needed growing up i need to put myself out there to make it better for the future i know that that maybe that sounds a little lame but i i feel really passionate about it i'm comfortable sharing my life and putting myself through this discomfort because things need to change for people on the spectrum i know that i can't change like i would be foolish to say i could change everything on my own or that i am the savior of the autistic community i am not that's not how i feel however i'm trying to think of a good way to put this i think that i can cause a ripple and if enough of us cause a ripple it'll eventually turn into a wave the more awareness we put out there of what it's really like to be autistic and that we're just normal humans with a different normal humans with a different neurotype like we're still human we just view things differently than neurotypicals it's important that i get that message out there it's important that people know that there are all different kinds of sides to autism and that all of them are beautiful and that all of them deserve support yeah so in closing i think yeah i'm not super comfortable with being so open i'm becoming more comfortable because of the courage of everyone who's been watching my channel and leaving comments i think that we can as a whole bring a lot of change to the autistic community and the acceptance of autistic people on the whole so that's that's the biggest thing for me i don't care what people think anymore i'm happy with who i am i feel better than i've ever felt because of the autism diagnosis i've been able to do so much healing and if you don't like that then you can leave bye love you so i hope that i answered your question garth i know that i was a little bit all over the place it's just something where when you ask that question my knee-jerk reaction is i'm not comfortable it's very uncomfortable but then my next reaction was i have become more comfortable because of the response that i've gotten and because of the response that they've gotten i feel no shame in who i am and you know what if somebody feels ashamed of who i am i'm just gonna ask them to hold my cambridge degree and i'm gonna walk away screw you okay my friends that is everything i wanted to say for the day i think if you have other burning questions that you want me to address i'd love to hear them what about you do you find that you have trouble finding the confidence to be open about your diagnosis and why have you seen that people treat you differently i know in my life being different people have treated me differently as an adult maybe i just stopped allowing myself to be around that kind of person i don't know so yeah i'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below and i hope that you're having a wonderful day and i will see you on friday bye

Channel: Woodshed Theory

Views: 950

Keywords: accepting autism, asd adult

Id: lOr4vI0hmMc

Length: 14min 20sec (860 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 29 2021