What's it like Growing up as an Undiagnosed Autistic Person? | My Mom Interviews Me

friends my name is claire and today my mother is going to interview me about my autism so please stick around hi friends my name is claire and this is my channel woodshed theory here i make content about what it is like to live as an adult on the autism spectrum and anything else that feels good to me so that sounds good to you or if you're feeling particularly gracious today and i hope that you are please go ahead and click the subscribe button ring the bell i almost forgot to mention that i put out videos three times a week well today my mother had a great idea which i didn't even think of i don't know why i didn't think of this uh she thought it might be a good idea to interview me about my autism experience so that she gets a little bit more information and i haven't seen the questions and i'm a little nervous so you should be actually a couple of my friends have responded to our first video and which is um encouraging that there's people who are watching and have questions of their own and i thought maybe if i asked you questions about what your experience was like i would hear things a little bit differently also and maybe it would give some insight to parents who may be thinking of the same thing great okay all right i'm nervous be nervous okay my first question is what prompted you to seek a diagnosis i came across a video on youtube i can link that down below um i was doing some research on autism and the video was about or it was a ted talk by a young woman who was around my age and she was talking about being an undiagnosed adult female and how she came to find out that she was on the spectrum and as i watched that video it felt like i got hit by a train because i was resonating with everything that she said so i did more research and decided that i if you know about women with autism you might know that we're sometimes known as drama queens when we're younger and to me getting in a diagnosis was important because i felt that if i just came to people and said hey i think i'm on the spectrum they would answer back with well you're just being a drama queen maybe not in those words but i i just needed the backup from a professional that's why i decided to get a formal diagnosis after your formal diagnosis who did you discuss it with first uh me my husband and uh my mom and some friends how did your husband respond i think he was surprised because neither of us knew that there was different criteria for women and yeah i think he was just surprised but in general he's been very supportive it did take my husband some time to get used to it's a lot of information at once so i should say that um but i just tried to be patient because i knew it was it's not like news you hear every day you married an autistic person so it was a lot to for him to take on okay what was your biggest fear when sharing it with others my biggest fear when sharing with others i really felt that the response would be negative which was my fear about starting a youtube channel because i felt that i think my self-confidence as far as my different diagnoses ha i haven't been very confident in my life about that like i usually would seek reassurance from you or someone else to reassure me that something was going on with my health so i was worried that even though i felt very confident about the diagnosis that people would not accept it and i still get that response sometimes from people saying oh i wouldn't have known or are you sure maybe not are you sure but similar responses to that where it's like oh well it's obvious you're very high functioning or something like that where they kind of unknowingly dismiss it so i i try to take all of that with a grain of salt but my biggest fear was that it would be like i don't want to lessen anyone else's experience i don't want autism looks different for everybody so i don't want to let people know i'm autistic and then have them think negatively of me and i want to be a good example for the community i think that kind of dovetails into my next question was did you think you'd be judged by your family or peers it was a possibility and that was scary for me um piers i i found the autism community to be very um very accepting and understanding there's an understanding that autism looks different for everyone so i haven't really struggled in that area um oh do i think i'd be judged yeah i was um i guess i was worried to some extent about how you would take it but because i felt so strongly about it like it really answered so many questions for me and it just fits so well even if you didn't accept it like i was gonna feel a lot better anyway so i was a little bit worried but also relieved so uh did you ever think about just keeping it to yourself yes it took several months i mean i was open with friends i suppose just because i was shocked um open with some friends i had met at work and just because they were there when i was at the time i was being diagnosed um i think the bigger thing for me was sharing it like on a public platform and also sharing it with strangers because i think there's a stigma of what autism is and definitely yeah and i didn't want you know like sometimes i'll see things about like oh this autistic kid can sing or this autistic kid did well on a test and if he can do it then so can you like just these things that are a bit ableist and judgmental and i just anticipated that there would be kind of a paradigm shift in the way that people viewed me but i don't care anymore because i know who i am and i feel a lot better i know what kind of person i am and what kind of value i bring to the table and it doesn't matter what they think but yes i absolutely thought long and hard before i decided to become public and if you watched my first video you can see how difficult it was for me to even talk about that was difficult yeah um do you think there was damage or trauma from not knowing sooner yeah yes yeah you didn't know what i was gonna ask you no i'm sorry um absolutely uh i think back on my life and decisions that i made i feel the same way about ocd though because i didn't know how sick i was um i look back on things that happen and how it was perceived by my peers and how hard i was trying to fit in and how hard i was trying to succeed uh trying to meet a standard that you know a neurotypical standard that i can't meet and i look back at how i behaved and things that i did and sometimes i'm mortified by it um it's just a lot to work through so absolutely i would say that the damage has been done and now i get to work through it it's not easy but um it feels a lot better than feeling lost like i was feeling like i couldn't um i was never gonna measure up like i was doing something wrong like why can't i get it like other people get it i think a lot of those feelings were internal feelings that you were having that because from the outside looking in you always seem to be have it together yes i absolutely think it was internal feelings because i at some level knew that i was different and i couldn't figure that out or reconcile that so i know i know it wasn't it wasn't pressure from other people it was just me feeling a sense of confusion what has been the most positive aspect since your diagnosis everything um a few things wonderful autism community that i've met just a great group of people i didn't expect that i really thought i'd start youtube and it would just be a barrage of negative and a barrage of like people saying you're not on the spectrum stop making video something like that um what was the question what was the most positive about the past uh diagnosis other positives i am able to communicate with people so much better i feel like i'm able to have real friendships for the first time or better friendships than i have in the past where i can better care about people um yeah i wouldn't take it back for anything it's it's helped me so immensely has that made it easier for you to accept your own diagnosis the positives the positives yeah i'm not sure that i have trouble accepting the diagnosis i mean there are days when i'm like am i really or like i question it uh even though it makes perfect sense but this is you know you only live in your own experience so how would you know uh what was the question sorry have you been more accepting of your diagnosis um i think what i struggle with is accepting my past in light of my diagnosis does that make sense like i struggle with going through the memories and going through different negative and positive experiences now knowing that i'm on the spectrum as opposed to like before it was just my life now i know like i have answers for what was going on and i struggle to accept those experiences but it's getting easier so what do you feel has helped you the most with learning that you were on the spectrum can you what part of life do you feel that has helped you the most in just knowing that you're on the spectrum maybe the way that it's explained something that you okay been through or some behavior that you had [Music] i feel less pressure to be as social as neurotypicals need to be and i feel like i can breathe so much easier because of that like i i know when i need time by myself and i've learned to be okay with asking for that time and knowing that it's important that i have some time to recoup from social situations whereas i used to feel like basically i would push and push and push until eventually the situation like i was just done and i needed to leave now i don't feel like that because i try to pace myself a lot better i don't feel guilt about it anymore that like i can't keep up the social pace of other people do you have anybody in your life who still refuses to believe that you're on the spectrum i don't think so i have as i said i have had people say oh but you're really high functioning which of course is just how they view me right they don't know what my mind is like um but i haven't had anyone outright say no that's not possible maybe i'm sure there are people who do think that i've had people are you sure kathy claire you know she seems normal i i know that's an odd way you know right just being honest but yeah and what i think the thing that i feel more positive about now is i don't care i'm 150 sure that i'm on the spectrum as far as my behaviors go and i i don't care if someone else can't see it everyone lives in their own reality and it's fine if they don't think i'm on the spectrum i guess i i think it's all about education don't you i mean because when you start looking at the bigger picture and you realize what some of the signs were earlier in life you go well that explains a lot oh my gosh so many especially my younger childhood like early childhood development like checked all the boxes it was so freaky to read the early childhood development stuff because it was so close to my experience like down to the you know struggling in kindergarten almost being held back speech therapy reading classes not paying attention in class being a distraction but but still smart like all of those things so i think a lot of times when people think of autism they think that you are going to be developmentally developmentally how do you say that word developmentally developmentally slower or not as intelligent as the rest of well those are two different things i think so developmentally slower yes in some aspects yeah um but you exceeded in a lot of things yeah i mean in some aspects yeah there is that slower development but that doesn't mean for example like reading writing in the beginning i was behind but very quickly caught up and then way exceeded my peers like couldn't stop reading wanted to read all the classics even at a young age so yeah i think in some ways that there is silver development um you know autistic people have a smaller or underdeveloped amygdala so i'm not like ashamed of that it's just a fact so what was other sorry i'm just nervous i didn't let you read these i'm just a little nervous so i i apologize thank you for your patience how do you think things would have been different for you say if you knew when you were five years old see i i wonder about that because it may have negatively impacted me and i mean this in a nice way but because of you because i think if you had known perhaps you would have and i don't know i i feel like autistic moms or autism moms do this like shelter their kids or pull them back because it's a lot of like oh we he or she can't they can't do that or they shouldn't do that or that's not good for them so i feel like that might have been negative positive being i would have been taught better social skills earlier on so i might not have been like weirdly hugging everybody that i met or just like i sometimes i just came to things or most of the time came to things with the out of the norm uh reaction to things so i think socially i would have done better but then i do worry and again just being honest i do worry would i have done the things that i've done like would i have two master's degrees would i have traveled all over the world would i have done all these amazing things if i had thought i mean there's no way to know but if i had thought that i couldn't or that i was disabled in that way like i don't know if it would have held me back but i wish i i've thought a lot about it i wish i had known because it would have given me the opportunity to steer social situations in a more positive direction and i wouldn't have felt like such an alien i would have known that i was different and and just been okay with it but it's i mean hindsight's 20 20 like i don't know would it have been a good or a bad thing yeah i think that's kind of hard to look at that's like part of what makes it hard to like sift through i do remember you always telling me you felt different from a very young age and that you did think that other people were weird it was me that they were off you know why why are they behaving this way neurotypicals man they do some strange things why don't they just tell the truth we're always lying to one another one more question okay all right what do you see your future looking like i'm not sure i um [Music] i'd love to see my channel grow on youtube um but you know professionally finding a way to um help support my family in a way that is you know some of the other jobs that i've had maybe weren't the best fit with my diagnosis not that i wasn't good at them but they were very difficult on me so i'd like to continue to find ways to contribute to my family that are better for my health i would like to see my friendships continue to deepen and grow as they have been doing um but you know a lot of me just wants to buy a house in the woods and just disappear with your buddies and your dog my husband too yeah yeah and my cat now you can keep your cat eye you can keep them um yeah i'd like i'd like some solitude because i feel at peace and i don't feel like i need to be super in public all the time i know that's weird to say because i do videos but like years ago you used to really care about what other people thought of you yeah because i couldn't read as an autistic person i can't read other people's read on me like i can't read their facial expressions are you telling me you wanted people to think well of you and now i feel like why wouldn't they i'm pretty awesome i don't like i'm i think you are pretty awesome yeah i'm a nice person i care about people's feelings i really try hard to stay out of drama i uh i'm very creative so just don't carry that weight anymore of like what do people think of me and what are they thinking sometimes it still hits me but in general i'm just in a much better mental place since learning i was on the spectrum i thought it was like a big paradigm shift to get treatment for ocd because i was really sick but i think that um being diagnosed with asd has like completely shifted my world view in a positive way i think it's been positive i've seen a lot of changes positive changes any negative um no nothing i can think of i don't know either i think i've learned a lot too of just the things that i may have been doing that contributed to like we've been joking around about me just springing things on you you know hey you want to go to the store and then i have five different things that i want you to do yeah i used to really struggle with that so i think we've both come a long way but again you were a great mom and i love you and um i know that you just tried your best to just what we can generally do i mean we always look back and think of things that we wish that we did differently and we had i mean how would we they didn't start diagnosing girls until like 2011 i think so i think so how that's what we have known my friend today you know this because she's 58 years old and she thinks she's on the spectrum yeah it's a lot it's a lot to deal with it's like like like a whoosh i don't know how to describe it thanks for answering my questions no problem you're a much better interviewer than i am we'll see how you make me look when you're done editing all of this i'll make you look good yeah is that the end of our interview that's the end of the interview that's the questions i had for you today i was thinking about them today while i was at work that's a great idea why didn't i think of this i just i don't know i talk so much on video anyway but i think that this is an important it is important yeah well i i'm heading out of town tomorrow and i love i love you too thank you for being in my videos in 11 days and it went by in a flash i was talking about that on my couch coffee today how long has it been since i spent 11 days with you guys years maybe a decade well everybody thank you so much for watching our video and thanks mom for being my co-star these past few days i hope everyone has a good day if you have any other questions you can leave them down in the comments and we will see you next time

Channel: Woodshed Theory

Views: 7,110

Keywords: asd adult, autism interview, autistic adult, autism mom, mother daugther interview

Id: eULIfL6ODSg

Length: 26min 55sec (1615 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 20 2021