by Hollie Hyde
[Image of a tree at the end of a narrow alleyway, the alleyway has a thin strip of different tarmac where perhaps a cable has been laid in the past. The thin strip of tarmac also leads to the tree at the end of the alleyway invoking ideas of connection. There is a pink hue to the picture]
Sometimes I get this feeling where I want to write a post.
What am I looking for?
Connection?
Maybe.
I have people i can connect with though, so why here?
Here, I connect with other Autistic people. Other disabled people. Other people who recognise themselves in the words I type.
I connect with my own Autistic self.
Having spent the majority of my life believing that I need to fix and change myself in order for connection to other be possible, I now realise how damaging that was.
Over and over we are told to be ourselves, yet over and over we are told that we have to be ourselves in the ‘correct’ way.
The messages that we spread to our children in schools and through media may look pretty, but they are still laden with the undertones that you only get to be yourself if you fit a certain mould.
.
Glitter.
.
Thoughts skip too fast for me to catch.
.
My D&D buddies do not know i am Autistic… it feels like a betrayal to myself.
Old traumas surface.
I will tell them, but when its right for me.
Until then I am learning the importance of settling into my Autistic identity.
Bedding it in.
Compacting.
.
Connecting.
It’s vital for our wellbeing.
How do you connect with others?
Republished from I Am the Face of Autism with full permission of the author.
For more work by this author visit facebook.com/IAmTheFaceOfAutism
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