![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Mar. 19th, 2026 02:59 pmStill trying to figure out how to present myself online. Be yourself... But what does that really mean? What does it mean for me, and what are the consequences of it, given that I have always felt like such an outsider?
I'm always seeing those heartwarming stories of people who say they felt like weird outcasts learning to "be themselves" and finding community and feeling more comfortable with being how they are. Yet such things have never happened to me, and at some point I gave up trying. Social isolation then leads to a lack of practice of social skills, which worsens the feeling.
I think it took about 18 months to feel somewhat normal again after my dad died, at which point I was so utterly sick of things being terrible that I started trying a lot harder with everything, even though it was painful and difficult. I guess I didn't really stop being depressed so much as I just became so bored and tired of it that I was willing to try anything else rather than continue that way... It's not even that it was a matter of willpower or motivation or anything though. And none of the clinical treatments for my mental health have ever truly had more than a slight impact. I'm not sure why I suddenly hit that point of finding it so irritating that I got up and started acting, but it makes sense in a way, since when faced with nothing but the exact same repetition of bullshit for years, most humans will reach a breaking point at some point.
I'm not cured or anything and will probably never be, but it's better to be here than elsewhere.
Anyway, the reason I mention that is that I am now faced with trying to present myself to the world again, as a person, and as a professional, and I have to ask myself what kind of image I want to present, what really is me, what is natural for me... Trying to unmask autism is definitely a part of this and I've been reading about a lot of other people's experiences there trying to make sense of it. I do remember the time in my life when I simply acted with no self-consciousness. But I was a child then.
I don't think most people have to do this sort of thing, they just are who they are, and beyond managing general social rules and expectations they don't really think about themselves very hard. It's strange to be in a place where I sometimes don't even know how to respond to very simple scenarios. A big thing is that I'm trying to learn to slow down more and if I don't know how to answer something, don't panic and rush into it. It's okay to not know things. Or not want to answer certain things. This is a difficult thing not just because of being autistic but also because of having experienced emotionally abusive relationships. I don't think it's uncommon for people who have been through that to find it difficult to adjust to situations where they don't actually have to micromanage every single word they say to make sure everything is completely correct and safe and inoffensive, lest it set off a violent reaction.
It's important to remember that I have met thousands of people in my life and the vast majority of them simply don't care much about how I say things. And a large amount of them liked me, in whatever form I was in at the time. I hope that if I can manage to put myself out there more, that will continue, and I will learn how to care less about the minutiae of how I appear and just be comfortable existing.
I'm always seeing those heartwarming stories of people who say they felt like weird outcasts learning to "be themselves" and finding community and feeling more comfortable with being how they are. Yet such things have never happened to me, and at some point I gave up trying. Social isolation then leads to a lack of practice of social skills, which worsens the feeling.
I think it took about 18 months to feel somewhat normal again after my dad died, at which point I was so utterly sick of things being terrible that I started trying a lot harder with everything, even though it was painful and difficult. I guess I didn't really stop being depressed so much as I just became so bored and tired of it that I was willing to try anything else rather than continue that way... It's not even that it was a matter of willpower or motivation or anything though. And none of the clinical treatments for my mental health have ever truly had more than a slight impact. I'm not sure why I suddenly hit that point of finding it so irritating that I got up and started acting, but it makes sense in a way, since when faced with nothing but the exact same repetition of bullshit for years, most humans will reach a breaking point at some point.
I'm not cured or anything and will probably never be, but it's better to be here than elsewhere.
Anyway, the reason I mention that is that I am now faced with trying to present myself to the world again, as a person, and as a professional, and I have to ask myself what kind of image I want to present, what really is me, what is natural for me... Trying to unmask autism is definitely a part of this and I've been reading about a lot of other people's experiences there trying to make sense of it. I do remember the time in my life when I simply acted with no self-consciousness. But I was a child then.
I don't think most people have to do this sort of thing, they just are who they are, and beyond managing general social rules and expectations they don't really think about themselves very hard. It's strange to be in a place where I sometimes don't even know how to respond to very simple scenarios. A big thing is that I'm trying to learn to slow down more and if I don't know how to answer something, don't panic and rush into it. It's okay to not know things. Or not want to answer certain things. This is a difficult thing not just because of being autistic but also because of having experienced emotionally abusive relationships. I don't think it's uncommon for people who have been through that to find it difficult to adjust to situations where they don't actually have to micromanage every single word they say to make sure everything is completely correct and safe and inoffensive, lest it set off a violent reaction.
It's important to remember that I have met thousands of people in my life and the vast majority of them simply don't care much about how I say things. And a large amount of them liked me, in whatever form I was in at the time. I hope that if I can manage to put myself out there more, that will continue, and I will learn how to care less about the minutiae of how I appear and just be comfortable existing.
