Let me introduce myself. My name is Melissa, and at the time of writing, I’m 46 years old. I am autistic and ADHD, diagnosed at the age of 44.
I feel you are letting me, and others like me, down, mostly because we don’t fit in with your understanding of who an autistic person is, and what they need.
You see, I have had a lifetime of learning skills to fit in with the role society has set for me, as a woman, a mother, a housekeeper, an employee, or any other role I’ve been expected to perform. Among the reasons it took until I was 44 for anyone to notice that I’m autistic.
I have done the courses and programs for social skills, meal planning, parenting, job skills. I mastered many of them, however they didn’t make life easier for me. If anything, they made life harder, leaving me feeling broken and a loser because these programs didn’t do what the promised, they didn’t make life easier.
Instead, these programs helped me slide in to burn out, and reduced my capacity to function. Right now, I feel like I’m in an eternal state of burn out.
Over the years, my cries for support have been ignored or rejected, and this has contributed to my reduced capacity to function.
I live in survival mode. In burn out.
And no one is listening.
I put on a mask that I’m capable, and if you look at the surface, it looks like that is what I am.
However here is the reality.
I have no choice to operate like this. If I don’t cook, we don’t eat. If I don’t earn money, I can’t pay the rent.
I have raised two children with minimal supports, while in burn out mode without knowing that’s what it was, and this has had a major impact on my family.
I don’t need more classes on how to manage a household or ‘social skills’. This will not help.
I need practical support so I can recover from burn out. I need to do less things, not more. I don’t need to be treated as if I don’t know how to do anything. I’ve had a lifetime of building those skills.
Instead, I need to just not.
I need to learn how to not fight with my brian.
I need supports so I can thrive, not just survive.
I need someone else to do the doing and the caring for a while so that I can rest.
For me, to build capacity again, I need to be able to rest and recover.
Instead, I am offered more classes, more therapy, more appointments, and the sorts of supports I actually need are either ignored or denied.
I am a highly intelligent, high masking, autistic woman who is 46 years old. I don’t fit the box of what so many understand what autistic ADHD individuals are like. I need supports that are tailored to my needs, not the ones that fit the box.
Thank you for reading this far, and if you are a support organisation who would like more about this, I would be happy to talk to you more.
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