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Family Matters

It's highly likely that if you were diagnosed autistic as a young child or teenager, you grew up in an environment where those around you accepted it and supported you as you moved through the years. However, it can be a whole different story for those diagnosed in adulthood.

This doesn't mean that in our younger years, we had no acceptance at all from family and relations it just means that they would have accepted us as quirky or perhaps thought of us as weird or of having unusual habits or ways of doing things. The various different behaviours that often attract these 'labels' are classic traits of autism but if you're not thinking along those lines (and let's face it - many of us aren't), you just know that you feel 'different' from other people and put your eccentricities down to just being you.

Whatever prompts you to seek formal confirmation of your neurology as an adult and following the (usual) minimum 2+ year wait (unless you opt to go private), it's not uncommon that once you then go back to your family (and in some cases - friends), and advise them that you've been confirmed as autistic, their attitude towards you changes. Within yourself, you'll have a lot of processing to do and that can take weeks, months and in some cases, years but you may find that you're suddenly hit with remarks from family such as; 'What's changed?' 'I always knew you were a bit weird', 'Everyone's diagnosed with something these days' and other unhelpful comments.

Amongst many of us who are confirmed as autistic later in life, a big part of the ensuing processing is making a conscious decision to stop or at least try to stop masking. (To read more on masking, click here). It's when we start that process that the difficulties often begin. It does feel incredibly freeing when you feel that you can say exactly what you think without having to worry that somebody will take it wrongly but unfortunately, that's often what happens. You see, other people (including family) have known you as you are for so long but they would likely have known an edited version of you, a person that you curated in order to fit in to their world, the neurotypical world. Once you start behaving as you feel it's more natural to behave, they assume you've suddenly changed for the worst whereas you know that they knew the pretender and are now getting to know the real.

Another comment you might get, particularly if you're trying to unmask is, 'You never used to be like this. Why now?'

It will take a lot of careful and tactful effort to explain that the reason you were 'never like this' before is because you were surpressing your natural emotions, behaviours and responses. It may be that you've suffered from mental health issues in the intervening years, which are so often brought on by just 'carrying on as normal' or 'pushing on through'.

There is a phrase - 'Depression is the curse of the strong'. It really resonates with me because we do just push on and push on and we either ignore the feelings of approaching burnout or (more commonly), we don't even feel them creeping up on us and it's only once our bodies and minds have reached the point where we absolutely can't take any more, that we crash. Hard. And those crashes can take months to recoup from which is why it's so important to take care of our mental health and be mindful of when we're approaching overload and of course, this applies to Christmas as well.

We'd all hope to live with acceptance within our families but if that just doesn't work in your family dynamic, be sure to be let family members know well in advance of what you feel you can and can't manage over Christmas. If you can, give them a few dates that you'd be willing to join in a gathering and make it clear that you need the rest of the time for yourself.

The same is true for friends. If you do have friends who you know get swept along with the whole Christmas vibe each year, we'd hope that they'd know us well enough to know what makes us tick and the types of things we find difficult. However, most of us will have at least one friend that will try and nag us into going somewhere we'd rather not. Be clear! You're not being a stick-in-the-mud, you're taking care of yourself and as with family situations, let your friend(s) know a couple of dates that you'd be willing to hook up on and keep the rest as down time.