What part of your identity was easier for you to accept?

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EC0508
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06 Jul 2017, 1:26 pm

What was more comfortable for you to come to terms with? Your sexuality/gender identity or your diagnoses on the ASD/mental health spectrum?

Not sure if I penned that correctly (I'm still new here). The reason I ask is I accepted my sexuality nearly ten years ago, but my mental health has always been a struggle and puzzle for me, until I've recently discovered my likelihood on the spectrum. Everyone else?



crystaltermination
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11 Jul 2017, 8:00 am

I've never encountered any titanic struggle with my sexuality. On the other hand mental health has been the proverbial thorn in my side since the age of twelve to the present; it is hard for me to acknowledge that unending darkness. As for ASD, well, I do feel resentful knowing now as I do that this unchangeable part of me is partly to blame for how difficult I find it connecting to and talking to others - it seriously affects my relationships.


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TheSilentOne
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27 Jul 2017, 3:27 pm

It was definitely easier to accept my Autism, even though I only started to a couple of years ago. I'm still having trouble accepting that I like girls as well as guys. Even though my close family is very liberal, my extended family is quite conservative and I fear how they would react if one day they found out. With my Autism, however, they all view it as a fact and something I can't change. Unfortunately, they think you can change your sexual orientation, even though you definitely cannot.


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Noca
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31 Jul 2017, 3:38 pm

My sexuality is harder to accept mainly because my family is so homophobic/extreme right wing conservatives.



EscapingTheCrowd
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13 Oct 2017, 11:43 pm

For me both were confusing and hard to accept. I still don't know if I have autism or not, but I strongly suspect that I may be on the spectrum. I'm not quite sure what my sexuality is. I think it's mostly lesbian. I accepted that I wasn't straight after the anxiety caused by my attraction to women took a toll on my mental health. After accepting my attraction to women, it was easier to look at myself and realize I may have to accept that I am likely to be autistic as well. Right now what bothers me is my uncertainty over my sexuality, and the workings of my own mind. I fear that I have a low IQ, or that I won't find fulfillment in a relationship. I don't like the confusion of trying to figure out my attractions. I've never been in love with a man in the way I've been in love with a women, but I still find them attractive sometimes. Sometimes I wish that I was easer to define. But then I realize I would be boring.



thewheel
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14 Oct 2017, 9:50 am

Neither was hard to accept per se; my problem was understanding what was "wrong", my lack of introspection.

In hindsight there were signs I was gay for quite some time, crushes/interest in porn etc, but it took until the end of secondary school (high school) to really understand. Other people's opinions didn't concern me much except in self-preservation terms; once I left for university I felt less need to hide it. But learning I was gay itself was not a problem, it is just who I am.

I've always had problems interacting with people, it's never been satisfying, but it is only as a result of related mental health issues that I eventually got diagnosed as aspie at 28. Again it wasn't difficult to accept as I knew something was off, I just never connected the dots as it were.


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saimand
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14 Jan 2018, 12:32 pm

I knew I was a lesbian since I was a kid, I kinda like grew up with that identity and it was easy, realizing Im an Aspie and getting dx in late teens, I still struggle with that..but struggle with accepting my own aspieness made me realize how hard is for some people to accept their (sexual and/or gender) identity...some people date/marry opposite sex just to pass as normal-straight, which I still try by acting as an NT, though I mostly fail


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Embla
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14 Jan 2018, 1:53 pm

I've had no problem with my sexuality whatsoever. I never gave it much thought, it was just a natural part of my life. Well, until I got older and people started labeling me with sexualities and gender identities. My sexuality fluctuates, so at that time, I did question it a lot, but I have always accepted it.
I struggled with the autism. I didn't want to accept it for years, until I got a formal diagnosis and couldn't deny it anymore. But then it didn't take more than a few weeks to com to terms with it.



infinitenull
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14 Jan 2018, 6:47 pm

well... multiple identities in my case I guess... lol, that sounds like a total "special-snowflake" comment but that's OK... I don't mind being one.

Deciding i was not straight during puberty=very easy. While I knew society was difficult about it, internally I had no battle.
Determining that I was trans=much more work to come to terms with. It sort of creeped in between ages 8 and 22 slowly and confusingly.
Figuring out that I am actually asexual=almost more like "oh... yeah I guess that is true" than acceptance. Figuring out that my perspective of attraction to people wasn't the same as everyone else's really.
Defining myself as NB=was painful at first, but now I kinda like it ^.^

Coming to terms with ASD=Has been a battle filled with doubt and certainty. It took me until I started engaging with therapy before I let myself look at my life through the ASD filter. As I've been battling through diagnosis land I have had my heart crushed by having my autistic traits explained away as anxiety, so in some cases the difficulty was in having this explanation taken away from me.


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Tibergrace
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15 Jan 2018, 4:55 am

Being on the spectrum was easier to accept, for me.

That being said, I did find out I was on the spectrum when I was in 2nd grade.

Being diagnosed with PTSD happened much later in life, but I certainly wasn't surprised by it. Sort of relieving to find others in the same boat and get treatment.

My sexuality was something I tried to keep hidden for years, on the other hand.



modaldragon
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15 Jan 2018, 12:37 pm

I was diagnosed with autism very young (7yrs old) so I got used to it very easily, as most children would I think. Discovering that I'm a lesbian was (a little) more difficult, mostly because I was closer to 14ish in age, and it's more difficult to learn about oneself at that age! Also, when diagnosed with autism there were no "maybe"s or anything like that; I was just told about it directly. I didn't have to worry about the diagnosis process, that was for the doctor to worry about. However, discovering one's sexuality is very personal, so it's more difficult, and you can't just get someone to tell you a definite answer.

Of course, if I were self-diagnosed autistic I would feel differently.



Aniihya
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16 Jan 2018, 2:27 pm

I cannot relate to sexuality or gender. I am attracted to no one sexually and do not "feel" male or female despite being biologically male. I am just me.



Reptile
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17 Jan 2018, 7:49 am

Accepting those as facts wasn’t the problem and I didn’t find either of it difficult.

What I found difficult was not knowing that I had Asperger’s Syndrome for most of my life and hence not being able to understand what it was that made me that “different” from others and why the social and societal system made by neurotypical people for neurotypical people never really worked for me as it did for the others around me, why it failed me and why operating within this social system was never easy for me. Additionally I got accused of being a lot that I definitely was not by people, for example teachers outright called me a sociopath etc. and warned parents of other students that their kids should stay away from me because I was supposedly dangerous and evil. All of those aspects together created an uncertainty that only left when I finally got my Asperger's diagnosis in 2015.


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Onyxaxe
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17 Jan 2018, 10:26 am

Neither. I'm on the absentminded, free willed area of the spectrum. I don't care what labels I accept as long as it helps me to understand myself well enough to avoid hurting others unintentionally.



Onyxaxe
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17 Jan 2018, 10:28 am

It might help that I've always had a firm understanding of the differences in people and don't care about family or anyone's perspectives. I think that's where people struggle. Expectations, public opinions and such. I've always been different, the how doesn't bother me in these regards.



AnonymousAnonymous
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08 Feb 2018, 1:51 pm

Me being on the Spectrum.


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