Making peace with our Autism.

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I often say every autistic person's first priority is making peace with themselves. Except, sometimes there's a lot to make peace with.

https://youtu.be/rT4jmonvh3Q?list=PLHzm ... wcghARUhgQ

I agree. Sometimes, there is a lot to make peace with.

Thanks for the link to that video - I subscribed to his channel. It is validly quite challenging to accept being neurologically different from most people as well as processing social interactions quite differently. Especially in a society where normalcy and sociability are extolled. And it's not easy attaining peace with all the disapproving and even devaluing messages we get directed at us, especially in our youth. I still remember clear as day how my mother freaked out and knocked the paper with information about autism out of the Navy corpsman's hand and needed to smoke when he told her I was autistic and started explaining it when I was three years old. I went through times of being in a very dark hole with all this and with the fact that I'm always going to be different. The greatest help in making peace with my autism has been in being of service to others - as a manager and contributor at work, doing animal rescue and other volunteer work. When I'm focused on helping others I sort of forget my challenges and just flow. When I focus on my difficulties I can get miserably frozen with anxiety. I'm still in the process of accepting my autism - that I'm much more than just the image of normalcy that I try to project to others. That image worked in a lot of situations, but it is a sort of self-imposed prison at this stage in my life.