A long yap about my autism diagnosis

I was diagnosed with autism! I know, no surprise, right? I draw boobery goblins for a living, ffs. But there was never a point where anyone told me hey, you should go and get assessed, it might help you. I don’t say this to blame anyone, it’s more an acknowledgement that I went 27 years not knowing this part of myself and masking it well enough that nobody saw it as an issue.

I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression in my mid teens, but I’d struggled with my mental health for years up until that point. I can’t help but wonder: Would I have gone through all the shit I did if I’d been diagnosed earlier? If I’d gotten the right support at school? Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t without help. After being diagnosed with depression my family was very supportive, I got therapy, and had a counsellor at school. But what if the depression wasn’t just a symptom of various events I’d been through, but that profound feeling of otherness I’ve always felt? There have been so many events that, looking back with a new lens, have been completely recontextualised. 

I’ve had a lot of questions since my autism diagnosis,  a lot of which I’ll never be able to answer. When I first got my diagnosis, I was told there can be what feels like a period of grief, and I’ve felt that more than I could have anticipated. Grief for the kid who didn’t understand why they felt so different, grief for the person I thought I was, and grief for the person I could have been. One of the most difficult questions that’s come out of this has been: Who even am I? It might be hard for some people to understand, but if there are any other late-diagnosed people out there, you might be able to relate. 

Aside from grief, there’s been anger. Anger that there is no “cure”. The things that overstimulate me aren’t just something I’ll get used to one day. Walking down the street will always feel like a bombardment on the senses. No matter how much I love my friends and family, I will always find interacting with people exhausting far too soon. The lingering desire I’ve had to piss off to another world will probably always be there, because sometimes I feel I ain’t right for this one. 

Apart from the negative feelings I’ve had about it, though, it’s actually been one of the most positive discoveries of my life. The fact everything has been recontextualised has made so many things make more sense. Negative traits I thought were because I was broken, lazy, or socially inept, were actually because I didn’t understand myself. What I thought was me being irrational or insane was a result of being overwhelmed, having no idea how to recognise the warning signals until it was too late, and having a breakdown.

It's funny looking at my OC Tox, who started as an angry characterisation of myself. She's an exaggeration, of course, but I used to have problems with controlling my anger. She drinks because I drank, because alcohol numbed the anxiety and helped me deal with sensory strains. I can look back at all the times I had meltdowns and understand them. Unfortunately for Tox, she will remain undiagnosed. Sorry girlie. 

When I started taking TwistingToxic as a business more seriously, I was absolutely driven. People often call autism a superpower, and a lot of the time, it certainly can be. There was a long time where I was posting a piece of art every single day, gaining lots of traction, interacting with people regularly. But there hit a point in the last couple years where I lost some of that motivation. I thought it was demotivation from people stealing my art, or AI changing the art world, or being shadowbanned so hard only a handful of the audience I'd worked to build ever saw my art. And it probably was all of those things, but was also probably a long overdue burnout after working so hard for so long without a suitable structure. The tism superpower doesn’t come without costs. 

Even before the diagnosis I'd been trying to get more strict with myself about running this as a proper business, since I had no boundary between my work and my personal life. Planning my weeks and days ahead of time, setting an end of work day, not responding to DMs outside of working hours. It has definitely been helping. 

I'm learning more about myself all the time, things I hadn't let myself tune into before. Turns out I work best at certain times of the day. I gotta pre-plan my lunch or I’ll have a meltdown because I didn’t recognise my hunger signals until they’re crippling. Sometimes I need to lie down on the floor for a while (though I still haven't worked out what emotion that's about). Point being, I'm still working out ways to fine tune my days to be optimal for my needs. 

There's a common saying that the diagnosis changes nothing, but at the same time, it changes everything. I'm still me. I still have the same talents and the same struggles. What's different now is my perception of myself, finally knowing why I struggled, and knowing what tactics I can use to make life easier going forward. 

I've been debating back and forth for a while about talking about my diagnosis. I didn't know if it was the right choice to make public. But then I figured, hey, most of my audience are probably like me anyway, and I want you to understand why posts haven’t been as frequent as they were in the past. I really love what I do, but it turns out I have more learning to do to make it work for me.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for listening to me ramble. I really do appreciate all of the support, and I love that you all allow my lil’ autistic ass to live out my dream job. If you’re late diagnosed like me, you’re not alone. It is confusing and weird and liberating beyond belief, and any feelings you have about it are valid. Lots of love, fellas.