You Don't Seem Like: Self Identity

Posted on November 6, 2019

So, is it often that you get responses like “you act pretty normal” or “we all have disabilities?” as a response when talking to someone? I feel as though that this has been a pretty common response to most who have Asperger’s or any form of autism, and usually would have a response to it after hearing phrases like this over and over. But that’s not saying that I have taken any sort of side of where I would take these kinds of statements and to be honest, I don’t have a stance on them either.

What is he doing? 

Even when I was first getting around to how others may view my mannerisms when I was younger, I took those statements as a compliment after telling someone that I do have Asperger’s. I really just like to walk here and there just so I can clear my head, or try to have a sense of personality when I am just about spending afternoons or evenings on long walks, since I would walk out after school or work and just have a small thought or joke that I am just willing to throw out. Sometimes I just happen to stay still in certain spots and sometimes I pace into others and accidentally run into them. It’s just little things like this where I would have to pause and do a little movement out of it try to figure out what just happened.

All of this to say, that from personal experience I think I just slowly got used to what and who I wanted to be like and just deemed it as “normal” for myself. But in some cases I think I come off as being atypically social and everything around me is just a continuous learning experience, so even if I was to deem that I “don’t seem like I have autism/Asperger’s” it’s because I do, but I just don’t come off like that at the get-go (not implying that there’s nothing wrong with anyone being on any end of the autism spectrum) but I just never had the thought of how people thought about how they might’ve viewed someone who is on the spectrum…, like I don’t mind teaching who would love to have an open ear to know how I may view life sometimes. So, like one instance would be how I like to write my take on comic books or have that sort of presentation. Whenever someone notices that I am reading a comic and a little hunch of interest can come out of that. There was a lady on a train who saw my Shuri and Sonic the Hedgehog comic collection and I would not be as far to say that I exhibited a “happy dance out of this and read my comics on the train and saw that. She was so interested in and it just gravitated a small audience of people who not just saw my collection and loved how I annunciated and expressed my love for comics, not saying that it did have me complimenting others back! 

Still applies to me now, I really don’t make any movements or get distracted by certain objects or noises, or people will not think I am talking to myself, but if I read something aloud (like in public transportation, library, cafe, etc.) then there’s a small hint of some out of place moments. So maybe in some sense, it does make me move my head around to see if I am a distraction or just flat out vibe to some music if I don’t feel like I have made myself to too much attention…, but sometimes that attention can lead to being informal about myself! 

It’s all in the family

In this point of my life, I feel as though I really don’t need to explain when I just do something in my place of comfort and if something new was to happen, this would probably change the whole perspective of how I have been dealing with Asperger’s…, for some strange reason, it was like “change” was not something that my family couldn’t get accustomed to when I grew and just almost slightly change my habits. So for example, I am a picky eater (mainly to salads), I put my ketchup on the side away from my fries…, (you know…, to dip them) and I don’t like going to unfamiliar places unless I’m with someone I am very comfortable with whether friend or family.

So, If I don’t CONSISTENTLY do any of these things correctly, then it breaks my habit completely and somehow, I am not “autistic” or something like that to them. This is isn’t a breakdown of how much I despise the fact that I want to mentally change my everyday routine, but just do it at a certain speed, but even sometimes they’ll get shocked when I wind up doing something out of the clear blue that they’ve never seen before. Then it kind of changes the whole idea that persons on the spectrum don’t change…, well…, that’s not saying that’s the issue now…, but it has been an out-there maybe I’m slowly changing habits. Like for example, my family can almost as easily understand why I want to go out more because 1) I actually want to get used to long trips myself and 2) depending to those who notice that read my recent blogs, I do base them off of journeys that I take outside of my comfort zone…, so it slowly but surely becomes understandable that I do want to grow, just at my pacing, if that makes sense.

Overall, I don’t have an issue with how my family thinks, but it does come out more that I would have to open myself whenever I do something different to them, because even though they might have known me all of my life, only I can make the decisions that will benefit me in my life moving forward.

Crooked Reflection

Even though I intend to grow, I just want to get out of the habit of looking down on myself, like I don’t think I compliment myself on the smaller things and sometimes wished that I could do better, so it’s like moments where I consistently feel like I need to do better, have to do better even though I have gone through completion of certain task/deed or outdone everything. Like, one example was when I wrote a project on the 2018 Black Panther movie for a school assignment and overexerted it with elements that I saw from the film and just looked down on how I did it. I did receive help and assistance from classmates and my teacher…, but maybe some of the information I wrote was good, and the rest was out of context lining that barely hit the mark. Despite it still being a somewhat decent written project, I looked down on it for inaccuracy and that’s where my intent of looking at myself wrong comes in: “It was still good…, so why did I dislike it so much?”

I’m not stating that I haven’t spent time to look back and work on this because I have. I have learned to become accepting of some small mistakes that I might’ve made and try not to think about it so hard, also the idea of finding a calming relaxing spot has been a good way to relax and review myself over the smaller things I complain about.

Conclusion

Overall, I will always need to find room for growth, and I can’t say that I have fully matured…, but I felt as though that this year is something that I will need to build upon, hence my previous statements on social living and trying to be a healthier version of myself. This isn’t something that will be accomplished immediately, but whether big or small I am seeing accomplishments and processes and hope to spend time like this and reflect upon myself so I can build upon MY self-identification of Asperger’s from MY vision!