Common Phases of Accepting You're Autistic
It can take years to embrace a disabled identity. Here's how that journey often looks.
I received a question in my Tumblr ask box recently from an Autistic person who is finding it very unpleasant to unmask:
Over the years, hundreds of Autistic people have reached out to me, sharing that as they began exploring an Autistic identity for themselves, they were overcome with waves of self-doubt and grief.
The difficulties they’d had at work, in school, managing their personal relationships, regulating their emotions, and taking care of their bodies all suddenly had an explanation — but that explanation offered no easy solutions, only the promise of more anguish in the future.
They had a disability that wasn’t going to get better. Their skills seemed to be regressing, and the gulf between themselves and “normal” society seemed larger than ever before. And so, some part of them longed to turn away from the truth, and return to a state of ignorance when their problems were unnamable and a fulfilling life as a neuro-conforming person still seemed possible for them.
Most of us begin the Autism unmasking process looking for greater self-acceptance, but don’t realize what a messy, uncertain, weakened, traumatized, resentful version of ourselves we’re going to have to accept. Secretly, we hope that the unmasked version of us will be just as capable and comfortable as we always pretended to be — but also much happier, and more authentic.
The great challenge of unmasking, then, is letting go of all pre-conceived notions of the type of person we must be, so that we can simply exist in the moment, feeling whatever we feel and needing whatever we need.
It can take many years for a person to reach this point. I’ve also noticed there are common phases that Autistics move through as we go about unmasking — periods of questioning, self-loathing, anger, withdrawal, exploration, relief, and obsessive self-consciousness, just to name a few.
Not all of these phases appear for everyone, of course and they do not necessarily come in a specific order. Rather than viewing them as stages that progress in a linear fashion, we can see them instead as common psychological defenses that emerge when a person is having a hard time reconciling their disability with their beliefs about who they should be.
Important internal work is happening when a person seems to be “caught” in any particular phase. Some phases are needed corrections for society’s anti-disability stigma — such as the phase where a person believes that Autism makes them inherently superior to allistics. Others are corrections for those corrections, a hypothesis and antithesis that gradually resolve into a synthesis within the disabled person’s life.
These phases don’t last forever, and we learn something important each time that we pass through them. Like the phases of the moon, these phases may recur in our lives in an almost cyclical fashion, bringing us closer to accepting the truth of ourselves each time. Remember as you read through this list of phases that arriving at a final state of “recovery” is not the goal. When we unmask, we’re not trying to get rid of our disability, after all — we’re just hoping to understand and accept all that is inside us a bit better.
And so, to help you prepare for your unmasking journey, here are some of the common phases of unmasking:
Questioning
It’s incredibly common for a masked Autistic person to spend months or even years questioning whether they actually are disabled, or have the “right” to openly identify as such. Even after a person has researched Autism at length, sought external input from loved ones and a therapist, and integrated themselves deeply within the neurodivergent community, they may be struck with regular bouts of uncertainty.
We can blame this on a society that investigates every single claim of disability repeatedly for evidence of fraud, and a culture where disabled people are accused of being delusional, manipulative attention-seekers.
Disabled people who are stuck in the questioning phase are incredibly plentiful; the r/AutismTranslated subreddit consists of almost nothing but hand-wringing posts from people desperate to have their identity validated. Tiktok and Instagram are awash with videos from people exploring an Autistic identity, too. And since I first began writing about Autism, I have received hundreds of emails that go something like this:
“I have completed every Autism self-assessment that I can find online. I’ve read all about Autism and asked my therapist about it, and they think that I have it, too. My spouse says I resemble every description of Autism they have read. All my friends are Autistic, and I have a ton in common with them. But still, I don’t know. I might just be lying to myself.
Here are five thousand words’ worth of childhood memories and daily life experiences that point to my being Autistic — but I don’t know! I might just be crazy! Is my identity valid? What do you think?”
The questioning phase is perhaps the most challenging one to move forward from — because to openly declare that you have a mental disability is to immediately call your own capacity to understand and interpret things into question. If other people can’t see how much you’re suffering, they will accuse you of being crazy and faking it. If they can see your struggles, they’ll accuse you of being too crazy to understand those struggles yourself.
With this in mind, it’s clear that constantly reexamining and qualifying one’s disability status meets an important self-protective need: people want to be sure. They don’t want to be caught being unreliable, artificially weak, or delusional — they don’t want to be “mad,” in other words. But if a person finds it so difficult to function in society that they can’t help but obsess endlessly about it, it’s already clear they are mad. They belong under neurodiversity & Mad Pride’s big umbrellas, whether they choose to enjoy those umbrellas’ protection or not.
The only way to move through this phase is with acceptance — including acceptance of the self-doubt itself. Life is difficult. The mind is an ever-changing mystery. Mental disabilities are defined by subjective experiences that no one else can see. And today, psychiatry has defined the bounds of normal thought and conduct so narrowly that almost no one would qualify as fully well all of the time — so it’s okay to both cling to a label that renders one’s suffering legible, and to sometimes want to push that label away.
Obsessing (about Autism)
One way that questioning Autistics try to resolve their uncertainty is by consuming every piece of information and commentary about Autism that they could possibly find. Autism often becomes one of our special interests, early in our unmasking — making us see Autism between the pages of every book, and on the confused face of every stranger.
When a person is obsessing about Autism, they may reference their disability as an explanation for every single behavior they or anyone else ever exhibits. Tying your shoes in the “bunny-goes-round-the-tree” style is an Autism thing. Liking the small spoon is an Autism thing. That rude comment I just made about your appearance is an Autism thing, and so you cannot criticize me for it, because that’s a core part of my being I can’t change. Every person in the obsessed Autistic person’s life may be assigned disability labels: he’s got ADHD, she’s a PDAer, your dad’s undiagnosed Autism is the reason he stands in the middle of the room watching TV.
The instinct to get obsessed about Autism is sensible, given both how little most people know about the disability and how pleasurable a special interest feels. During the obsession phase, an Autistic person gets to revel in aspects of themselves they have long suppressed, and expose themselves to an entire literature of disabled scholarship they previously didn’t have access to. But it can lend a person a simplistic view of human autonomy: for a while, it may seem as if a person’s neurotype determines everything about who they are.
Newly-out queer people can be similarly fixated (and annoying) about their own queerness — but it should be pointed out, being annoying isn’t a crime. As we peel back the mask that once hid our disabilities, we turn our focus toward a long-neglected side of our identity. With our attention we nourish this side of ourselves, and allow it to heal.
But as we continue to live, and meet a variety of other Autistics who all have their own flaws and personality traits, eventually we are forced to contend with the complexity of all people. We stop thinking about Autism all of the goddamned time, which can come as a relief.
Obsessing (about the Self)
Unmasking requires a high degree of curiosity about the self. A person can’t even notice there’s a disjoint between their authentic feelings and how they present themselves to others unless they look within. Unfortunately, doing so means constantly asking ourselves whether our actions reflect our true selves, and what our “true self” even is — and thinking too much about these questions can make the mind loop back on itself infinitely.
When I first started unmasking, I could not stop assessing how I carried my own body. I knew that my posture was “bad,” in neurotypical terms, but was that because I had muscle underdevelopment caused by Autism, or because I was always trying to make myself inobtrusive and small? Would it be “unmasking” for me to stand straight and claim more space — or would that be me masking even worse, by imitating neurotypical confidence?
Was it unmasking for me to stop forming any polite facial expressions? Or was the completely unexpressive face I was now presenting to people yet another mask, one constructed to protect me from the vulnerability of sharing my emotions? I took to evaluating my every action for its honesty and questioned every impulse so thoroughly that absolutely everything felt off and wrong.
I might have been thinking a little too much about myself.
During the unmasking process, deep thoughts about the self are both necessary and inevitable. And at the same time, endlessly looking inward without ever taking action leads us nowhere, because ultimately all selves are social and experiential. If we’re going to live in a way that’s beneficial to us, we have to bring our many authentic selves out into the real world — which means finding places where they can be expressed and appreciated.
In my experience, most unmasking Autistics find looking inward to be both horrifying and kind of luxurious. It can be wonderful to play with your inner child, but traumatizing to look back on your past and see wounds you’ve never noticed before. Eventually, most of us feel confined enough by our self-obsession that we begin to crave external distractions and hobbies. But we often pass through incredibly dark periods of reflection along the way.
Powerlessness
“What was hardest early on was the grief of letting go of the “normal” person I was sure I’d become one day,” says Agustin. “On the one hand it was unspeakably healing to recognize that it wasn’t a personal failing that I couldn’t meet those standards; but on the other, I was so sure I was just one more life hack or self-improvement regime or self-help book away from being the “real me” I imagined.”
Many unmasking Autistic people are initially relieved to have their disability named — at last there is an explanation for all they can’t do!— but this can turn over into a sense of powerlessness, as it dawns on them they will never be capable of certain tasks.
If you can’t do the grocery shopping due to sensory issues, you might stop pressuring yourself to grit your teeth through the pain of going to the store, for instance, which is wonderful! But you’ll still have to deail with the daily problem of feeding yourself, and may fear that no roommate or partner will want to share a space with you, since you don’t do your “fair share” of the chore.
Unmasking Autistics may feel especially powerless in the social realm. Before we figure out that we’re disabled, many of us assume that it is other people who didn’t know how to communicate — but once we realize we’re Autistic, we may view every awkward moment and missed cue as proof of our social deficits. We can become so afraid of hurting people’s feelings or misinterpreting a situation that we never take any social risks at all.
“I used to be such a confident person,” shares Tumblr user Margaers Tyrell. “I don’t know how to get it all back.”
Autistics who are locked in the powerless phase may avoid trying new things and withdraw from both obligations and people. This often coincides with Autistic burnout, during which a person loses skills and energy significantly. But as usual, this unpleasant phase has a self-protective rationale lurking behind it: it’s easier to recoup your energy and reorient your priorities if you begin from a blank slate.
Ultimately, the Autistic person trapped in a state of powerlessness is not as incapable as they feel that they are. Autistics aren’t lacking in all social skills; our noncompliance and social transgressiveness are actually powerful tools for social influence and advocacy. Furthermore, research into the double empathy problem has consistently shown that we’re highly effective at communicating with fellow Autistics, and the social challenges we face are mainly related to non-Autistic people refusing to try and understand us.
With time and repeated experiences, we can rebuild trust in ourselves. But in the meantime, it is actually very common and sensible for a disabled person to have moments of feeling. well, disabled! When you’ve had to pretend to be in control and strong for all of your life, there is a therapuetic quality to briefly becoming weaker.
“I feel like I’m only just now starting to come out of the grief over a lost fantasy, and into a much wider place of exploring what is actually possible,” says Agustin. “It feels playful and free in a way that’s hard to fully put into words.”
Autism Supremacy
Though many unmasking Autistics experience a big drop in self-esteem, it’s equally as common for us to take immense pride in our neurotype, even to an excessive degree. During the Autism supremacy phase of unmasking, Autistic people may feel that their disability actually makes them more moral, logical, emotionally attuned, intelligent, or compassionate than others.
“Autistic people do have empathy! In fact, we have more empathy than anyone else!” You may hear an Autism supremacist declare proudly, pushing back against the stereotype of us as “anti-social” monsters. But the argument that some of us actually experience hyper-empathy, while true, does nothing to challenge the ableism of equating a person’s emotional sensitivity with their humanity.
The reality is, some Autistics have intense empathy, and others of us have absolutely none at all, but we are all human beings deserving of care and support. I’ve argued before that empathy is over-rated — how a person feels matters far less than the actions they take, and any person can choose to behave compassionately no matter how bad their brain is at simulating another person’s emotions.
Autism supremacists may also claim that people of our neurotype do not exhibit racism or other biases, or are morally superior to allistics, because we exhibit a strong, internally consistent sense of justice. To disprove the former claim, you need only speak to any Black Autistics, who will gladly inform you that there’s plenty of racism within our communities. And to debunk the former claim, just keep in mind having a strong sense of justice does not make one right about what is just.
Some Autism supremacists will claim that Autism isn’t a disability, that it is in fact a “superpower” — I passed through this phase myself, in my early days of writing about the neurotype. And when we oversimplify the Autistic experience like this, we do so in hopes of overcoming the immense shame and hatred that’s been heaped upon us.
For decades, mainstream Autism charities and psychiatric professionals wanted to see our kind eradicated. Our own personal state of disability may have felt so threatening that we couldn’t even face it as a possibility for years. It’s understandable, then, that when we may feel pressure to justify our disability by casting it as a net positive for the world. We’re useful, don’t you see! We have so much emotional intelligence and such high problem-solving abilities! We’re good at tech, but also art! Why can’t anybody accept us??
Another reason that so many Autistics move through an Autism supremacy phase is because doing so facilitates them making more Autistic friends. It may feel protective to pull away from non-Autistic people (who have rarely been accepting) and surround oneself with others who, in theory, will understand your experience. But as an Autistic person moves through both their shame and their pride and becomes more fully embedded within the disabled community, it typically becomes self-evident to them that we’re not better or worse than anybody else. We’re just people.
Resentment
A similar set of emotional and self-advocacy needs can be met by the resentment phase of unmasking, during which an Autistic person may experience hatred toward people who have failed to accept or accommodate them throughout their lives.
“I have so much anger that I had to mask to survive,” says Chondra, an unmasked Autistic woman in her 30s. “Growing up I never got to know who I actually was, so many years have been taken from me. Sometimes it feels it is too late to get anything back.”
When an unmasking Autistic is the first person in their family to discover that they have the disability, they may look back on the past and resent their relatives for forcing them to eat foods they didn’t like, endure lengthy car rides that made them motion sick, or accept hugs they didn’t want. They may experience anger toward teachers who made them practice cursive letters their dyspraxic hands couldn’t manage to write — as well as their doctors and therapists, for never showing genuine curiosity about what was happening inside of them.
A resentful Autistic may feel flooded with the memories of old mistreatments and slights, and be consumed with rage that makes them come across as aggressive to others. As they gradually become aware of ableism as a systematic force baked into the laws, social policies, and economic structure that governs their world, they may despair at the state of humanity.
The resentment phase serves several purposes. First, it allows the Autistic person to see their problems as originating from outside of them: they’re not “too sensitive,” the lights are too bright. They’re not worse at communicating than everybody else; they’re just stuck in a culture where people are often indirect.
The anger that flows from resentment can help train an Autistic person to stand up for themselves when they never have before. Though we may occasionally express our resentful feelings with more intensity than the situation warrants, a little principled anger can do a lot to reset relationships that have been unbalanced and unfair to us for a long time.
“I lost my mind at my coworker for playing her music too loud in her workstation, and I banged on the wall pretty hard,” admits Chondra. “I was embarrassed of that. But my coworker just said Well, jeeze, why didn’t you tell me it was bothering you? She became mindful of my sensitivities after that.”
Grief
Grief is a crucial phase of accepting a disabled identity — when we grieve, we are parting with an old vision of ourselves as an abled person. This acceptance typically comes in waves, as new elements of the disabled experience begin gradually sinking in.
“Public transport always was exhausting for me,” says Mitchell, an Autistic college student. “But after really getting aware of the notion of unmasking, I barely can ride it at all anymore. Is it because I got mentally deconditioned?.. Or was it always like that for me and I just didn’t realize, like a fish wouldn’t realize the water is wet?”
Mitchell had already come to accept that he would never drive a car, because the overstimulation of traffic lights and billboards made it far too stressful for him. He’d arranged his life around his need for a robust public transit system — but now even that accommodation was failing him, and the size of his world dramatically shrunk. He thought he had gotten comfortable with making sacrifices, but disability kept taking more away.
In addition to mourning the abilities that we lack, Autistics may also need time to mourn the future possibilities that no longer seem accessible to us. M. Rose of The Spiral Lab writes about this process of aging out of opportunity as a disabled person quite beautifully:
“One of the most difficult parts of growing older is realizing that you have fewer and fewer opportunities in your life,” she writes. “…I am coming to accept that I will never live with a view of the sea, I will never be an influential YouTuber, I will never go to art school and become a painter.”
However, M. acknowledges there’s a benefit to her world narrowing: it’s created a sense of clarity about what matters most to her, and what she can pursue. “Constraint, like any good boundary, gives us a more manageable universe of choices to make,” she writes.
Grief is an emotion that’s both gentle and unrelenting. It presses us up against the truth and holds us there until we finally relax in its embrace. Grief reminds us that life persists, even if we are fundamentally changed, and even with everything taken from us that we once thought that we needed.
For me, unmasking made it clear that I would never have a conventional family. There simply aren’t enough supports available for a person like me to become a good parent. I would become angry at my children for completely harmless (yet irritating) behaviors, neglect them when I was buried in a writing project, fail to respect choices they made that I disagreed with, and often regret bringing them into the world. And so I grieve for the continuity I might have experienced in a different life, and the joy that having children would have brought to my mom.
I know myself well enough to accept that I won’t ever be happy, I won’t ever be easy to love, and I will struggle with stress and anger for the rest of my days. This self-knowledge is precious, but it has been hard won. At this point, I do not even feel that I am owed happiness — I have grieved that simplistic fantasy, and embraced an existence that is harder but ultimately very worth living, instead.
Exploration
Not all phases of Autism unmasking are categorically unpleasant. One of the most joyful phases is that of exploration, when the Autistic person begins playing with less familiar sides of themselves and allowing themselves to experiment with self-stimulation toys, sensory gear, special interests, and hobbies or media that provoke a simple sense of enjoyment in them.
This phase may feel like reparenting one’s neglected inner child, or making up for lost time — or it may feel like role-playing as somebody else. The exploring Autistic will typically buy a lot of new stim toys, noise-cancelling headphones, sleep masks, day planners, and other tools, and not all of them (or even most of them) will stick in the person’s life.
Some Autistics report a sense of imposter syndrome when they try to stim during this phase, because they are attempting to reawaken an impulse in themselves that’s so deeply buried and shamed.
“Whenever I try to stim, I feel like I’m faking [being Autistic],” a dear friend once told me. “I’m still trying to figure out what feels good. But I’m very tender about it.” They felt (understandably!) very sensitive to criticism, or to any suggestion that they might be faking their disability or stimming in the ‘wrong’ way.
During the exploration phase, Autistic people will often try out a variety of new ways of understanding themselves and interacting with others, which yields tons of useful data. Along the way, they may seem uncertain about who they are, or their desires, which can cause confusion or frustration among loved ones.
I remember that early in my unmasking journey, I asked my then-boyfriend to look away from me whenever we had a fight. I thought that I’d feel more relaxed without the pressure of eye contact. My boyfriend dutifully followed this request, but then I realized that having him turn away from me during conflict only made me more upset.
It was frustrating to not know what I needed, but I learned from this experience that I actually do value eye contact with trusted people — it’s only during more superficial interactions with strangers that I don’t want to look a person in the eye. Thanks to the creativity and chaos of the exploration phase, I also learned that I love acupressure rings but hate stress balls, that I like sticking to a work routine but loathe having my vacations and weekends micro-managed, and even that I enjoy masking to charm people from time to time.
It is typical for exploring Autistics to buy a lot of toys and tools that go on to collect dust on their shelves, read lots of self-help books, attempt spiritual practices they might one day abandon, alter how they dress, or even come out as queer, trans, or plural. It doesn’t matter if every revelation they make about themselves remains true forever. What’s important is the free-flowing sense of opportunity that exploration presents. After a lifetime of masking and self-denial, at last the Autistic person is exuberantly free — free enough even to be wrong.
Self-Advocacy
Assertive, firm communication is simply not a skill that most disabled people have been permitted to cultivate earlier in our lives. And so, when we’re initially unmasking, we may only be able to stand up for ourselves using indirect methods — withdrawing from other people, deciding that we don’t care about them, exploding with anger, or punishing ourselves.
But as we begin to accept our disabilities and move through phases like resentment and grief, we often gain a new resolve — and the blunt tools that we initially used to keep others at bay will sharpen, and become more deft. Instead of exploding, we may speak confidently; instead of avoiding a hard conversation, we may know ourselves well enough to write down how we are feeling in a letter.
Autistics who are entering the self-advocacy phase have a clearer understanding of themselves and their own reactions to things, and are no longer surprised that they have emotions. They can predict how familiar people will treat them, and identify problems in their relationships early, rather than holding back and letting them blow up. They may still get easily triggered or upset, but they recognize these emotions are messengers rather than personal failings.
A self-advocating Autistic will be able to make requests of other people, and pursue positive changes in their own life. They will also be able to recognize what they are not capable of, and set boundaries. Instead of censoring their own feelings all the time, they will often choose to express themselves, standing in their truth while trusting that others can stand up for themselves, too.
Recently, a good friend of mine decided to go no-contact with a former abuser, and he asked that I join him on a road trip to retrieve some of his possessions from the abuser’s house. I was unable to do this, because the abuser’s house was several states away, and spending upwards of eight hours in a vehicle for multiple days would make me sick. I did, however, offer to help fund my friend’s trip and talk to him about the journey, to help him process things.
My friend and I were both able to express our needs honestly throughout this experience, instead of spiraling into shame over needing too much or offering too little. And both my disability and my friend’s trauma history were honored by the solution we negotiated. It may sound like a small thing, but in the past this kind of dilemma would have left me sobbing and beating myself in the head, unable to articulate why I was stressed. I was proud of myself for being honest — and equally proud of my friend for expressing what he needed, too.
Appreciation
So much of the unmasking process is painfully self-focused and dissatisfied. But then the appreciation phase may come and encourage us to look outward, and find connections to feel grateful for.
During the appreciation phase, Autistics may join a ton of disability-focused groups and clubs, or pursue hobbies that tend to attract lots of neurodivergent people. They may experience euphoria from finding others like themselves, and go into a social frenzy, throwing parties, going on lots of dates, making lots of new friends, and showering other people in affection. It’s quite common for people moving through this phase to overcommit themselves socially, and eventually grow exhausted, but they often conclude that it’s been worth it.
Autistics moving through the appreciation phase will often marvel at all that disabled people do for one another. The networks of care and the artistic creations we make, the history of political activism that our communities are built upon, and the way that we hold space for one another during even ugly or suicidal moments — it may inspire in the appreciative person a sense of rootedness, or awe.
With appreciation, there may also come gratitude, and forgiveness toward loved ones who have not always been perfect at supporting us. A calling to “give back” to the disabled community may move us to volunteer more, or take care of others, including people we don’t like.
It’s also quite common to become noticeably more patient during this phase — we may stop raging at “Autism warrior moms,” and instead try to understand their perspective, or tolerate allies who use the “wrong” terms, such as “severe Autism” or “high functioning.” By the time we reach this phase, we’ve probably come to realize that the disabled community is incredibly diverse, and possessed of more walks of life and opinions than could ever easily be summed up. A relaxing sense of humility may flow from this.
For Autistic people who are not used to feeling like they belong, the appreciation phase may feel intoxicating, or spiritual. But in time, all the warm, bubbly feelings will become more complicated, as conflicts inevitability arise whenever large groups of people come together. Appreciation is an idealistic, yet restorative phase — and one that we can return to whenever we take a step outside of ourselves and our own agendas and really allow ourselves to see other people in their best light. It’s not the only truth, but it is a truth of who people are.
Integration
When a person doesn’t fully accept that they are disabled, their sense of self is fractured: they present a series of false selves to other people to avoid detection, and create narratives of their life that don’t fully make sense, because such a crucial component of who they are is missing.
Most people find this level of falseness and fracture quite disturbing to live with, and once their disability becomes impossible to ignore, they move toward a phase of integration: seeing all the parts contained within them as connected, in a complex whole.
I wrote a great deal about the process of integration in my book, Unmasking Autism, and shared exercises by autistic coach Heather Morgan that are designed to help a person to slowly piece themselves back together. But the process of integration is never-ending. It recurs cyclically, as we uncover sides to us that we still haven’t made peace with, or fall into situations that make us feel compelled once again to mask or hide away.
Even pursing the goal of unmasking can feel like a mask, sometimes: I’ve wondered endlessly about whether my impulse to disappoint people is an authentic expression of self-respect, or just yet another way that I shut people out. And when I cling to the stuffed animals and video games that made a younger me feel good, am I really revealing my current truth, or just trying to restore something that’s gone? How can I ever really be one true, genuine person, when I know that I’m filled with so many competing thoughts and desires?
The self is forever changing, taking on new lessons and incurring fresh wounds. Each one of us is filled with many incompatible qualities, and uncovering new sides of ourselves every day. The phase of integration, then, promises us no finality: it only asks we keep exploring and accepting all of who we currently are.
An integrated Autistic person will retain a sense of curiosity about their inner world, but not feel paralyzed with constant self-scrutiny. They are open to new discoveries about themselves, and to trying new things, but they also recognize they have many limits that are non-negotiable.
Autistic therapist Jezebell Pearman has worked with many unmasking Autistic clients, and she tells me that there are key signs that someone has made peace with their disabled self. Here’s what she says:
For me the signs I look for are:
1) no longer placing themselves in situations they can’t manage to “prove a point”
2) the ability to accept that not everyone is going to like them and that not everything is their fault.
3) less sticking to the “safe group”; confidence in advocating for themselves and for people like them more neurotypical settings.
and 4) a comfortable balance between accommodating others and their own needs.
Of course, progress toward this moves in phases, and no person remains fully integrated and self-accepting at all times. We may fracture again when there is some part of us that needs special attention, or when we face a new loss and with it, new rounds of grief.
But part of the beauty of integration is that it easily allows for all of this messiness: the part of us that’s hard to figure out, unpleasant, and unwanted is just as non-negotiably us as the parts we’ve come to love. We don’t ever have to adore all facets of ourselves, in fact. Even our worst self-loathing and rage serves some purpose in our lives, or reflects back at us the ableism we’ve had to endure, so that we might better understand it.
There’s a lesson in each sensation. And nothing inside of us is a threat.
…
I can’t say that the unmasking process ever gets easy, because living as a disabled person in an ableist society never ceases to be hard. But when we unmask, we’re not only freeing the parts of ourselves that have long been obscured, we’re also uncovering the truth about our world. And it is always empowering and worthwhile to know the truth of one’s situation.
It is only by recognizing that the world is not built for us that we can begin to craft a new one. It is only by accepting that we will never meet society’s standards that we can begin to let those standards go. Truly embracing a disabled identity means letting go of nearly every value that the dominant culture has taught us to uphold, and destroying our idealized images of ourselves, so that a far weaker, sadder, slower, more dependent, and yet real version of us can thrive in its place. At first, it may seem that disability has taken everything. But in return, it grants us our freedom.
thank you for this. my only question is where is the phase where you feel fucking awful for how ableist you yourself were. 😅
reading this was so validating, thank you for your work <3