EP36: From Doubts to Discovery, A Narrative of Kit's Autistic Self-Identification

Have you ever felt like a puzzle, piecing together your own truth, only to discover that the image wasn't quite what you expected? Join me, Kit, as I recount the intimate and transformative journey of self-diagnosing as autistic, a path paved with struggles, breakthroughs, and an unexpected neighbor's song that turned my world upside down. My odyssey was not just a pursuit of self-knowledge, but a battle against the internalized ableism that often silenced my doubts and questions. This exploration is an honest reflection on my past diagnoses and a heartfelt dialogue with my mother, unveiling the stigmas that once shrouded our understanding of autism.

But this episode isn't solely about introspection; it's also a celebration of the quirks and joys that make life so incredibly rich. I'll guide you through the process of embracing personal comfort, even when it means defying societal judgments, especially when it comes to the autistic experience of stimming. Alongside these personal revelations, you'll find amusing tidbits about bees' pollen pockets and Disney's Tiki Room, proving that our passions, no matter how eclectic, are worth indulging. Plus, learn how the iconic Chucky doll became a puppeteering marvel, and let's discuss the importance of community support as we approach Pride month, highlighting the vibrant solidarity within the LGBTQ+ community.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:23

I'm anxious all the fucking time letting myself use stim toys. Really difficult to pretend that the things they say don't devastate you. My journey into discovering that I am autistic. Hey y'all, welcome back to Life Through a Queer Lens. Today it is just me, co-host Kit vibing by myself, and I am going to be talking to you guys about my personal experience with, with self-diagnosing as autistic.

Speaker 1: 1:05

I have made this realization in the past, I would say year and a half to two years. At this point, it's something that I've done a lot of research into throughout those two and a half years give or take probably a little longer than that, because it was about two and a half years ago where I was like, okay, this feels really right, but previous to that I was doing some research. And then, really after that two and a half year mark is when I really started to do heavy research. If anyone's looking for any recommendations, a book that I read that has genuinely been incredibly helpful with my own self-diagnosis journey is Unmasking. Actually, let me just get the book rather than misremembering the name of it and everything else. I have it right here. I'm actually on my second read-through, planning on restarting it because I got halfway through it on my second read-through and then just stopped. But I would like to definitely get my second read through. I accidentally so mad at myself for damaging the book sleeve but it is Unmasking Autism by Dr Devin Price. Yeah, phd, dr Devin Price, they are fantastic and they did. Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity. I've found this book to be really, really helpful in my self-diagnosis journey of just learning more about myself and the way I interact with the world around me. So, yeah, that's basically just what this episode is going to be about is my personal journey with self-diagnosis. So let's get into that. So I've been professionally diagnosed with complex PTSD, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder. I'm not going to lie. It's been a very long time since I have had the funds, the stability, the privilege of being able to go to a therapist, so I don't quite remember, but I believe that's about it. It was. I think it was during the pandemic. Actually funny enough it was. I think it was during the pandemic, actually funny enough.

Speaker 1: 3:10

I feel like a lot of people's self-discovery journeys begin with something along the lines of it was during the pandemic, but I was living in a very odd environment, let's call it, and this odd environment was a duplex and our neighbors right next door were fantastic people that unfortunately, the relationship ended very, very poorly. You know instability be like that. But yeah, they were fantastic people and at one point I was hanging out with them and we were definitely not sober, we were rather intoxicated a lot of IPAs and while we were having this little hangout very late into the night, this person that I was hanging out with they were a singer, a phenomenal singer, classically trained, absolutely beautiful, beautiful voice, and they saw a lot of their own autistic traits in me and, while we were rather intoxicated, sung to me that they believe that I am autistic. They prefaced it with saying I'm not sure how you're going to take this, so I'm going to sing it and I hope that that'll make it easier. And it kind of did. But I definitely had a mental breakdown, like later that night and the next day and it it was a whole thing. But I, that was what first opened the door to me to really looking into this Cause it was the first time I had ever had an outside perspective person say hey, I think you might be like me, and this is why, previously to that point, I myself had kind of thrown around the idea, considered myself as possibly being autistic.

Speaker 1: 4:58

I had brought it up to different therapists, I had brought it up to my exes in the past and I had been met with very similar, rather ableist responses of oh, you can maintain eye contact, you have a conversation completely well, you know all of these things, you're smart, you read a lot, you write books, you create imaginary worlds. That because I was capable, there was no way I could possibly be autistic and that is in and of itself an ableist view. Get that out of your head right now. That's just plain and simply not the case. People who are autistic are capable of phenomenal things, of anything. So having, for the first time, this outside perspective be like, hey, I think this is right and it coming from someone who I respected, who I saw as capable, as you know, it made me realize more of my own internalized ableism. From so many people around me saying that I was too capable to be considered autistic, and helped me recognize like, oh wait, no, that sounds right. So I started looking into it more.

Speaker 1: 6:09

I spoke to my mother about it, who was someone that followed me very closely throughout a lot of my mental health journey, especially once I became an adult and my mental health really started to take a sharp decline in my adult years and she became much more involved with that as that decline occurred more visibly. So I called her about it. I was like, hey, does this sound right to you? And she took a little bit. She was like I'm not sure, let me you know. And she took a little bit, especially because she was very much. And she took a little bit especially because she was a mother during the 90s. She was a mother during the late 90s, early 2000s, the height of the day of vaccines cause autism and autism will ruin your life. It was the height of Autism Speaks propaganda being spread very, very widely and being trusted very closely. Nowadays, you know, there's much more outspoken against them, but back then it was difficult, you know. I mean, we all remember the I Am Autism commercial that was everywhere. It's something that survived throughout in stigma and stuff like that. Yeah, I contacted my mom about it. She did some of her own research in in directions that I helped her get into, you know, with with reputable sources, sources outside of places like autism speaks and organizations that are connected to them, and she really started to recognize like wait, this really sounds right Like on top of being diagnosed with things like bipolar disorder, I was diagnosed with certain things that just never really felt right.

Speaker 1: 7:55

You know I mean BPD had been thrown around a few times. I've had schizophrenia thrown around a lot. I've spoken about it on here before that I do experience hallucinations. They started around the time I was 14. So they started pretty much too early to be schizophrenia, but that was something that was thrown around for a while, even though it didn't really chemically make sense. And only in finding the self-diagnosis of autism did I realize that hallucinations are something that can occur with other diagnoses besides just schizophrenia. It was not something I was ever aware of and it broadened my understanding into the fact that mental illnesses are not just black and white and there is a range of experience, a spectrum of experience with these things. And so that was kind of like the beginning, the very, very early stages of my journey into discovering that I am autistic.

Speaker 1: 8:58

From there I definitely went through a low period for I would say about a year, of not really looking into much of anything about that. I was in a very troublesome living situation, we'll call it. I was in a relationship that was toxic on multiple sides. I was not good to them, they were not good to me, we were not good to each other. At the end of the day, there was no looking into the autism. It was focusing on surviving in the moment and getting somewhere that was stable and safer for everyone, for just everyone involved.

Speaker 1: 9:39

So I ended up moving back in with family and, while it's not the 100% top Gucci environment, it is a much more stable environment for me physically, emotionally and hygienically. In a lot of sense it's far more stable and I would say it's probably the most stable living situation I've had, if not since adulthood, since probably early teens, like late teen, high school age, probably like 16. This would probably be the most stable an environment that I've been in since, probably about 16, without, like you know, the risk of the rug being pulled, if you will, or at least not too much of that risk. Anyway, we like to live on the edge here, folks. We survive on caffeine.

Speaker 1: 10:24

So, yeah, once I moved in to this environment, which is far more stable for me, I have been able to look more deeper into just different resources. There is a website, the name of which I cannot remember right now, but I will do my best to have it put in to a resources page or a post, either to our stories or to our Instagram feed, tiktok feed, one or the other that has the website, and I can even include this book and any other resources that I mentioned throughout this episode that I personally used. But there's a website that was created by a group of doctors who both study autism and are autistic, and they basically compiled this together to help people like myself and like hundreds of thousands of people out there I'm sure Maybe not hundreds of thousands, but y'all catch my drift Many, many, many people out there, many, many, many people out there who, for whatever reason, cannot get a diagnosis, either financially, for whatever reason, a lot of the times. There's the whole idea of an entire generation of AFAB people who were never diagnosed as autistic. There are plenty of people of color who were never diagnosed as autistic due to the systems in place of racism, of the patriarchy, of ableism, of these ideas of what being autistic looks like that have completely put up a barrier between an entire group of people and the ability to get the diagnosis that is actually right for them.

Speaker 1: 12:06

So, yeah, they created this website for that and it basically compiles the different tests that are used to diagnose autism, who created them, where they rank on different efficacy scales so if they are diverse in the range of how they ask questions and things of that nature, if the tests have some type of understanding for people who are just very, very high masking and will not show these traits because of that. And they basically rate each test on those scales and they have a test for even like how high your masking is. I mean, I remember when I first took that test I was blown away by how high my masking score was. I think it was. I remember seeing a six in there. It was either a 68 or 168, and I cannot remember which, but it was higher than I had expected it to be personally.

Speaker 1: 13:14

And they take all of that into account. They take into account the fact that people are all different and especially diagnoses like autism, which is a neurological condition, disorder. It's neurological, it's brain-based, it's going to show up differently in every single person and these tests do their best to recognize that and try to not necessarily counteract that but work with it and give everyone an option of something that feels right for them. So, yeah, that was a fantastic website that I was using for and still every once in a while like I'll go and I'll retake it, especially the masking test. The masking test is very nice to retake because it kind of shows like, as you've been trying to work with your autism, as you've been trying to do things like unmask and be more comfortable, and you know understanding of yourself and things of that nature, like you know the whole process of just healing and unmasking. It's kind of nice to have a benchmarker, if you will like, a tracker almost, but not super hardcore if you don't want it to be, because it shouldn't be. But if you wanted to, you could take the test when you're first understanding yourself, this about yourself, right, and you get a super high score. As you learn more about yourself, as you heal more and stuff like that. You can notice that score change, you notice it, you know and stuff like that. You can notice that score change, you notice it, you know if it does or if it doesn't, like it could just be a nice little who knows? That's just an idea.

Speaker 1: 14:57

Something I have found incredibly helpful is just letting myself have stim toys, letting myself use stim toys. I think that's something that it took me a weirdly long amount of time to just like be okay with myself doing without feeling weird. Like I remember when the Fidget Cube first came out back in like 2016, something like that I had gotten one for myself because I was like I'm anxious all the fucking time and I'm tired of doing what anyone watching this video has been watching me do for the past 20 minutes, which is shift and fidget and twiddle, and I have struggled to stay still. I talk with my hands. That's not just being Italian, it's also become a stim because it's a socially acceptable one to you know, especially because I can just go oh, I'm Italian, I'm from Jersey, it's fine. People are like, oh, okay, and no one bats an eye, it's easy.

Speaker 1: 15:54

But just being more forgiving with myself in what I need, you know, in the ability to bring stim toys with me and use them while I'm walking around the store and not feel I don't want to say not feel like shame or icky when I noticed someone looking, because I will still feel that you know what I mean Like you can't stop how you feel and unfortunately, I am a rather sensitive human being who, you know, who feels it. It's not really something that I can just turn off. I wish I could. I've had so many people tell me oh, just ignore them, just, it is so much harder. I mean, I'm sure queerness even can understand that. The queerness within me can also understand that it is really difficult to pretend that the things they say don't devastate you, because I mean personally they do. It can be really really hurtful and almost devastating, you know.

Speaker 1: 16:56

But it's just, I've become comfortable in stating and not necessarily knowing, but trying to know that my comfort, the ability to stim and get out that excess energy or just feel something for under or over stimulation, that means more to me than other people's judgment. My comfort means more than their judgment. And yeah, it's still difficult. You know, like I said, as a sensitive bitch I'm not just going to turn that off. I wish I could. But just knowing that my comfort comes before your judgment has, I don't know, it's just kind of been a little piece of something to carry with me and and keep in mind like, yeah, no, my, my comfort means more than anyone else's judgment period. That's that's where that discussion ends.

Speaker 1: 18:16

So yeah, from there, you know, I've just it's just been listening to a lot of other autistic people talk about their experiences, moving through this thing called life and identifying with those experiences, recognizing bits of those experiences in my own life experiences, recognizing how I would have done similar things in their shoes, going through their life experiences, just connecting with other people who themselves have either been professionally diagnosed or are self-diagnosed as autistic, and just learning from them, learning about them and, by proxy, learning more about myself. It's just. I mean, that's the human experience right there is taking bits and bobs of the things we learn in the world around us and using them to learn more about ourselves and to continuously learn more about the world around us. Because the whole point, what are we even doing here? Come on, guys, especially if you're listening to this podcast, we had a whole last little clip where I was just like I'm sorry, if you don't want to learn more about yourself, you're fucking boring. That still stands. If you're listening to this and you're one of those people where you're like, oh no, I'm, I'm, I'm good and content with how much I know about myself and the world around me, I'm sorry to tell you but I personally would think you are a boring person. But I just would. We probably wouldn't vibe.

Speaker 1: 19:50

I'm here for people who are constantly wanting to learn more. That's the key. I don't know. In the age of information, there's a lot of people who have become content in what they know. We live in the age of information and it feels like we are living in, also, the age of being content with the information you have by the time you hit X age, and that has never been the point. That's how we got where we are. We got where we are because there were people who were always willing to keep learning more and finding more. That's how we're here in the first place. So you know human condition and all that jab Like that's why we're here, baby, it's to learn more.

Speaker 1: 20:39

It never stops. It doesn't stop when you get out of school. It doesn't stop when you get out of your 20s. It doesn't stop when you hit your midlife crisis. It doesn't stop when you die. The whole thing is to keep learning. Just have fun with it. Have fun with learning, have fun with sharing information. Just try to have fun with it. So I don't really have a queer fun fact for today. I just kind of want to share with you guys some of my personal favorite fun facts about the world that I have been carrying with me since probably about 12 to 13 years old, just stored in the back of my brain. Because I fun fact about me.

Speaker 1: 21:21

I have been called the vat of useless information by just about every single person in my life, including me. I call myself that pretty frequently. It's just, it's true, I am a vat of relatively useless information, but in the right circumstances the information is pretty useful. The information's pretty useful Like, for example, fun fact did you guys know that bees have pockets on their knees? So like when someone's saying that's the bees' knees, it's also the bees' pockets. And those little pockets on their knees are actually where the pollen goes. It doesn't just like stick to them, it can carry it in their little knee pockets. So there's one.

Speaker 1: 22:11

My special interest for a while was animatronics. The first ever audio visual animatronics, animatronics that not just moved but also made sound. Sound were unveiled at Disney in the Tiki Room. It was the birds in the original Tiki Room. They were some of the first audio visual animatronics and that's pretty cool. You know those little birds, especially back then, that's pretty tight.

Speaker 1: 22:40

Oh, a fun fact from Chucky. I have a Chucky doll over there that maybe will make an appearance somewhere behind me in October. We'll see. I'll have to set that up. My area is kind of tiny so I'll see if I can make that work. Stay tuned.

Speaker 1: 22:56

But a little fun fact about Chucky they made I think it was three separate Chuckies for the first movie. One of them was the completely burnt out one which was literally just on the little cart and they like wheeled it toward them. Almost 20 people were in charge of just controlling each separate minute movement within the doll's face, hands, legs, like every piece of him, which is so fucking cool to think about. That many puppeteers again. Just the idea of community, that many puppeteers working in unison to make one living thing walk and talk and move and like. That's so fucking cool. Just like the power of community that can be seen in one horror movie fucking mint shit, um.

Speaker 1: 23:50

So stay safe, stay queer. Make sure that y'all are buying your merch for pride coming up from local small queer businesses early june. If you take a look at your local newspapers, your local local areas, I'm sure you'll find some type of festivals going on within the first few weeks of June, or even like the last week of May, that will be pride-oriented or at the very least have some type of queer vendors, definitely check those out and try to get your pride merch from queer small businesses this year. You know this year, above many others, it's time for some solidarity. It's time to be getting from each other for each other and sticking to each other and away from big business and stuff like that. You all have a lovely day and I love you all you.