Autism Feelings: The Relief and Joy of Feeling Seen
In which I use three times the recommended ratio of Tang to water
Hooray!
Today will be focused on one of the purely good post-autism-diagnosis feelings—one of the very best.
Series Note
This essay is part of an ongoing series in which I explore each of the feelings that washed over me when I received my diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) at forty two.
Feeling Seen [comma] The Relief and Joy of
Listen, just between us birds, the first couple of essays in The Autism Feelings Executive Collection are heavy. They’re heavy like angry cars are heavy. Take a minute. Go. Find yourself an angry car and try to pick it up. They’re so heavy.
Stolen-valor feeling! Anger-at-these-people feeling! Anger-at-those-people feeling! Misdiagnosis! The Catholic Church! Meningitis!
Menin-goddamn-fucking-gitis!
After I wrote “Anger at Professionals?” I wrote a couple of not-about-autism essays that I’d hoped would serve as a kind of palate cleanser. They did, I think (and I’m really happy with them), but where autism feelings are concerned, I’m still jonesing for a heaping tablespoon or two of brown sugar straight out of the bag.
Okay, I’ve got my bag. Now you go get your own bag of brown sugar and meet me by the pool.
The Joy of a T-shirt Fantasy!
I literally fantasized about making a T-shirt. I imagined it would be bright green and yellow and that it would have soothing magenta letters. It would have looked something like this:
There’s still time! No one’s ruling anything out! I can still live out this dream for you!
It goes like this:
Acquire this T-shirt
Get a good night’s sleep
Wake up
Shower
Wear this T-shirt
Escort my kid into preschool
Smile and wave exactly like the dude on the T-shirt
Do perfect conversations with the other parents
Such a beautiful morning! So good to see you! You’re a lawyer? And your partner is a lawyer? That’s so great! I have autism! Why am I staring at your shoes? Because I have autism! I know! I am very handsome, thank you so much! Good noticing! Why am I playing air trumpet with my right hand? That’s also because I have autism! I’m not going to kill myself masking for you anymore!
Here! Have a T-shirt! No! It’s fine! I made enough for everyone! Of course not! No, I know that you don’t! That’s why yours says, “Hi! YOU have autism”!
The Relief of Documents!
Talking about our relief can be tricky because it implies that we needed relief from suffering. Well, not today it doesn’t! Today, we’re just going to skip right the fuck over that part!
I was relieved (never mind any preexisting suffering) when I finally had a document from a doctor. Document and doctor, by the way, both have the same root—docere—which means “to teach” in Latin. Latin, by the way, was a Paul Zaic special interest circa nineteen ninety high school wherein, by the way, at the Madrigal Feast, my Latin teacher Mr. Martin told my father, “The boy has a mind like a steel trap,” which, by the way, made my father feel very proud (never mind any preexisting suffering). Subsequently, by the way, my father’s propensity to repeat this anecdote, would only be out-propsenitied by my own. The Zaics are propensities all the way down. Incidentally, the phrase “by the way” used figuratively to mean “incidentally” does not have Latin origins.
Anyway, my document (my “teachy-dealy”) says something like, “Take whatever this dude says and does with a grain of salt and just be cool if he’s making an inexplicable face or it seems like he’s not paying attention. Assume that he is. Assume that he’s never not been paying extraordinary amounts of attention to the loud, bright, smelly person standing a little too close to him.”
jk, that’s not what it says, it says:
What a wonderful thing!
To have a document! To have a little teachy-dealy that gives voice to the things you may not have been able to give voice to! That asks for the things you may not have felt emboldened to ask for! That, in some cases, implies legal consequences if professionals in your life continue to insist upon being such dickheads! Yeah, that’s right! You heard me, dickheads! Cut it out! We have documents now!
My document even helped me in my most personal relationships. No, I didn’t hand out copies at a madrigal feast in honor of my diagnosis (though, now that I’ve thought of that, I’m totally going to do it). Really, my document just gave me the foundation and the courage to start those conversations with friends and family.
I know when I do X it can be really frustrating. I don’t mean to frustrate you. I can work really hard to suppress X, but that’s actually really painful for me. I’ve been suppressing it most of my life and it’s exhausting. X is just a part of who I am. If you could try to do Y when I do X, that would really help me. Is there anything I can do that would help you?
What an actual relief!
The Joy of Solidarity Tattoos!
I don’t have any tattoos! Neither in solidarity nor otherwise!
The Joy of Solidarity!
But I briefly considered getting one! On the day that I received my ASD / ADHD diagnosis, I began to feel intense, joyful solidarity with my ASD family member. An image popped into my head. I doodled it on a scrap of paper:
Cute right? But then I had a change of heart, best captured by this excerpt from a DM I sent to Carrie Poppy:
… I just googled the history of the symbology of the puzzle pieces and now I know that a lot of people have really painful associations with them / ABA / Autism Speaks. Too bad. They’re so cute. Maybe I’ll doodle a rainbow-ception or something. Anyway, sentiment above remains the same.
So:
Carrie responded in a more measured way:
… the 🧩 originated with AS but obviously has wider use now, so whatever. One influencer I like is trying to push for the fingerprint (as in, each is different) and I like that bc reminds me of detectives! 🕵️♀️
So wise! Are you ready, Carrie? Here’s the big reveal:
Perfect! Literally the only thing I can’t decide now is where on my face to tattoo this.
jk, I’ve decided, it’s the middle.
The Relief of Seeing Yourself!
Seeing yourself can be a huge relief, but, famously, it can also be uncomfortable and elusive.
Which is why the expression on this happy little stick man’s face is what we in the business call a Miss Piggy Partial (though colloquially you may hear it referred to as Kermit’s Acquiescence).
Enjoy seeing yourself to the extent that you can for as long as you can!
Which brings me to the way we’ll be walking out door today:
Okay, Kids. Real Talk.
Every joy has a beginning, a middle, and an end. All relief is temporary (with the possible expectation of The Great Relief That Comes for Us All).
Every person is different. Every person with ASD will react to their own diagnosis in their own way.
Traditionally, I am loosey-goosey with my pessimism and I am stingy AF with my optimism. This situation is no different.
Let me explain.
So far, my autism-feelings essays have focused on the particular ways in which I’ve been processing those feelings—my feelings. I haven’t felt at all concerned that in describing my anger I might be misconstrued as prescribing that anger. I haven’t been worried that a reader might come to the conclusion that they’re not angry enough—that they ought to work harder at feeling angry. I’ve been describing these difficult feelings so that someone might read them and feel seen—might find solace in them. To me, that’s an understanding inherent to any covenant to share one’s difficult feelings.
However, in writing about my joy and relief, I do worry that it could be read as prescriptive. I worry that someone with a recent diagnosis might stumble upon this post and think, “I’m not experiencing any of the joy and relief described here. What is wrong with me?”
If that sounds like you, and you’ve made it this far, there’s nothing wrong with you for not being stick-figure joyful in the orbit of your diagnosis. I share these joys because they were true for me. If they hadn’t been true for me, I don’t think I would have been moved to start writing about my autism diagnosis at all—neither the good nor the bad.
And, truth be told, it’s a lot easier to sustain anger than joy. (It is for me, anyway.) I’ve had this post among my drafts for a while now. I’ve had to chip away at it in the moments where I’ve felt joyful enough and relieved enough to do right by the organic burst of joy and relief that came so readily to me in the autumn of 2024 when I was first diagnosed.
World events weigh on me. Run-of-the-mill depression and anxiety weigh on me. My responsibilities weigh on me.
You might rightly believe that you will not be seen. Your family and townsfolk might actually be a bunch of assholes about your diagnosis. Your document might trigger your employer to quietly (or loudly) replace you. While—as far as I know—that is still illegal in America, I can’t promise you that it won’t happen.
You know your situation best. I trust you to judge how seen you will or will not feel. I trust you to judge whether it’s wise or safe for you to throw yourself a parade. I wouldn’t even blame you for deciding that diagnosis itself is too much of a risk for you right now. (Not to mention too much of a financial burden.)
If any of that sounds like you, and if you feel like the three-times-the-recommended-ratio-of-Tang-to-water vibe that opened this essay doesn’t ring true for you, then I want you to know that this essay is still for you—for you especially.
If you have a recent diagnosis and you don’t feel safe to share it, or if you suspect that you might be on the team but you don’t have the support at home or the financial stability to look into it right now, I want you to know that I see you. We see you.
If “here” feels like a place that’s impossible to get to, I want you to know that I understand that feeling. I also want you to know that you’re already here.
Hello! Welcome!
