Unmasking Autism Diary #18: Why My Autism is No Longer a Matter of Private Concern
Read now (6 mins) | Parallels with Queerness: from inside Angela's Autistic mind
{TW: Life ending acts; take care if reading}
September 13, 2023
Dear Diary,
I have a cousin—passed now—who greatly influenced my decision to live fully expressed as the Autistic woman that I am. He was gay and fell madly in love at nineteen. So in love, he had to tell his parents…Or maybe they figured it out? His masking game was not on point.
His parents were old school and like Autism or, let’s call it a, “cross-dressing fetish,” they saw this as a private matter. Not something to be shared: “Let’s call this guy, ‘your friend,’ and never speak of it again.”
His “friend” (aka the love of his life), dumped him unceremoniously, and his heart never recovered.
He got the answer about coming out from his family: as long as you don’t talk about it, we will continue to love and support you. Live life with a mask and make the best of it, or be yourself and we will cut you off from our love supply.
He decided to live with a mask on…Which was ridiculous, because seriously, he was so gay. He never fell in love again because the pain of dropping the mask, and consequently losing his family for living out and proud was too great. So instead he quietly dated gay guys in straight relationships on the DL and created a safe space for them to be unmasked for a few hours, while insisting they go back to their wives and girlfriends, keep their gay life a secret, and have kids.
His greatest regret was not having a family of his own with a man that he loved. But the risk of loss was too great. He made peace with his decision to stay in the closet all day, and convince others to do so at night.
On his deathbed, he said, “Fuck it. I’m here. I’m queer. Get used to it.” And with death imminent, everyone got on board.
People say he lived with more love and purpose in his final months than ever before. He was like Santa Claus! He turned all his travel miles points into gift cards and would stuff them in your pockets when you would go visit. He laughed. He lectured. Hell, he even wrote a book in his last few months. He got more done on mainlined morphine than ever in life, and he would always say he was so happy. I never heard him say that masked. I never saw him smile like he did in those final weeks.
Why? Because masking is a death sentence we sign ourselves up for. It’s a microdose of cyanide with coffee for breakfast. We pretend to be someone else so we don’t lose you, or our apartment, or our job; but in pretending, we kill off the truth of who we are.
Like many people, the pandemic gave me a lot of time to think about my decision to keep my 2012 Autism diagnosis, if not ‘hush-hush,’ then ever so quietly in the background.
A lot of neurodivergent and trans people reached a similar conclusion during the pandemic: being fully out as who I am, and letting go of the people in my life who don’t fully and enthusiastically support me, is no longer an option—it’s an imperative.
I hear less accepting people on Twitter or, even in my family, say things like, “I don’t like all this pronoun nonsense.” Or, “Why is everyone self-diagnosing with autism these days?”
If you are confused, too: “So many trans people! So many neurodivergent people! When will the ridiculousness stop?!” Let me take a moment to explain.
There are just as many of us trans and neurodivergent people as there ever were.
Most of us were taught—and believed—these were private matters, and lived that way.
Living that way created a darkness or a missing piece in our lives. We were pretending—or masking—all day, and it wore us down. You didn’t get the best of us.
During the pandemic we got to stop masking and we felt better, happier, more ourselves. When the time came to go back to our old masked lives, we didn’t want to do it.
Thanks to social media and the golden age of streaming, we learned about many people like us—trans and neurodivergent (Autistic, ADHD, bipolar, Tourette’s…) people who were living out and proud. They inspired us to tell you the truth of who we are.
So when I see the handsome transman who is my cousin beaming and smiling bigger than I’ve ever seen, my heart swells with joy, and I think, ‘Oh! That’s who he is! Nice!’
I see him accepting and respecting himself and it makes me want to accept and respect myself. I know he has lost friends and family members, but he has gained mental health, self-love, and the ability to live his actual life now—not just on his deathbed…Or never.
When I hear our shared family members say about his decision: “That, I don’t agree with,” I think, ‘What would you prefer? That he live his life in the closet and fuck married guys in the middle of the night so they can both make it through another day in a life neither of them want? Did you not read the book?’
Why are so many trans and neurodivergent people coming out these days? Is it a fad? Are we trying to get special attention?
Nope.
More of us are sharing our truth because we want to live.
Because we decided we have the right to live.
In October 2020, I felt like my only option was to go back to masking and the boss-business-babe character I had used my privilege and my Autism to create. But the idea of putting that mask on was like putting on a pair of two sizes too small Spanx while soaking wet and drenched in sweat on a 100 degree day with a broken air conditioner.
If I lived fully expressed, I knew, I’d have to deal with judgey friends, clients, and business colleagues saying things like, “Eww what happened to her? All she does is talk about autism now, I don’t get it,” behind my back.
So I made a plan to unalive myself. I could not put the small Spanx on my sweaty body, but I certainly couldn’t give up my personal brand…lol. So I shall use my research skills to call a halt to this carnival ride.
From July 2020, to October of that year, I worked on my plan at least forty hours a week. I thought of almost nothing else. I worked for an hour or two a day, but mostly I sat in my closet or laid in bed and cried about all the things I’d miss when I was gone: all the Christmases, the weddings, my son’s graduation…I played out fifty years without me.
I wrote letters he could open on special occasions that I’d miss. I called the hotline number daily…100% made me more committed to my plan. They always start by asking if you have a plan. I didn’t the first time I called, but they helped me realize that was the next step. They checked in regularly with questions that let me know what I was supposed to do if I wanted to end it all. I told them, “Nope, no plans,” and then went about my business making plans. The hotline is great that way. Very supporting and encouraging in telling you exactly what to do next if you don’t want to be here anymore. (I’m not a fan. I think the only people that give out that number have never called it).
You know what helped? It wasn’t the Lexapro (which made me gain 30 lbs. and stay up all night), it was YouTube videos and Tiktoks that I watched while I couldn’t sleep, from trans and neurodivergent people talking about living life unmasked. That’s what helped.
I didn’t know how to imagine my life, or myself, living as an autistic person instead as a person WITH autism (a private medical condition).
The more I watched, the more my planning diverted from the unaliving-plan to the new, unmasked-life-plan.
Would I lose support? Yes. Just like my cousin would have if he came out and stayed out back in the 1970s. But, what I’d gain is my real, actual life for whatever years I have left, instead of just a few months on my deathbed.
I hatched this plan from the chair I am sitting in now watching sunrise over the Chesapeake bay.
Sunrises saved me.
Each day became another opportunity to start again.
There have always been exactly this many gay, trans, and neurodivergent people. Exactly this many…We aren’t faking it…We aren’t using it to get attention…We aren’t trying to bother you. We are demanding the right to live. We have kicked the too-small-Spanx to the curb and we are running around naked. Maybe you are so mad because you haven’t given yourself that same freedom and you think we should suffer like you?
***
The Dear Diary Project is a public journaling project where I’m publicly sharing my diary entries as part of my annual goals. No harm is intended by these posts. My goal is to gain clarity for myself and hopefully help others, especially autistic adults, who are trying to make sense of the communication challenges we face.
“Masking is a common coping mechanism in which Autistic people hide their identifiably Autistic traits in order to fit in with societal norms, adopting a superficial personality at the expense of their mental health. This can include suppressing harmless stims, papering over communication challenges by presenting as unassuming and mild-mannered, and forcing themselves into situations that cause severe anxiety, all so they aren’t seen as needy or “odd.”
—Unmasking Autism, Dr. Devon Price
*Background note: Most people only have a vague (often, highly stereotyped) version of autism in their minds and believe that autistic children need (traumatic) ABA therapy to "overcome" their disability and appear "normal." After receiving an autism diagnosis in her thirties, Dr. Angela Lauria realized that she too had been mostly unaware of what it means to be Autistic. Like so many people, she started her journey by first gathering information and resources from the omnipresent (and problematic) Autism Speaks, but eventually moved away from the 'autism community' in favor of the 'Autistic community,' where she found kinship with other Autistic individuals and learned to let go of pathologizing language like 'autism spectrum disorder' and 'Asperger's Syndrome.' This autism blog (and her autism podcast, "The Autistic Culture Podcast") is meant to share her lived-experience insights to support others on a similar journey of diagnosis, understanding, and community. Embrace Autism--differences are not deficits.