Autism v. ADHD & comorbidities

The therapist I found helped me walk through several situations that I’d always struggled with: lack of friends, small capacity for social interaction, challenges as a manager, overstimulation, etc. And she gave me quite a gift as we unpacked them. She told me that these experiences weren’t “normal” but that they were okay.

I think I’d been waiting my whole life for someone to tell me that. “No, your experience isn’t normal. And yes, it’s okay.” [...] But it did help me start to rethink my expectations and goals and offer myself some much-needed gentleness.

Sociologist Catherine Tan described processing an autism diagnosis as an opportunity for “biographical illumination.” Unlike other diagnoses that might disrupt one’s expectation of the future or concept of self, an autism diagnosis can enrich a person’s personal history, future, and concept of self. A lifetime of challenges or unusual experiences is suddenly seen in a new light. My new understanding—”No, that’s not normal and, yes, it’s okay”—was precisely that kind of illumination. I was no longer a problem to be fixed, no longer a broken woman, wife, mother, and writer. I wasn’t normal, and that’s okay.

In fact, the paper Tan wrote in which she coined the term biographical illumination is titled in part: “I’m a normal autistic person, not an abnormal neurotypical.” In her analysis of her research, she writes:

“[Autism diagnosis] provided participants an explanation for their atypicality, and concurrently, offered a framework with which to reinterpret and develop their self-concept. Behaviors and challenges of past and present were attributed new meaning and appreciation through the lens of ASD. Accordingly, the moral implications of these behaviors and challenges were re-evaluated.”

Those academic, formal sentences are a balm for my soul. Being autistic isn’t easy in the world we live in. Still, neither is lacking a way to describe the fundamentally different way I experience the world. Autism has given me a better grasp of my identity in its many forms.

1. As more women in society tell their personal stories concluding they're autistic in relation to research findings that autism is underdiagnosed and presents differently in women, I believe we will see more women questioning and ultimately embracing a diagnosis (or self-diagnosis). It's already happening. To me, it seems like a very similar story to ADHD diagnosis and self-identification.