Questioning

If you are here reading this Wiki, you may have already started the questioning process yourself! Many late-diagnosed autistic people can recall a moment of "realization" when they first learned that they might be autistic. This could be from learning about autism online, being informed by a therapist or other professional that they exhibit autistic traits, or speaking with another autistic person and learning from their knowledge and experience of being autistic.

Uncertainty

• It is extremely common and normal to doubt during the questioning process whether you might "really" be autistic. You likely internalized the inaccurate stereotypes that society holds about autism (that is okay! It is not your fault that you did not know better.) Therefore, you might have had a certain impression of autism for years that may not fit with your experience of autism. Many people are only able to realize that they are autistic after learning that autism truly is a SPECTRUM, and that there are many factors which influence our presentations, including masking, being AFAB, trauma, and much more. Some people think that it is possible to "look" autistic, but this is absolutely not the case. All autistic people are different: we all have unique interests, hobbies, careers, preferences, comorbidities, fashion tastes, and more. While some autistic people may stim visibly at times, autism does NOT have any certain appearance.
• You may find yourself worrying that you could be "faking." This is a form of self-gaslighting that can occur after having the experience of someone "not believing you" about your autism (which is unfortunately common), or from seeing inaccurate information about autism. Your own perception and experience of your life is valid and real, no matter what other people say. Also, just because you may not have some autistic traits does not necessarily mean that you are not autistic. That is why it is a SPECTRUM. Each individual autistic person has a unique combination of autistic traits - some traits they may not even have at all, and others they may have very strongly. It is a common misbelief that autism exists on a scale of mild to severe, whereas the autism spectrum is a multidimensional gradient of common traits.

Stages of Realization

• The questioning step in the process goes along with research. If the more you research and learn about autism and the experiences of other autistic people, the more you relate and feel seen, then you are likely autistic. Late-diagnosed autistic people begin the process of rewriting the narrative of their life from the viewpoint that they are autistic rather than neurotypical like they used to believe. This can be immensely relieving, because most undiagnosed autistic people go through their lives believing that they are inadequate or deficient in some way, when this was never the case. The famous Albert Einstein (a suspected autistic!) quote, "If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid" applies here. Autistic people often have low self-esteem, because they may have internalized various negative beliefs about themselves due to difficulties that they have faced throughout their lives as a result of not receiving accommodations for their autism. This process often results in a wide range of emotions including joy, rage, sadness, grief, and more, but the end goal is acceptance.