Unmasking Autism Diary #3: Coming Out...Again...and Again...

Read now (4 mins) | Self-disclosure: from inside Angela's Autistic mind

January 5, 2023

Dear Diary,

People think “coming out” is something you do one time. Maybe for some people it is, but for me it’s like an everyday activity. I wish I got that memo in my 20s instead of my 40s.

Yesterday I was meeting with a new vendor and he asked if there was anything else he needed to know to be successful in his role. I gave him the, ‘I’m autistic and here’s what that means for you,’ speech I’m so well practiced at now. I think I’ve given this speech 100 times:

I will always tell you where you stand with me. I don’t have a hidden agenda. If I have a problem with you I will just come out and say that. I will also never guess if you have a problem with me. But if you tell me directly I will do my best to fix it.

I’m not 100% sure why I give this speech because it almost never works.

People look me in the eye and say they get it but when there is a problem later, it always comes back to them making assumptions about my motivations or feelings or being frustrated that I’m so direct and confrontational. 

I worked with the world’s nicest guy last year and he kept trying to tell me to, “Just be nicer,” to the team…Like it was a simple instruction.

The team was dropping all sorts of balls. Deadlines were being overshot. Goals were not just being missed, but ignored. It didn’t make sense to be “nice” when so much was going wrong and I was spending a lot of money on it.

I kept telling him I could promise that I would be nicer, but it would be a lie, and I’d let him down if I said I could do that.

I don’t have the beat around the bush setting.

He kept telling me I’d catch more flies with honey than vinegar—which I’m sure is true, but why are we catching flies in the first place? Can we just go somewhere that doesn’t have flies?

I think to neurotypical people it seems like: Why can’t you just modulate your response?
To me it feels like: How or why could I?

I’ve had years of therapy where they tried to teach me to act neurotypical in social situations, or how to “read the room better,” or how to be more relaxed in stressful situations. When it did work, it was all-consuming. If I dropped everything else and focused on nothing but delivering the social communication performance I was trained in, about 20% of the time I might get it right but I still failed 80% of the time AND I was emotionally exhausted.

So…I stopped trying. I substituted ‘commitment to fixing my social communication problems,’ for coming out as autistic.

I never wanted to be an autism educator, but that felt like a more workable solution than trying to be better at acting neurotypical. Either way I am faced regularly with people’s disappointment in me. This new way—while still taxing—is less soul crushing. 

I had an employee once, who I really adored, but I had to let her go because we didn’t have work for her anymore. I told her this directly as well as my desire to bring her back when a position arose again. She immediately started telling people: “I must have done something to piss Angela off.”

What?

How did you reach that conclusion? If you pissed me off, I would have told you, remember? 

The Autistic way of communication really does make more sense to me: I’ll just directly tell you what I think, and you do the same.

But there is so much subtlety and nuance in neurotypical communication. Why would I communicate that I was pissed off at you by telling you that I love you and want to bring you back when there is work? Why would I play nice with a team we hired that was missing their deadlines and goals?

Don’t get me wrong. It’s all been explained to me numerous times. It just won’t stick in my head as a preferred approach. The Autistic way just makes so much more sense to me. 

And so, in some sort of hope to avoid a communication disaster I know is likely coming, I ‘out’ myself to new people. I explain how autism works. I take on the role of autism educator. And most of the time the person I’m educating goes along with the lesson in the moment—even if it doesn’t stick.

Some people use this as an opportunity to tell me I don’t look autistic or that I shouldn’t be labeling myself. That’s always fun.

But most people nod earnestly and in the moment I believe this time will be different and that the discomfort of outting myself as autistic will all be worth it. And… sometimes it is. 

I wish I had been as brave about outting my sexuality in my 20s. I thought it was a one and done thing. It seemed weird to give the, “I’m queer,” speech every time I met someone new when it didn’t seem relevant for that person. Of course, if I was physically with a woman I was dating it would be obvious, but I was single a lot, or in professional settings, and so short of wearing rainbow pride flag apparel (which I had plenty of), it just didn’t seem relevant to bring up. Weirdly though, I think that led to me unconsciously masking as straight as much as I was masking as autistic. 

Pretending to be someone you aren’t for other people’s comfort is an excruciating way to live. I feel the crushing ache of the years lost to pretending in my own life and it makes me feverishly passionate about protecting the right of others to exist too. 

Anyway, coming out is something I do every day—as Queer and Autistic. Many people (even some who love me), wish I would just shut up about it already.

But…I did that for decades. I’m doing this now instead. 

That new vendor I met yesterday—he didn’t flinch when I told him I was autistic. He didn’t tell me that I didn’t look autistic. And he agreed to tell me directly if he had a problem with me and said he understood I would do the same. In that moment I had hope that coming out was the right choice. I know I might be disappointed, but I was able to find the hope to be vulnerable, put my truth out there, and keep trying to bridge the communication gaps. 

As my fellow Autistic literary sister Emily Dickinson says: Hope is a thing with feathers…

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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.