I am doing the work too

For my entire life I have hidden so much of myself that it became a habit. It has been hard to unmask and reveal who I truly am. In fact, it has been an ongoing journey to undercover who I am underneath the heavy mask I built to cover myself up.

I have compassion for my past self and the ways in which I learned that it was not safe to openly be me. I grieve for the loss of being able to show myself to the world for so many decades.To share myself now is a bit scary, a residual fear lingers yet deeply I know that the only path is to be radically myself, to live authentically and fully.

For so many years, I did not allow myself to experience life firsthand and have an opinion. I had learned not to trust my experience and I would defer to the perception of others before making a conclusion. I am now practicing what it is like to experience something and come to my own conclusions without the input of others. It’s such a simple thing, yet it’s not and it’s changing my life. I am becoming more liberated to become my full autistic self, little by little.

The more authentically I embrace myself, the better therapist I become. I focus a lot of my writing and videos on my own autistic discovery and healing journey. At first, I thought I did this because no one could refute it and say I was full of BS and therefore, my RSD (rejection sensitive dysphoria) would be less triggered. I am realizing now that what I am really trying to show is that I will not take my clients somewhere I have not gone myself. I am here doing the work too. And I know how messy and hard it is.