Who am I, and why Mind The Gap?
Hi!
I’ll keep this short and sweet! My name’s Beki or Rebeccah, i’m a 27 year old autistic woman who was late diagnosed autistic at 25. I struggled all my life feeling like i didn’t fit in, believed that something was always ‘wrong’ with me, questioned why everything seems so natural and easy to everyone, and also why on earth do people keep getting mad at me for things out of the blue?! I was often left feeling confused, defeated, and frustrated. What was wrong with me? Why does it feel like I don’t belong anywhere?
Well, fast forward past a lot of trauma, bullying even into adulthood, and a rollercoaster of making new friends and then falling out over the years (a LOT of misunderstandings), I finally got my diagnosis at 25, and my ADHD diagnosis at 26. The pieces all began to fall into place. I found the #️⃣ ActuallyAutistic community, learnt everything I could over the past couple of years, and finally have pride in who I am.
It really is heartbreaking to think of how many other autistics are out there that have felt, or still feel like I did.
Newsflash: nothing is ‘wrong’ with you! If you’re reading from the UK, I already know if you have got your diagnosis you will have been given zero aftercare. No counselling, therapy or anything to deal with reliving all of the traumatic experiences you will have inevitably faced, but all over again. Rewriting your whole past can be hard with a new lense, and often is re-traumatising. You realise you were wronged, so, so, so many times by people and those instances were because of autistic traits that you could not help or change. That realisation each time really hurts, it really stings, and it’s hard to feel such a level of injustice over and over again as you realise all the times you were let down or failed by people, institutions or those who were supposed to love/care for you, all for autistic things that you could not help.
I’m here to tell you that if you’re autistic or suspect you are, you do not deserve any of that, and the problem and fault is within others for their intolerance to different. Different is great, and realising you’re different and WHY is so powerful and a whole new journey in itself. You belong here, you have hopefully found home within this community, or want to find your way into here. I’m here to let you know you’re brilliant as you are, and there’s a whole pack of us all around the world that are waiting for you with open arms! ❤️
If you’re reading this and you’re not autistic, but you’ve been redirected here by someone to learn more, or you’re just curious, i’m also here to give you educated, informed advice and resources to better understand autistic people or your autistic loved ones. So much of the information out there is stereotyped, incorrect and often deeply steeped in ableism. Yes, even when it ‘means well’, it can still be really harmful. A lot of it does base on the fact that autistic people are broken, which we are absolutely not. There is no one way to be, we have different brains in the human existence just like we have different facial features. There is not one way to be. A lot of the information you’ll find when you run a google search etc, will tell you otherwise!
So, I’ve made this blog for people who need a crash course on everything, from what stimming is, to what is the most respectful way to refer to us, to how to help with a meltdown whether you’re autistic or someone in the presence of a meltdown, etc.
I also shine a light here on how difficult it is to realise you’re even autistic in the first place if you’re a woman, girl, or someone who was assigned female at birth. Because we show traits differently, we often are missed and suffer without answers or a sense of belonging that either a self or medical diagnosis can give many of us. And as a result, our mental health and self esteem are affected. It can be truly life changing to realise you are valid, valuable and not broken and there’s an entire community of people just like you out there waiting for you. I want to hopefully even slightly empower anyone who visits here and learns here, and hopefully better equip you regardless of what kind of brain you have, to do good and spread good, when it comes to autism. ❤️