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What is the r word?

You make so much sense, and I can't wrap my head around why other people are so selfish as to even think you are being selfish. It seems to me that people who think you are trying to get attention are simply projecting their own need to be the center of the universe onto you. I have been so abused for my autistic traits throughout my life. I didn't know, for 53 years, why people would be angry with me so much and I spent my entire life in horrible confusion. I don't have a malicious bone in my body and only have the most loving intent, yet I was treated like I was some sort of horrible monster. The people who actually care enough about me to understand that I am not trying to come across the way I am perceived are at least making an effort to "decipher" and look beyond the autistic idiosyncrasies to hear my actual meaning and not some imagined meaning that they have made up in their own heads.

It seams to me that society only respects autistic people if they are 11 years old boys with a fixation on trains.

Thank you. I needed that video and this one also. 💛

Yessssss why nobody noticed.....,?!?. The Hurt!!! Feeling of Embarrassment... I felt all that!!!! And Ur opening scene it came bk to me😥

Thank you, Courtney. 💖 I'm planning a lengthy video about narcissistic abuse & how it overlaps with autistic cptsd symptoms... that is, we share symptoms with narc abuse victims & for that reason narcs also target us because we're already self-blaming all the time & that makes us easier for them to manipulate & abuse. I might like to use a small clip or two of this in that video?

💖

Your diagnosis video was probably the most impactful video that i viewed just days before my diagnosis. It helped. I think the authentic reaction is what made it so powerful

14:31 I am in tears here. Like why am I making myself uncomfortable in my own house? By myself??? I can watch all this content, I can watch a direct how to video. But it's never going to teach me fully how to drop the mask.

'Diagnosising' may be a neologism, but a useful one. The practice/passion for gathering/applyiing labels of one's mindbody experiences?

You just seem frustrated.

Thank you for sharing your experience.

I'm getting tested for both ADHD and Autism in a week. I'm pretty confident in saying that my ADHD was mostly in the drivers seat when I was younger but now my ASD has aggressively taken the wheel.

Relief and despair at the same time.

Thank you for sharing... And for unmasking. This was helpful for me.

Like are the “Resources” in the room with us?.. or😭

Hi Courtney, thank you for making this video. I faced these kinds of people too! It's so traumatic to learn that people just can't wrap their head around the idea of high masking autistic adults having legitimate needs and just chose to respond as it's us being inflexible and unreasonable.

@13:02 "I'm a chronic people pleaser, I never put myself first, and even though it might not appear that way outwardly, I appear quite selfish, I am trying so hard, and it never comes across that way which makes it worse." I 100% relate to this, and I've never been able to articulate it to anyone, even therapists seem confused by this.

about losing hope, i feel for you so much because for now i have a borderline personality disorder which afab people often get instead of an autism diagnosis so i would like to get assessed for autism when i have the resources but anyways, what id like to say now is that personality disorders and neurodevelopmental conditions have the thing in common that they dont go away, you cant be healed from them. and so i too went through what you're going through here: losing hope that my struggles will just go away one day. however i did get intensive therapy after my diagnosis and ive come a looooong way from how i was before that so there IS still hope for getting better, for coping better in healthier ways, for healing from at least some of my trauma. so i believe there are ways to live a better life, whether with a personality disorder or autism. i wish you all the best in your journey and thank you so much for sharing your experience.

In another video, you had a body brush. What do you do with that?

5:21 i’m on the other side of this. i’m constantly misinterpreting other people. when someone sighs my brain goes into over drive tryna figure out what’s wrong and if i did smth and then i shit down cuz i’m afraid of making this worse or i start incessantly asking questions to the point where people get mad. i hate it here!!! edit: PEOPLE ALWAYS SHUSHED ME TOO GROWING UP 😭😭

Just stumbled upon this video and your channel, I ABSOLUTELY love your raw honesty. I really needed this❤Know that you are not alone in your feelings when you got your diagnosis. It was the same for me last year getting a diagnosis at 38yo. Thank you for finding the words to describe an experience that I havent been able to❤

"...to find out that everything that you hate about yourself and everything that everybody hates about you is actually because you're autistic..." This is exactly how I feel about possibly being diagnosed. 😭

Thank you for this honest video. Giving me enough courage to go shop for food on this kak day.

You are amazing! Really. You are a Warrior Mermaid!! That took SO freaking much courage!! U should be so proud of yourself right now!!!

damn--I relate to nearly all of this.

I felt this exact way. I even make videos on TikTok (only place I’ve come out so few people I know in person know I’m autistic), about theory of mind and I so wrongly presumed people would understand me better but now I feel occasionally people think I use that as an excuse. Blows my mind considering it’s literally brain wiring and something we cannot change.

Thank you for being authentic and shame on people for making you feel like there's anything wrong with you.

Just watched the video and its breathtaking.

I like just a regular bath scrunchie. good look, good smell, good feel.

Is this monofin bigginer-friendly?😁

Thank you for this video! So many relatable points here. I truly appreciate this and it's also my first video from you. I've felt incredibly alone after getting my diagnosis earlier this year (I'm 34, turning 35 tomorrow.) No one has asked me how I felt and I naively expected at least one person to ask me something. Only my wife cared and I'm always grateful to her for it. But man, it was such a punch in the face to realize not one in my social circle cares enough to educate themselves about autism. I usually get very interested about other people's problems and such. I was stupid to expect the same for myself.

You are describing exactly how I felt when I was first told in 2001 that I’m autistic. I had been in therapy since I was 5 years old but no one in my family told me why. Then, at age 34, a therapist referred me for testing and I was devastated to learn I’m autistic because I had so much hope that some day I could figure it out or get on the right medicine or something that would take “this stuff” away. Instead I learned I was stuck this way forever. It took me a looooooong time to go from that to being an activist and advocate and embracing who I am. Oh, heck, it’s eternally a work in progress, learning to love who I am. Thank you for this video. (I wish I’d seen it 20 years ago!)

A beautiful video and a beautiful mermaid

Masking is so normal to me I don’t know the difference 😂

Looks so peaceful and fun! (And your hair goes so well with the mermaid colors!)

I think getting tested will help me. But I’m so afraid that they’ll tell me I’m not autistic.

You're brave for saying what you said. It's clear you're going through a lot, and I hope it improves soon. And never apologise for speaking your truth, no one can argue about your feelings ♡

Thank you 🙏 so much for being honest about the challenges. It might be unpleasant to hear. But it’s more helpful than just saying it’s perfect. But your video about your test and diagnosis, helped me SO much. I can’t tell you. Thank you. (And it was not difficult at all to watch the video to the end 😉)

OK, I get it. I was trying to understand your experience advocating for yourself, together with the responses that you’ve gotten from people in your life, and why they responded that way. Because personally, I find it helpful to say to people around me: I need to do this because I am autistic or this is overstimulating or this bothers me. And I haven’t encountered problems with that. But that’s simply because of the people that I interact with. And I think what I’m hearing is: when you try to explain your experiences through the lens of autism, there are a lot of people in your life that just respond with invalidation. And with those people, you do not need to fight that battle. You do not need to battle with them for your needs to be valid. And frankly, anybody that invalidates you is not worth your time and energy. Whenever you say the word autistic, it gets no respect from them. So you just make the accommodations you need to. And these people who are not respectful of your condition, don’t deserve an explanation. There are people that do not deserve our emotional energy. And learning to identify them, is a huge step in life. I am so sorry, that you have dealt with the ignorance and insensitivity, of those that choose to act that way in your life. 💚

Oh my word, everything you have said resonates with me, literally everything you said. I am in the middle of my assessment, I am 51 and like you thought one day I would have it sussed. I have tried everything to be better...anti-depressants, anxiety courses, meditation, counselling, hypnotherapy and I thought one day I would find the thing that worked. Nope, I am autistic, and I have seen so many positive video's about embracing it and being your true self but at the moment I am in the place you are. I have lost hope, I don't know how to cope with it all, life just feels like it's getting harder to cope with. I agree that unmasking has been hard. I have had people say comments to me that I am addicted to stress and thrive on it!!!!!! WTF, I hate being this way, I have tried everything to change but my brain is this way. The only thing to help is to withdraw and do as little with everyone as possible so I don't have to worry about it all. I am so grateful for your being authentic, it has made me feel so much better with what I am going through. I hope you find a way through.👍

your tail looks so majestic! <3 love love love. i wish i could also do mermaiding in the future.

Did they ask you about trains?

Thank you Coutrney that helped me becasue I am on this journey too. I was diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago and have an ASD assessemtn in a few weeks. :)

Hello. Thank you for your videos, they really are helping.

Good on you. It can be hard and hurtful to realise that people don’t always support us when we are vulnerable in our sharing. I didn’t share with anyone the diagnosis of one of my children because of the judgement and bias they would face. But, I recently explained to them what it was and now it is their choice to share or not. I have a relative who never shared his diagnosis until he was 70! Honestly it would have helped if he had shared early on so people understood it wasn’t him being selfish or rude. All the best.

So beautiful!!! RIP, Alfie!

"You just want me to make you comfortable!" Yep, that's it in a nutshell!

Where to start? I really would have liked to be in your studio when you were making this to be able to hear the whole uncut version because your experience resinates with me so much. There is one difference though, and that is those those people who don't get it I've adapted how I interact with them (eg by email instead of WhatsApp or phone). We're talking my best friend, my brother, my daughter and my uncle.. Really important people in my life and whom I loved very much, but whom obviously didn't care about me as much as I thought they did. In other words they weren't prepared to give back to me what I felt I had given them over the years, what I felt I would have given them in such circumstances if the tables were turned. That's was a hell of a blow, to my self-esteem I guess, which has always been low because I could never behave in the way I wanted to. I was always opening my mouth and putting my foot in it and upsetting people. So now I'm just left with my husband to talk to. (he's neurotypical but very loving and understanding) and that's ok. It's a lot easier not having to tippy toe my way around them. In reality the only way I could continue to talk to them would be to mask up again and act as if autism was just a passing phase, just a mental blip, like all the other mental blips I've had before. I don't want that. It wouldn't be good for my mental health. It would be like I'm taking sides with them rather than self advocating. No, I need to put myself and my needs first. If it means keeping most other people at a distance from now on, then so be it. I am the most important person to me. Thank you. Great video. I've subscribed! ❤

Super. 🤩😘