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Though I didn’t find out I was Autistic for almost the first thirty years of my life, I was still Autistic even before that diagnosis.
Autism is a lifelong neurodevelopmental difference meaning we are born Autistic, we live Autistic lives, and then we die Autistic deaths.
Just because a Mac computer is running a Windows emulator, it doesn’t suddenly make it a PC. Though unseen by observers, the processes running below the surface are still artificial and chunky. Instead of seamlessly operating as designed, the system mimics something it wasn’t meant to be.
Even if we learn to compensate for our Autistic brains and can succeed (in a world stacked against us), we are still Autistic.
You cannot take an Autistic Person and erase the Autism from them without completely altering who they are (because being Autistic influences every aspect of who we are).
Without my Autistic brain, I wouldn’t be me. Autism influences nearly every part of me and my experience of the world around me.
My Autistic brain is responsible for many things in my life:
My skills and what I am passionate about
- My hobbies and passions – and the intensity with which I fall into those hobbies.
- My strengths and weaknesses – what I’m good at (or bad at) and how good (or bad) I am at things.
- Because my Autistic brain influences the types of things I like to do, it also affects the kinds of people I enjoy spending time with (because we often have similar interests, hobbies, or communication styles).
Who I am
- My creativity – my out-of-the-box way of looking at the world around me
- The intensity of my emotional experience – from deep sorrow and intense anger to overwhelming joy and excitement
- My questioning nature – my life is driven by the question, “Why?”
- My morals & values – how I am direct and value truth, facts, justice, and information
My relationships with others
- The types of people I have in my life – and the kinds of relationships I have.
- How I socialize – how I communicate, bond with others, and my social quota.
- The friends I have – all my closest friends are (and always have been) other NeuroDivergent People (even when I didn’t know that’s what we were).
- My ability to communicate with animals – and the strong connections I can form with them.
This is great! Like you, I didn’t realize I was autistic until my mid-30s, but the out-of-the-box thinking really makes us who we am. You may or may not be interested, but I’m on plasmalogen treatment for Alzheimer’s subtype 3 and cutting-edge research by Dr. Dayan Goodenowe suggests that Autism also stems from a plasmalogen deficiency. My challenges associated with Autism have eased since the treatment, so it seems promising, especially for those who have more debilitating forms of neurodivergence.
I am also a late diagnosed autistic (31 in my case), and like you I regard the notion of a cure as frankly offensive. There is no such thing as non-autistic me – remove the autism and you would remove most of my core characteristics.