The Reality of Adults With Autism

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Adults with autism often struggle with unhealthy relationships.
Jessica Penot, LPC, is a licensed professional counselor in Madison, Alabama, who specializes in treating trauma and autism spectrum disorder. She has over 20 years clinical experience in a variety of settings. She is the founder and director of Tree of Life Behavioral Health and has spoken and written about autism on platforms including The Art of Autism. Penot was diagnosed with autism in her 40s and has spent a significant amount of time working to understand the specific challenges and traumas women with autism face. Her research and work focuses primarily on issues involving the underdiagnosis and misdiagnosis of women with autism and the impact it has on their lives and mental health. She is an advocate for neuroaffirmative approaches to treatment and works to help facilitate women with autism in moving from being self-critical to self-compassionate. Her perspective on autism comes not only from her clinical experience, research, and study, but also from her experiences living as a woman with autism spectrum disorder. Penot is also the author of 10 novels and books about exceptional women and girls who are born different and need to find magic in their “otherness

Wow. Thank you for posting this.

It's extremely relevant to the needs of WP right now.

Do you know how to quote the whole article?
I'm also wondering if it could / should be crossposted over to L&D.


Lol - Sorry - You read my mind by quoting and mentioning L&D.

Great article!

I don't know what's normal either.
Only that I keep questioning that if 'normal' is even healthy at all.

Especially in the culture I grew up in.

It doesn't help that I rationally know things -- that a lot of things are forgiving, that one would extend patience and understanding, when my less rational side assumes things.
Most of those things are violent, harsh and outright unforgiving.


It's like...

To 'convince' me to change for the better or worse would meant convincing this spoiled brat that is my less rational me. I fricking hate it.

That whatever I rationally know and try to act from that knowledge and experience doesn't matter.

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Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

I can't argue with any of that, it's definitely consistent with my life. I thought that I was a monster for years for the beatings that I administered and the general cut throat retaliatory actions I engaged in when I was younger. It just sort of broke me. I now realize, that the adults around me failed me. I did what I had to do and because I am autistic, I didn't, and still don't, entirely understand any of what was going on. It doesn't particularly get me off the hook for my actions, but it does mean that I can acknowledge that I'm not a horrible person, I was a kid in a tough spot that didn't have any of the support or tools to make better decisions. The efforts that I have made since to be a kind soul that gives more than he takes and that tries to bring out the best in the people that he comes into contact with is a much more accurate description of who I am. It's been my belief for years that the measure of how good somebody is has to start with their baser instincts and the things that they have to actively choose not to do.

And, the whole marriage thing is sadly also correct. I should have my divorce papers drafted this weekend and filed with the county superior court. I asked for so little from her and she actively spent most of our time together looking to give even less. The fact that I still haven't been able to get her to acknowledge that she doesn't just get to slap me because she's upset, or take her emotions out on me says it all. She's going to lose everything and it's her own fault. I don't wish ill on her or anybody else, but she's getting the kharma that she's earned as I can't bear to be married to somebody who treats me like this for the next possibly 50+ years.

Thankfully, I'm still young enough that I can have a happy ending.

It's like, you're told that you should do X Y Z thing to make people happy if you care, and that people even do things they don't want to do for the sake of pleasing their partner, or friends or whatever.

But then when you've spent your whole life putting your discomfort aside for the benefit of other people - to be normal, to please parents or peers, to achieve the things you have to achieve to get on in life- how do you know where that line is? Where is the point where your discomfort trumps their desire? Which are the situations where your reticence is valid, and which are the situations where you should grin and bear it? And then it all gets worse when there's an emotional weight attached to their need.

You'd do it if you care. And you do care. You don't want them to think that you don't care. But you don't want to do it.

A lifetime of being socialised to conform and make others happy means that you do it anyway, and deal with the personal consequences later when you're alone and free to hate yourself.

It’s not just us. Neurotypicals have an instinctive reaction to autism that leaves us ignored and left out. Our faking “normal” behaviour can help a little with that, but until the rest of the planet develops a little more insight into what’s human and what’s merely where you are on a spectrum we’re always going to be on the outside of social networks.

"We visualize the awkward child that is either quiet or talks incessantly and other kids avoid and bully."

For many years now, after being under the "care" of my younger sister for long enough, I realized she is most likely, at least, ND, if not actually on the ASD spectrum, and she is masking as a "girl boss". (I just now joined this forum in hopes I can gain some insight on, and/or get help, getting away from her... she recently won me SSDI solely so she could steal it from me... more on that later)

When she was a child, she would talk incessantly, "copy" others (mimic/parrot "talk"), and, throughout her life, she bullied and belittled others, while trying to "fix" them, has had AWFUL abusive relationships, with her being the abuser, as well as her SOs doing it to her... among many other behaviours that can be attributed to ASD. I should also note that our mother was most DEFINITELY autistic. So, many strikes. (I was/still am, the quiet one, had a rough time, etc.)

I suppose what I am trying to say is, situations can arise that "benefit' some autistic folk, to the point that they reach adulthood and become something of a terror. That said, I just want her to stop moving, and allow me to maintain the waste stream again, and create a garden here, or let me go.

I am once again reminded of how extremely lucky I am to have figured out, in my teens, that the key to finding friends was not to struggle to "blend in," but rather to seek out fellow oddballs of one kind or another.

I am also lucky to have come of age at a time when there were a lot of popular magazine articles on how to be assertive without being aggressive. Thus I figured out not only that I needed to be assertive, but that I needed friends who would be assertive with me too, due to my difficulty in picking up subtle hints. This, along with reading a book about abusive relationships at some point when I was in my early twenties, has helped me to avoid many of the worst relationship pitfalls.

I am also lucky that my parents did not pressure me to "blend in" as much as a lot of other parents apparently do. My parents were less worried about my failure to "blend in" than they were about the possibility that I might end up "blending in" too much and give in to "peer pressure" to pick up bad habits like doing drugs.

I'm 53 and I just realized a few weeks ago that I am still operating with regards to friendships as I did when I was 5. I was the youngest kid in the neighborhood, and we all knew I was different. Quite a bit I would be teased/abused about it. But I wanted to have friends so badly, I'd ensure any abuse, and bring snacks to try to buy friendship that I knew I didn't deserve because of whatever was wrong with me. I didn't get a diagnosis until I was 43, and my son was 7. I was diagnosed because he was. And all this time, I've left the doors of friendship wide open, welcoming in anyone who would walk in and be my friend. I wasn't careful or at all selective, and I got burned from time to time. THIS year, I got badly burned twice by some long-term friendships of 7 and 9 years, all of whom claim to be neurodivergent. These were all folks who were 20+ years younger than I was. It's been very painful, but so overtly bogus that for the first time in my life, I didn't wonder if the problem was all me. I've been used and taken advantage of, and then when I call it what it is, I'm told I'm being "transactional."
I'm blessed that I married someone from the "geek" community who has always understood me well and treated me well. And I have a goodly number of acquaintance-level friends and a few great core friends. But this year sucks as far as friendships for me.