I’m an Imposter
Living a fake life…
Before I was identified as autistic, I often felt confused and like I didn’t seem to belong anywhere. Always the square peg in a round hole.
It may have taken a couple of years, but that confusion began to disappear. Unfortunately, what showed up in its place was a feeling, a concern. I knew that I did not belong to the neurotypical world but maybe I did not belong to the autistic world either.
In simple terms, I was questioning: “Am I really autistic?”
Impostor syndrome is widespread in the autistic community, especially for those identified later in life. Many of us forming that generation have been masking for most of our life and, even though it’s exhausting and damages our mental health, it becomes our way of life. I had spent so much time camouflaging that I had little sense of who I really was and what I actually liked. When you discover that you have always been masking/camouflaging, you end up feeling like you have no real identity. “Who am I, really?”
Many doubt themselves so much that they even wonder if their diagnosis — albeit by an ASD specialist — may have been an error and that, sooner or later, we will be ‘found out.’ In addition, autistic people may be more affected by imposter syndrome because of a long history of feelings of failure and the identity crisis of knowing that you simply don’t seem to experience life like everyone else does.
There is also a fairly narrow idea about what autism “looks like” that the media, and many within the scientific and medical community, have perpetuated. Sheldon Cooper, Rain Man, and The Good Doctor are popular characters that have greatly influenced the public perception of autism. Yet we often don’t fit these stereotypes and, because we usually don’t match what we have previously associated with autism, we begin internally doubting ourselves.
Some conditions often occur alongside autism, such as ADHD and alexithymia. This can cause confusion and feelings of being an impostor post-diagnosis since we may not neatly fit the description of autism. Quite possibly, it’s more than just autism that will account for our behaviours and feelings. Even if ‘autism’ perfectly describes us, we may still have doubts because some of our behaviours can be attributed to other conditions. When we find out we have the traits of autism, we then wonder if this is just another thing that we are mimicking.
Today’s older autistic adults grew up in the dark times, before the DSM.
People often don’t understand how we make it to adulthood without being identified. I can tell you. We simulate neurotypical behaviour, we lie to ourselves and others, we are Oscar level actors. We learn from the looks on people’s faces, their body language, and we alter our behaviour. It’s not intentional, it’s how our subconscious learns to get by.
I was already 10 years old when ‘Infantile Autism’ was first recognized officially by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, third edition (DSM-III). Before DSM-III, many aspects of autism diagnosis were left to the clinician’s interpretations, so there were no specific criteria. No opportunity then for me to have been identified whilst I was a young child.
Autism was first officially identified as a ‘spectrum disorder’ in DSM-IV and ‘Asperger syndrome’ was added to represent ‘milder’ cases where the patients tend to be ‘high functioning’. I was 24, had been working for several years, had become a parent, and had experienced my first serious burnout. This would have suggested that I was one of those individuals but I wasn’t aware of this change in diagnostic criteria, I was masking effectively, and it was still very rare to be diagnosed as an adult.
In 2013, DSM-5 gathered all of the condition subcategories under the umbrella diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Asperger Syndrome was no longer a separate diagnosis. Autism Spectrum Disorder is now defined by two categories, namely the impaired social communication and restricted and repetitive behaviours. I was already in my 40s at this point, well into my career and being diagnosed with anxiety and depression. I was comfortable with both diagnosis because I had nothing else to go by, although I could never fully understand why I was so affected by both of these — I seemed to have everything we are expected to aim for in life.
That is why imposter syndrome is common in late-diagnosed adults but with 90% of funding and websites focusing on autism in children, it’s really not that surprising that it doesn’t get mentioned very often. The adults who never had the opportunity to be diagnosed in their earlier lives have been mainly left out of research projects and do not have the resources to understand their traits for themselves. We are still learning how autism affects older adults, very slowly. Most of my learning has actually come from talking with others like me, not from the support of charities or the healthcare systems.
I have no doubt that learning I am autistic has overwhelmingly enhanced my life. I have the instruction manual for my brain now and so I can make informed decisions about how to manage my life. I hope that others, currently experiencing the symptoms and traits in silence, get the same solace.
I am #actuallyautistic, whatever my neurosis sometimes says.
