If you had told younger me that one day I would celebrate disability pride month, i probably would have laughed.
Pride?
In something I spent years trying to hide?
For most of my life, autism wasn’t something i embraced- it was something I apologised for.
I didn’t know i was autistic growing up. I just knew I seemed to get life wrong.
I didn’t understand why everyone else seemed to have a handbook that I hadn’t been
given. Conversations felt like a game where everyone else already knew the rules.
Friendships were confusing. Eye contact felt uncomfortable. Loud places were exhausting. Changes in plans could leave me overwhelmed for days, and I spent so much energy wondering why things that looked effortless for everyone else felt impossible for me.
So I did what many autistic people do without even realising it.
I watched.
I copied.
I studied the people around me as though they were characters in a film I had to learn by heart.
I’d mirror accents. I’d laugh because everyone else laughed, I’d pretend I understood joked when I didn’t. I’d force myself to make eye contact even when it made me want to look away. I’d rehearse conversations over and over before speaking and replay them for hours afterwards, convinced I’d said something wrong.
I became an expert at looking like I was coping.
The problem was that I wasn’t.
Masking helped me fit in, but it came at a cost.
When you’ve spent years becoming whoever other people need you to be, you eventually lose sight of who you are underneath it all.
Receiving my autism diagnosis didn’t suddenly make life easier.
Supermarkets didn’t become quieter.
Unexpected changes didn’t become less overwhelming.
Sensory overload didn’t disappear.
I didn’t magically understand social rules.
But something did change.
For the first time, I stopped asking “what’s wrong with me?”
Instead, I started asking “what do I need?”
That one question changed everything.
Instead of forcing myself into environments that drained me, I learned to adapt them.
Instead of feeling embarrassed by the things that bring me comfort, I embraced them.
My jellycats aren’t childish.
They’re comforting.
My ear defenders aren’t antisocial.
They’re accessibility.
My routines aren’t me being “difficult”.
They’re how my brain creates safety in a world that often feels unpredictable.
I’ve realised that autism isn’t just the struggles.
It’s the way I notice tiny details other people overlook.
It’s the passion I pour into the things I love.
It’s my honesty, my loyalty, my deep empathy, and the way I care so fiercely about the
people around me.
It’s why I create art that means something to me.
It’s why i can spend hours learning about something that fascinates me.
It’s why joy feels so big when I find it.
For years, I thought I had to become less autistic to be accepted.
Now I realise the people who truly love me never wanted that.
They just wanted me.
Disability pride month isn’t about pretending autism is easy.
There are still days when the world feels too loud.
When socialising is exhausting.
When I misunderstand things because I take words literally.
When change feels impossible.
When I need more rest than people understand.
Those challenges are real.
But so is this:
I don’t need to apologise for the way my brain works.
I don’t need to earn acceptance by masking until I’m exhausted.
I don’t need to explain why I need accommodations or comfort items or extra time to process things.
Being autistic doesn’t make me broken.
It makes me different.
And different was never something I needed to hide.
So, this disability pride month, I’m celebrating something I never thought I would.
Not because autism is easy.
Not because every day is positive.
But because after years of believing I was “too much”, “too sensitive”, “too awkward”, or “too different”, I’m finally learning that I was never the problem.
I was simply trying to survive in a world that wasn’t designed with minds like mine in mind.
Today, I choose something different.
I choose authenticity over masking.
Self-compassion over self-criticism.
Acceptance over shame.
Because autism isn’t something I have to overcome to deserve a good life,
It’s part of who I am.
And for the first time, I can honestly say...
I’m proud to be autistic.
