A lot of people in life have the opinion that a "label" of autism should be avoided if at all possible, as it marks a person out as different, it makes them feel bad about themselves, and it makes others think differently about you.
Today, I am here to say a big, enormous, resounding...
NO, THAT'S BOLLOCKS.
Whether we are neurodivergent, neurotypical, disabled, black, white or anything else in the wide spectrum of human life, we owe it to ourselves to be uniquely, wonderfully, us.
Because the thing is, you are who you are, and unless you put in a huge amount of effort to reinvent yourself, usually at a personal cost, you can't change that.
You can live your life trying to be the version of you that others find more acceptable, but if you deny who you are, or you deny who your child is, at some point this is going to backfire. This is the stuff that low self-esteem is built on. Suppress the real person and they will grow up knowing they are not good enough. Dismiss the difficulties and the person may assume that, because they are the same as everyone else, they are simply crap at being a person.
A "label", a diagnosis, does not change a person. A person will not be different because of the letter confirming their autism. They will be different because that is who they are, and they must understand that whoever they are is ok.
And if it's not ok for some people, well, that's their problem.
Acknowledging who someone is, and being clear that this isn't a problem, is a very powerful thing. Even without a diagnosis, those of us who are autistic are aware that there is something different, accepting that and allowing us to be ourselves without judgement or a need for us to try harder or act normal will make a huge difference to how we see ourselves, and how we deal with day to day challenges.
Being able to be ourselves comfortably means that we can be the very best we can be, and reach our potentials, safe in the knowledge that we are good enough.
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