The lifespan of an autistic woman is invisible to the general population. Especially post-menopause, when any reason for the prevailing system to take note of ways to monetize her (parenting, workplace, female-specific healthcare, shelf-help for a laundry list of conditions that won’t pay out in economies of scale) is likely to have either faded away or been internalized.
There is a lost generation of we women who white-knuckled their lives, learned every skill known to humanity just to make it through the next family gathering, and are now post-menopause with a late-diagnosis.
We have ninja-level social coping skills forged in the neoliberal workplace nonsense of the last forty years. We know every problem-solving technique and its origin. We can see the next ringleader coming a mile off. We have sociopath-detecting radar so finely tuned that we will cross the street rather than pass close by.
Unfortunately, we are so burned out, turned off, and disappointed with the aliens on this planet, that we have about 33 seconds per day of patience for the tropes of human folly.
If you know one of these women, one of us, and you have a problem, ask us for help. When you get the help, use the help. Don’t argue, even if you have no intention of using the help. We will not listen. We are done. And we actually expect that you won’t use our help anyway, so we won’t stick around to discuss it.
But you will likely find that our help will get you to your solution faster, with less drama, and better outcomes, than anything else you could do.
We’ve seen this episode before.
#autism
#LostGeneration
#AutisticWomen
#LateDiagnosed
#Wisdom