For many reasons in my life I have always wondered which of the disability communities I have lived in. Throughout life, I have been given a host of diagnoses alongside of being autistic that has placed me in the gamut of many services that for one reason or another confuses me greatly and questions my competence by others.

I guess the underlying factor as to why I was given various diagnoses over the course of my early years was because of the fact that although even early on in life I had many autistic traits, I was in an out of the developmental disabilities system for a decade and because I wasn’t always able to communicate as fluently as I have been until adult and competence wasn’t always presumed because of the way things were until I was officially diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome in the late 1990s’ at the age of 13 and that my parents were so desperate for services to meet my needs in addition to the service system being unfamiliar as to where I did fall in the system, I at times was given other diagnoses that otherwise qualified me for what thought to be needed at the time.

As I evolved into adulthood, I became more independent, however because of the documentation or other needs that things required, competence was rarely presumed by those serving me and as such I was often downplayed, ignored or talked to in a different tone than “normal” adults would be spoken to . Sadily, in 2023, this can still be a thing and I guess in recent years when I became independent, I had to make decisions to navigate to providers that seen me as who I am instead of what was on paper and actually listed to what I had to say and knew my competence.

Competence can be one of the most defining words that can make or break how someone presumes and reacts to me as an autistic person. Even sometimes with family, competence is not presumed and as such I can be not seen as the person that I am. This can be from judgment based on events in my childhood and the unwillingness to accept the fact that indeed people such as myself can improve and change for the better. It is sad really and can cause estranged relationships in many ways.

Nonetheless, nowadays, it can be hard to understand as to whether I am seen as this person who is indeed competent because oftentimes services can be target to the fact that they do not recognize me as the human being that I want to be and that I am not competent of function in the standard society, that instead even though I know I can function in society, it is often seen as if I am not able to do things that I know that I can do and I am disregarded for this. It angers me greatly at times that I am not seen as the person that I know that I am capable of.

Therefore, I must be the driving force that must continue to fight for the things I think I deserve in life and not allow myself to be talked down to as if I do not know the reality of life. The most important factor to me is that you need to get to know me a little bit and you will see that I am capable of more than you assume yourself to think I am capable of.