Throughout my life, I have been able to be complacent when the situation has dictated itself to. Part of this is falling in line with what society expects us to do or what others want us to do. This in part is called autistic masking and it is when we are not ourselves as autistic folk and fall into what is mimicked or expected of humans by others.

This stems from feeling out of place in many forms. Wondering why I or anyone on the spectrum is where they are and what reasons they are where they were. Part of me now feels regret for doing this when I was a teenager. Granted, being autistic and experiencing puberty is no picnic, not to mention a time when no one knew that there were autistic people like me in the world. None the less I spent the summer including my fifteenth birthday in and out of the psychiatric hospital. When I had a bad episode and went to the hospital and was admitted, I would mask what I was really feeling and become what was considered the “model patient” because that was what was expected of me.

Eventually, my mother had to put her foot down and seek out residential treatment for me out of fear of my safety. I resented that for some time and now realize that if I were more honest in all those times before I was placed in residential care that things could have been better if I were honest about my care.

None the less, I had more recently discovered that part of being complacent is because we as autistic folk also don’t want to do what makes us feel uncomfortable. It can sometimes mean bearing the truth and even own up to our mistakes, which can be difficult for us to hear. I personally never liked to hear when I had negative behaviors. I knew what I did was wrong, I certainly didn’t need a lecture about it and needed it rehashed over again.

However, being complacent to what is asked of us when we as autistic folks do need help can be hard too because unlike what many believe, when we are honest, we feel the frustration and struggle of the other party and it hurts us just as much if not more than being honest with what has been bothering us, but when we are complacent and go along with what is expected of us, we feel comfortable and nothing is disrupted from our lives.

Eventually, things catch up to us and we realize we have to let out the pressure of what we are keeping as a result of being complacent. It can be hard to let go of those feelings or thoughts that we have been holding because we have to trust that the other party will not be angry with us but when we feel comfortable just living our lives instead of addressing what needs to be addressed, it just kicks the can of the issue down the road and makes it hard to solve problems later on in life.

I have learned that things are better when the truth is shared, and the journey can be started towards finding a solution towards what we really help with instead of allowing those that are there to help us hear what we think they want to hear because it is easy for them to go along with. The reality is that they will eventually figure it out, not at first, but eventually within time because the truth will come out likely worse than what it could if we just opened up what we needed help with or were experiencing in the first place.

It has been a long way of me being complacent in order to make things easier in life, but there is a reality that things will never get easier for me unless I am honest about what I am experiencing in life if I do not become honest with myself and those that are intended to support and help me along life’s journey.