Embracing my Autistic Identity: Do you ever get the feeling you are finally becoming who you were meant to be?

I've been getting that feeling a lot recently.

I've been spending a lot of time reflecting on who I used to be when I did not yet know I was Autistic, as well as who I am now (that I've known the truth about my mind for over seven years). 

Content Warning: This piece discusses Conversion Therapy/ABA

Photo of Lyric in a grey blazer, black undershirt, and red pants. They have their medium-length hair down and are smiling to the side in front of a bold orange and teal sunset. On the image is the text that reads: I AM Autistic and Proud - Lyric Rivera, NeuroDivergent Rebel.

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Eight years ago, I did not yet know I was Autistic, but I did know I was struggling with expectations that most people around me found simple. 

I was burned out (with no remedy in sight), my mental and physical health was declining, and I was beginning to feel hopeless.

Despite test after test, my doctors could give me no answers as to why I was suddenly ill and wasting away in front of them. 

My day job, a busy firm that strictly enforced neuro-normativity, was draining me, and my evening job, trying to teach humans how to understand their dogs, was demoralizing. 

Much like how my day job wanted me to conform to its ideals of appropriate communication, body language, posture, and expression, most people in my second job (as a "dog trainer") had similar (unfair) expectations for their dogs—to be an unnatural, ideal versions of themselves that don't inconvenience or annoy others. 

I got into working with animals because I've always considered myself someone who speaks dog (and most other animal languages). 

While people are often a mystery to me, animals make sense. I can look at them and, within seconds, know (at least on a fundamental level) what an animal is feeling. 

Back then, I didn't understand the stronghold behaviorism had on our animals, children, and society as a whole.

How could I convince people that the methods they wanted me to use on their pets were "harmful and cruel" when many of these people had been taught (by the church) to use similar methods on their own human children? 

Did YOU know ABA (and other forms of Conversion Therapy) have ties to Christian Nationalism? 

For more info about Ivar Lovaas (one of the founding fathers of ABA), who worked closely on many of his projects with Christian Nationalists like George Rekers, an "anti-gay activist" who (along with James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family linked above in the instructions for religious indoctrination of children piece), founded the Family Research Council - declared by the HRC to be a hate group against trans and other Queer People), please check out THIS article discussing the troubling history of ABA if you would like to know more about why I call ABA (and other forms of behavior modification rooted in coercion, manipulation, and control) "brainwashing" or "conversion therapy," and it's ties to Christian Nationalism.  

Years ago, in my naivety, I thought I could teach others this skill (of reading other animals' body language, communicating with non-human animals, and teaching other animals to communicate with us). However, this was an enormous undertaking for humans, who led busy lives and struggled to find time to re-learn everything they'd been taught about the intelligence of their animal friends. 

Most people wanted dogs that would do all the work of understanding and learning humans' customs, desires, and communication methods. 

Similarly, when their dog's "behaviors" were inconvenient, many dog caretakers I met were unconcerned with finding out the root cause of the dog's behaviors (or the unmet needs tied to those behaviors). 

Though most people in our world see dogs and other animals as "lesser creatures" here to serve humans (also thanks to the Christian/Catholic church), I was not raised with this belief, and see animals as equals-not lesser beings.

Because of this limiting belief that ignored the competence of the dog, most people who came to me only wanted help to squash anything within their dog that they found "annoying" or "inconvenient, placing unfair blame on dogs with unmet needs (like needing more mental stimulation, exercise, love, attention, reassurance, help to get over a fear or phobia). 

As a former animal behaviorist, I knew the methods they wanted me to use: the ones that quickly target desired and undesired behaviors and either enforce or discourage them. I also knew these methods were a bandaid, a temporary solution that would likely create more problems in the long run. 

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Being asked to treat these animals the same way I was being treated at work in my day job (like they were a problem to be solved) was triggering. 

I couldn't do what people wanted me to, and people weren't willing to do the work I asked of them.

They saw their dogs as "needing repair." I pointed out that the human was doing wrong because the dog was just being a dog and doing what dogs do, reacting naturally to the situations the dog was in. However, most humans failed to grasp this, wanting their dogs to be "more human" and "less dog" - an expectation that was totally unrealistic (and frustrating for everyone involved). 

I resembled those dogs, though without understanding my NeuroDivergent brain (and not knowing I was Autistic yet), I struggled to put into words why I empathized with (and was so triggered by) seeing these dogs and other animals be forced into an unfair ideal. 

Then, one day, I stumbled across something that changed my life forever. It was a book on animal behaviorism written by an Autistic author. 

Though I was well versed in animal training and handling, I knew very little about Autism and Autistic People, so the fact that this book had an Autistic Author was of little consequence to me... until I got to the chapter where the author started to share what life was like inside their brain, and found myself shocked, as the description mirrored my own experiences very closely. 

Could I be Autistic? No!?!?

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