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September 12, 2025
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Welcome to the third entry in my phlog about autism. I had
intended to write about music finally but since my ASD
discovery, Neurodivergance has become my primary interest
and I've lost a lot of music motivation. I'll do my best to
get back to it, or I'll simply stop advertising this as a
music space and stick to autism concerns.
This week I wanted to talk about a subject that plagues the
self-discovered ASD population, myself included, and that's
imposter syndrome. If you've recently discovered yourself as
ASD you might be afraid to actually call yourself autistic,
or you might feel like you're appropriating an
already-marginalized community. I know I did, and indeed I
even felt a little animosity towards the "self-diagnosed"
as I'd ran into their like with depression and PTSD. People
who think they have chronic depression because their
boyfriend left them. They drove me crazy, and for good
reason -- it felt like they were trivializing a problem I
was desperately struggling with. Invalidating it by being
insincere about it.
There is an ASD therapist and life coast in Australia named
Paul Micalef, he specializes in Neurodiversity and
emotional intelligence. His videos are a huge part of not
only leading me to my ASD discovery, but making me feel at
ease with it. He had videos anticipating many of these
thoughts, because they're so common among newly-discovered
ASD. One of his first suggestions was to seek out a space
of ASD and other Neurodivergents, be it an outreach group
or an online community. Because text is my primary form of
communication, I went looking for a chat community and
after a bit of searching I found the Discord server that I
detailed in my last entry. This server did a lot in terms
of quelling those thoughts of imposter syndrome in several
different ways,
The first and most immediately impactful way was by simply
accepting me, responding to my introduction and chatting
and embracing me as a person. As Mr. Micalef has said,
being accepted by an ASD community is one of the best ways
to discover if you're ASD. There are things that happen
when you get groups of us together, patterns that emerge
and instant comraderie that forms that has usually been
absent for someones entire life. I found myself beginning
to unmask almost immediately, and a more liberated self
emerged and joined into this new community.
The second way they helped with imposter syndrome was by
explaining to me how common it is for undiagnosed adults to
discover their ASD the exact same way I did, and how it was
important to accept the *identity* of ASD more than the
*diagnosis*. What I mean is that people who find out they
have ASD tend to work it into their sense of identity
pretty immediately, because it informs so many puzzles in
their past. It immediately answers long-held questions
we've had about ourselves and we tend to immediately jump
im with both feet and start getting ASD tattoos the next
weekend. That sense of identity is incredibly important,
and has usually been lacking a persons entire life.
Accepting that identity not only affirms their mental
health but it allows them to have the support of a
community from the very beginning. Can you imagine if
acceptance was contingent on a diagnosis? In the US
diagnosis can take up to two years. That's two years
a person has to suffer this realization alone before
they can finally wave a certificate saying they
"earned" their ASD diagnosis. Refusing to validate
a persons identity for two years can be incredibly
damaging.
Community was the first step in getting a handle on my
imposter syndrome, and it was easily the most beneficial.
Once you have a community behind you it's a matter of
educating yourself on the spectrum you are now a part of.
Newly discovered ASD tend to think of autism as a
continuum, instead of the spectrum that it is. They might
think "oh, my symptoms aren't like his, what I have is
mild" without realizing that it's not about degrees but
about your spectrum of symptoms. Autism is like a slot
machine, you pull the lever and you wait to see what
combination of symptoms you're going to get. Just because a
person doesn't share every experience they hear about on
youtube or read about in a journal doesn't make them *less*
autistic, it makes them *differently* autistic.
There's a new study published in July of 2025 that is
shedding some light on the spectrum and it's genetic
disposition. As you may or may not know, we now understand
autism as a genetic condition, and as such we've begun to
study that genetic diposition and we've found four
distinct-but-overlapping genetic phenotypes that create
classifications of symptoms. This is important to this
discussion because more often than not, ASD will find they
fall into one of these categorical phenotypes, meaning the
symptoms they experience are genetically imposed. It is
impossible to experience all or even most of the symptoms
of ASD as the subtypes are discrete. Ultimately this means
that there are many different experiences, and you're only
going to relate to some of them. Some are more common than
others, and it helps our imposter syndrome when we
associate with a common one. But that doesn't make it more
valid than not associating with hardly any at all.
It's just a different experience.
The last thing I want to say about this subject is in
relation to diagnosis vs discovery. This is really a matter
of semantics, but one you may have noticed I tend to follow
more often than not when talking about undiagnosed ASD who
suddenly discover that they relate to all of these
symptoms. I touched on it earlier, but sometimes simply
calling ourselves autistic when we don't have a diagnosis
feels less-than-honest, and I think that's to be expected.
Diagnosis is a medical thing, a procedure performed by an
educated doctor, right? Well, yes. But keep in mind that
unlike most other diagnosis, a doctor isn't going to
accidentally discover you have ASD. The symptoms are too
overlapping with too many other commonly-misdiagnosed
conditions. Pretty much every late-diagnosed autism
diagnosis starts without a doctor. Sometimes it's as banal
as sitting on webMD with a glass of wine and pathologizing
yourself into symptoms. That's the terrible stereotype but
it's also a valid and common experience.
So *if* you don't want to call yourself diagnosed when a
doctor has not yet gotten involved in your situation,
considering calling yourself "discovered". You didn't
diagnose yourself with ASD, you discovered your ASD. You
don't need to refer to yourself as self-diagnosed, because
that feels dirty. You're self-discovered.
That may sound like a silly semantic, and it is, but it's
correcting a specific sense of imposter syndrome thats
caused by the common ASD symptom known as a chronic fear of
being misunderstood. It's what causes us to overexplain
everything, it's what causes us to focus on semantics in a
conversations. Calling ourselves diagnosed isn't 100%
accurate so in our need to be accurately understood, it
fuels imposter syndrome.
Think about the irony of that for a moment -- our imposter
syndrome is being fueled by the very ASD we're afraid we
don't have.
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Record Time
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For todays Record Time I wanted to talk about one of the
most important concept albums of all time, "The Wall" as
written and recorded by Pink Floyd. Their most ambitious
studio album by far, it was written mostly by the bands
founding member, bassist and then-vocalist Roger Waters.
Eschewing the psychedalic rock that had defined the bands
efforts up until this point, this is a landmark exploration
of the effects of war, abuse and emotional isolation as
seen through the eyes of a young musician.
Spanning two records, this is a long album, starting from
the earliest memories of the protagonist and following him
through childhood, adolescance and into damaged adulthood
through the use of dark, emotive lyrics and haunting liet
motifs that have become sysnonymous not only with the album
but the band itself. There is a surprising amount of melody
in the motifs of this album, unusual for what is
essentially a prog rock concept album of the highest order.
David Gilmour's guitar work on this album is required study
for any serious blues-rock or pop guitarist looking to hone
their craft. Indeed, "Comfortably Numb" has become so
synonymous with rock guitar that it is discussed at
Berkelee.
Conversely, Roger Waters acheives an emotive and sometimes
plaintive vocal performance as the protagonist, the lyrics
lending themselves well to its nature. As the album
progresses and the subject becomes more and more unhinged,
so does the vocal performance. The album ends with a trial
for the sanity of our protagonist, with the whole band
turning in character performances that elevate the
cacophany into theater.
The quiet moments are touching and memorable, and the
revelations are bombastic and colorful just like our
psyche. Whether you're looking for an exploration of mental
health or a musical journey unprecedented for it's time
period, it's difficult to top "The Wall".
