I am planning to make a self-discovery / self-learning series, this being the first installment. However, this one is a little different to how I want the others to be. This one is more rambling, without a spefic topic in mind. Future installments will be focused on one thing at a time, exploring my journey, thoughts and feelings, and perhaps sharing any resources I stumble across.
Ever since I was diagnosed autistic back in 2019, I've been on a self-discovery / self-learning journey. I believe this will be a life-long journey, but one that will be worth it. Learning and understanding myself more will never be a negative thing. Other the years since being diagnosed I have explored my gender, sexuality, relationship style, and my overall views/beliefs etc.
My journey started off by exploring my autistic traits, learning about myself with this new information in tow. It involved a lot of looking back into the past and seeing things from a different point of view. The astronaut meme comes to mind at this point.
Although I spent a great deal of time uncovering my autistic side; there is still more to understand. I learn new things about myself just from hearing other people's experiences. Having light bulb moments thinking "I do this too / I relate"; knowing I'm not alone in my experiences is comforting.
After this I started exploring my gender, something I had done previously but not in-depth. This time I put a lot more thought into it, sought out other people's experiences, and did my own research; along with some soul searching. At first, all I was filled with was confusion, I couldn't figure out where I fit. All I knew was that I'm me. That is all: just myself. Knowing this gave me a clear insight into how I felt about my own gender. It was non-existent. I later learned this is known as Agender.
No more big revulations came about until last year when I started researching non-monogamy: polyamory to be precise. The more I researched the more I realised I held a lot of the same thoughts as other polyamorous people. I had just never had a word to describe the way I thought/felt before.
Being in a monogamous marriage when this realisation occurred could have caused its own set of problems. However, it thankfully didn't. It was nerve wrecking to bring this up to my husband, but worth it. Throughout our discussions and research, he also discovered that he is polyamorous. More research and discussions took place before we reached a point where we felt comfortable enough to start exploring polyamory more fully. Since then, both myself and my husband have been discovering more about ourselves. Being on this journey together has its own benefits.
Lately however, I have been exploring, or at least thinking about, my sexuality and romantic attractions. For a while now, I have identified as being pansexual and demisexual. Recently I have been questioning if this is correct for me, but currently I am still trying to understand and see where I fit in this regard.
So, that's a brief overview of my journey so far. In future posts I will go more in-depth. ☺️
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