The Things I Couldn’t See Until I Broke
On internalized ableism, recognition, and the weird desire to sit in a room with people who don’t need to sit in rooms.
Photo by Bekky Bekks on Unsplash
I spent most of my life thinking I just needed to try harder. Push through. Get it together. Whatever the acceptable flavor of “mask better” was that decade. None of it had a name, so I assumed the problem was me. Classic internalized ableism. A fun little house pet I nurtured for forty-plus years.
I couldn’t see any of it clearly until I finally shattered. Not a cute little burnout. I mean the kind that knocks your whole operating system offline. The kind where your body, brain, and soul all look at each other and say, “Well, that’s enough of that.”
Once I broke, everything sharpened into focus. I started reading the words of other autistic and AuDHD adults, people fighting their own invisible battles, and it felt like someone had finally turned the captions on for my life.
And now, whenever I recognize myself in someone else’s story, three things happen. Every time.
One.
I want to hug them. Not in a weird way. Just in a “you’re not broken, the world is” way. I want to tell them they’re seen and believed. And honestly, I need that same reassurance all the time. I’m still getting to know the version of me that didn’t feel safe without a mask, and recognition helps me breathe.
Two.
A thin layer of internalized ableism peels away. It’s like stripping paint or wallpaper in the houses I’ve owned. You think you’re on the last layer, then you find another one hiding underneath. And sometimes, when you finally get down to the original wall, you discover something that needs repair. That’s the part nobody warns you about. It’s the therapy work. The grief work. The “oh, this didn’t just happen… this hurt” realization.
Three.
I want to hang out with these people. Work with these people. In person. As in, “Let’s just sit in the same room and exist,” even though most of us don’t need or even want that level of togetherness. Sensory overload, social hangovers, all of it. But something in me still sparks. Maybe it’s a kind of belonging I didn’t know was possible. Maybe it’s finally wanting connection on my terms. Maybe it’s both.
It’s the strangest thing.
And also, the truest.
Internalized ableism keeps us convinced we don’t deserve community, or connection, or even language for what we’re going through. But the minute you hear someone breathe a truth that matches yours, something in your chest shifts. It’s like being handed the map you didn’t know you were missing.
I don’t have a tidy lesson here. I’m still in the middle of the unlearning. Still peeling off layers. Still feeling that ache of recognition every time I hear someone describe the life I’ve been living on mute.
But I know this much:
Breaking didn’t ruin me. It gave me sight.
And the more I see myself in others, the more human I feel.
If you’re somewhere on this path too, I’m sending you a big, awkward, deeply sincere side hug. The kind where we don’t make a big deal about it, but it means everything.