‘But That’s Just What You Can’t Do’: Personal Reflections on the Construction and Management of Identity Following a Late Diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome
This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. one author of this publication is identified as autistic in the project.
About the autistic author markerLimburg, J. (2019). ‘But That’s Just What You Can’t Do’: Personal Reflections on the Construction and Management of Identity Following a Late Diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome. In Body Language (pp. 135-144). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315531250-9
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Abstract
At 42, I received a diagnosis of Asperger syndrome (AS). In this essay, I reflect on what this could mean for my sense of self in the present, and how a retrospective diagnosis of a lifelong condition might also lead me to view my past self—my narrative self—in a different way. As a child, I experienced myself as indefinably ‘deficient’; as I grew to adulthood, I learned to repudiate and disguise those parts of myself which, in Ervin Goffman’s terms, were ‘discreditable’. The effect of this was such that, when asked to ‘be myself’, I found I no longer knew what this meant. I did not recognise myself in clinical descriptions of AS, but my reading of autobiographical writing by women with AS would lead me to seek a diagnosis. As I tell this story, I consider the various perspectives available to help me structure and interpret it: the medical model, the social constructivist model and the perspective that emerges from such autobiographical writings. My reading, and experience post-diagnosis, leads me to conclude that an autistic identity, no less than any other, has its performative aspects.
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Nancy Bagatell (2007). Orchestrating voices: autism, identity and the power of discourse . Disability & Society, 22(4), 413-426. Informa UK Limited.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations