Growing up undiagnosed autistic in an unsafe household was wild.
It took me so long after escaping to be able to realize that I was autistic simply because I didn’t have any of the telltale symptoms due to my trauma. For example, a difficulty to read social cues is one of the biggest things that people see and say ‘autism.’ Growing up in a place where even a slight misstep on my part could lead to severe punishment based on how cranky my parent was, I learned real quick to read every single person in that room to keep myself safe. In addition, I was constantly masking my neurodivergence without even realizing it. What were simply autistic traits led to me being called a bad child and given consequences, so obviously I hid them in an act of self preservation. This certainly did not help in getting a diagnosis since I seemingly displayed so little symptoms as a child.
This may seem like a really niche subject, but I’ve met a lot of other people who had the same experience and it needs to be talked about more. Even after diagnosis my father was terrible and told me I made it all up, I have to be faking this, I never acted autistic as a kid. This is the sad reality for way too many people, and it needs way more attention than it gets.