I haven ' t gotten the FC to buy it yet , I just have someone with it available , sorry ! <| sep |> I felt like I was really stuck in that place for a long time . People never seemed to realize it was an exhausting act and the moment I would slip up even a little bit it felt as though those I loved would turn against me as an imposture of the person they loved . I was deeply unhappy trying to please my narcissistic autistic controlling mother , my autistic bizarre but selfish brother , and my selfdestructive and alcoholic father . Because I could seem normal and well balance I was expected to take care of them because I kept my own struggles well hidden . It felt like I was expected to . Virtually no one , even those I was closest to , really knew me . I would have very quiet bouts of suicidal depression on a yearly basis which were my only real outlet for my feelings . I had continual anxiety and was diagnosed with panic disorder . When I would try to get help or express how I felt no one seemed able to hear me . It was very disturbing . I thought I was doomed to live a life unable to ever be known or helped . Last year my father died due to complications from his alcoholism . With my part of the inheritance , I moved away from my family and have cut off all communication with my mother . I bought a run down farm house and am restoring it with my partner . It ' s been a crazy journey coming to understand that I am autistic and trying to communicate my differences to my partner . Now that I don ' t have many social pressures , I finally feel free to try to uncover the person I was not allowed to be . I think my panic disorder was really an autistic overload and shut down but I didn ' t know how to communicate what I was going though . I did more research into Autism Spectrum Disorder and I think I fit very well into what high functioning women go through . Instead of trying to make myself function like a neurotypical girl with depression , anxiety , and a history of abuse , I am allowing myself to behave like an autistic person coping in a world that can be chaotic and confusing . I have started stiming and letting myself be free with my own selfexpression and I am finding that I don ' t go into shutdownmode nearly as often . I pay more attention to aspects of my surrounding that bother me such as light , sound , and smell and do my best not to let my environment overload me so I can stay present . I am working to come up with methods that allow me to relieve my emotions and I no longer worry about looking normal . People who get meet me now seem to view me as being somewhat strange but brave and I am pretty happy to be that way . I no longer force myself to make eye contact with strangers to be polite it can be pretty uncomfortable and when I don ' t feel like interacting with anyone I can wear baseball cap pulled down low and oversized headphones . Autistic people can suffer from hyperactive empathy . I can bounce between hyper and hypo empathy throughout a typical day , I think this is a poorly understood aspect of what it is to be an autistic person . I have come to accept that I am empathetically divergent , I feel my partners pain very acutely like it is my own pain but I can also say things that hurt his feeling without realizing it . Sorry for the wall of text but I really want you to know that your not alone in feeling this way and your experiences are valid even though no one may be able to see or understand them . I am sorry to hear that you have a difficult family but you may need to distance yourself from what they want from you in order to figure yourself out . It ' s taken me about three years of processing to get to this point and I feel like I need another year to feel comfortable enough with myself to have a relationship with anyone who is not my partner . rraisedbynarcissists has been helful in helping me to set boundries to help keep myself safe .