Autism in adults: “I suffered gender violence because I didn’t know how to recognize it”

PalmShe works as a nursing assistant at Manacor Hospital and grew up unaware that she was autistic. "We're from Sóller, I went to school there. In my day, people didn't speak to the language," recalls Eva García (Sóller, 1974). "I was a child who went unnoticed, and they didn't realize that I was a bit of a perfectionist and restless. Sometimes I was alone in the playground, but since I had friends from Sóller, I didn't miss anything." Her studies weren't easy. "I did repeat grades, and when I went to high school, I skipped classes because I was bored or because I didn't understand the material. Then I did a vocational training course."

Over the years, the difficulties continued. "I had family conflicts and suffered gender-based violence because I didn't know how to recognize it. And I realized, when my daughter was diagnosed, that we shared many traits. I was 49 when I received the diagnosis. For me, it was a liberation, because I understood that many problems I had had to overcome, I could see, and that others could see things that were visible. I complained. I didn't understand certain things, I had conflicts with people due to communication problems, which led me to suspect," she explains.

When she received confirmation of her autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis, she felt immense relief. "When I told the people at the Asperger Association, they said they already understood, because we recognize each other in our experiences." She then requested a disability assessment: "They gave me a 34% rating," she says.

Dedicated to health

Autism has created social and family difficulties for him. "If there's a place I want to go and there are too many people, I don't go. If I'm in a place where I know people, I'm fine; otherwise, I'll observe, because I don't know how to start a conversation. If I want to say something to someone, I could stand next to them for an hour without saying anything; I don't like being touched. This also makes me not want to take the bus, because people make noises that bother me; I'm hypersensitive to noise," he explains.

Today she is a civil servant and works as a nursing assistant at Manacor Hospital. However, she also looks back and thinks about how her life would have been if she had known about her condition years earlier. "If I had known as a child that I was autistic, they would have made accommodations for me, and I would have pursued the career I wanted. I wouldn't have had so many complications with my family because they didn't understand me. It would have been different. I wouldn't have suffered so much at work because, knowing what was happening to me, I would have had the tools to cope," explains ~BK_SLT_L~ as an adult, and this has significantly affected her mental health: low self-esteem and anxiety. "I don't know how to manage my emotions."

She also points out that autism tests are focused on boys. "Girls mask it because we imitate those around us. If we throw a tantrum, they think it's normal because they see us as fussy for being girls." She recalls that, when she was little, if someone made a noise, she would cover her ears. "They thought it was because I was annoyed, but it hurt," she says. "Before, autism wasn't talked about as much because ASD 1 went unnoticed; some cases of levels two and three were seen," she explains.

A different way of processing

García describes his brain: "It's very practical, like a computer cog." "I need to understand things. I have to understand everything to be able to retain it. It's easier for me to read the Official State Gazette (BOE) than a text, because the BOE is literal, and I can't see a text with hidden meanings." Over time, he says, he has learned to better manage what he previously struggled to understand and cope with. "I was diagnosed at 49, and I was scared, I fell, and I got back up. For example, I learned to understand irony. I've been taken for a ride, but I've learned. And I try to make sure it doesn't happen to me again," he says.

Since 2019, she has been president of the Balearic Islands Asperger Association—although she received her diagnosis in February 2014—and is also secretary of Asperger Spain. "At the association, we do three things: social work, acting as a bridge between institutions and users, and activism; and we provide individual therapy, social skills training, support families, and help with paperwork. We also advocate for our rights," she explains. "We get adults who don't know if they have it, because there's nothing for autistic adults in IB-Salut (the Balearic Islands Health Service). Tests are only available privately, if they want them. We, as an association, have managed to get IB-Salut to pay for training for professionals to diagnose autism, and now we want to get occupational therapists in Primary Care. Primary Care is currently centralized, divided between children and adolescents and adults.

If anything comforts her, it's that having autism has helped her empathize with her daughter. "I understand her reasons, I don't judge her." The famous 'me too.' They don't understand that she's different; it's like telling a person in a wheelchair to stand up." And she concludes: "We have an invisible disability that can't be seen. We have problems because people think we're arrogant, but they don't understand us. We need support, help, and more awareness."