Meet Lapinlahti people: Luna Valkama

Luna Valkama, who has worked at Café Lähde and is studying in Spesia vocational school, has written a wonderful piece about her life and autism diagnosis, and now shares it with you:

“I feel like crying. I look out of the train window. I take out my bunny plushie and hold it in my hands. It comes with me everywhere I am nervous to go to. Now it’s coming to the dentist with me, and on another, to school. When I feel shy among people, it helps me and gives comfort. Some people I don’t know give weird looks to me and my bunny. But I’m not bothered by them.

If someone looks at me weirdly, thinks I’m weird, that’s their problem. If someone feels a continuous need to judge and criticize people, that’s a tell of their own internal misalignment and unresolved feelings of shame, and not about whoever’s behaviour they deem odd or wrong. Maybe that person could learn something new by watching people, who behave differently. After I got my autism diagnosis, I’ve been feeling lots of different emotions. I’ve been relieved. I have started to decrease masking. It means that I have decreased trying to blend in with neurotypical people. Almost my whole life I have been acting and imitating neurotypical people to avoid being bullied and criticized. I’ve mimicked their habits and how they act in social situations. Now I have been tearing of the mask I was wearing for others’ sake.
I feel as if I have gotten out of a cage I was locked in. I can be free. I can fly. I am allowed to be myself, wild and excitable. I am able to be puzzling, weird, me.
The more I can be myself, without hiding my autistic traits, the more I am freed.

Masking is taxing for your psyche and well-being in long term. If you’ve been doing it your whole life, you might lose yourself and lose your identity. Who am I, really? Who am I under all that pretending I have been forced to do to blend in, in order to avoid being bullied? After getting my autism diagnosis an enormous burden has started to shift from my shoulders. I feel lighter, and it makes things easier to understand myself a little bit better every day. Now I understand, why I act the way I do.

I got an autism diagnosis in March of 2022. During an online meeting with a doctor, I told that I wanted to figure out if I had autism, but during the meeting they told me they could diagnose me right away. I was very relieved and satisfied. I felt that I was finally being seen, believed, and heard.
Together with an instructor in Spesia I made an application to the disability services, and during the summer I became a client in Vantaa’s disability services. I was also granted neuropsychologic coaching, at first 10 times 90 minutes. The coaching began in the autumn.
I meet the coach once a week, one and a half hours at a time. They help me with the tasks of every day life, like cleaning and making applications to Kela, and other things I struggle with. At the moment, they come with me to Lapinlahden Lähde, where I am doing a work trial once a week. They can, for example, ask things for me, and support and encourage me to do things I am nervous about. I can talk to my coach about everything.

I have learned to listen to myself a lot better. I can avoid situations, people, and places that only take away my energy. I can leave situations with more ease, or pull away for a while, when I know I need some space. I am also learning to draw boundaries and ask for the kind of help I need, and makes my life easier. I’ve realized that my life doesn’t have to, and is not supposed to be hard.

I have started stimming more freely. It makes me very happy. I flap my hands, hum, repeat words, twirl, jump, sing, swing my legs, fidget with objects and materials that feel nice or exciting, blink my eyes, or close and open my eyes slowly like cats, chew on things.

I have learned to be kinder to myself and give myself time to recover and rest enough. Social situations that are normal to many people can be very burdensome to me, and I need more time to recover from them and gather my strength. During the autumn I started being too tired and going to school became harder. But my schedule was altered to fit my energy levels and needs. The pace that fits me is that I go to school or work trial a couple days a week, and the rest of the week goes to rest and my own things. That’s how I can avoid spending all of my energy trying to force myself to the schedule that’s normal in our society.

I am more ready to use my rights. I ask for help and assistance to things that are difficult to me. I have realized that I don’t have to accomplish things all the time, and spend enormous amounts of energy to pretend I can manage and do everything that neurotypicals can. My need for assistance is higher than for many others, and that’s totally fine. I have the right to special aid. It doesn’t make me worse or less than anyone else.

Besides happiness and relief, I have also felt a lot of sadness that my autism and ADHD wasn’t spotted earlier. I have missed out on a lot of things I would’ve had the right to, like special aid in school, and possible therapies. It was hard to grow up as an autistic child with ADHD symptoms in a chaotic environment, where me and my neurodivergent symptoms weren’t understood at all. That’s why right now I have a lot of work to be able to understand myself, and all the assistance that I have the right to, and how to accept the help. But that’s why it feels so much more amazing to meet people who understand me and want to help. Often, when people treat me with kindness, I am moved to tears. I wouldn’t take away my autism for anything. How thankful I am to be able to be myself. Just like this.”

A big thank you, Luna, for your amazing story, and that you have been part of our Lapinlahti community!