I'm still undiagnosed (despite my efforts to get an assessment, it's just not accessible rn), but even if I was, I don't think I could ever accept that it's not my fault that I'm like this. My entire life I was thinking "holy shit, this is so hard, everything is so hard, how does everyone else make it look easy? Why can't I make it look easy?". Only in recent years, I've come to understand that I'm pretty sure it is easier for most people. The unemployment rate (where I live) is around 80% for autistic people. The reality is, it's unlikely that I can even attain a normal degree of functionality when in childhood, I was told I would certainly be highly successful as a ☆gifted child☆. My whole life, I've been trying to pull myself together and take responsibility for myself, pull myself up by my bootstraps, and every time I try again with renewed vigor, I inevitably burn myself out and fall on my face, my mental health further deteriorating with every failure. My whole life I was told that I'm highly capable and the part of my brain that kept saying I will never be able to do as much as well as other people was merely the depression talking, that that was a delusion I had to fight - it was never a delusion. Once I finished high school, my whole life since then has lined up with that. I have never been able to do what other people can, and I'm doomed to feel soul-crushing, overwhelming shame for it for the rest of my life. My whole life, I was told to get it together. I don't think I can ever forgive myself.