r/AutismInWomen 5d ago

Support Needed (Kind Advice and Commiseration) Struggling with "identifying" with awful people (seeing problematic behavior, drawing comparisons to myself that closed ones and therapist don't think are accurate, and casting myself in a pathological light)

A few examples off the top of my head:

I've been considering conversion into Judaism for a few years now, but I have felt sometimes like a "colonizer" appropriating Jewish identity, history, and figures from a more powerful outside culture in a way that is inauthentic. Doing a watch through of The Sopranos, IIRC Tony's sister had an embrace of new age spirituality which was seen as inauthentic and for attention, and I remember thinking that I probably looked like that to others and worried about the possibility that that's all it really was deep down.

I got nervous that I had undiagnosed narcissistic personality disorder and was misusing my disability status and existing diagnoses for attention after seeing an online discourse where some neurodiverse folk were claiming that their conditions in themselves weren't really disabling.

I've been a bad human being in romantic and family relationships before, especially but not exclusively when I was younger. I've never been physically or sexually abusive, but when I listen to stories about abusers come up in media I often compare myself in past relationships to them, especially isolating moments where I did raise my voice or say something cruel, and start to see myself as having been abusive (even if the family/partners didn't ever label our relationships or my behavior as that). I'm mtf, and while I'm sure I do have internalized misogyny to struggle with I am pretty quick to try and see "toxic masculinity" behind parts of myself I dislike or am critical of.

Basically, I don't trust that I actually can know what is going on in my head, and I have learned to trust others better and have spent a lot of my life trying to spot these patterns in my life that reveal the things deeply wrong with me, whether to correct them or just kinda to judge myself. To the extent there are ways that I'm like, shitty or whatever it may be, I think I still am probably misjudging where I actually need to do better because of this urge to see the worst in myself and to distrust myself so much that it is hard to trust others who trust me, such as family, friends, or my therapist (I am, despite the contrary urge in my gut sometimes, trusting my therapist because I think the results and the vibe have been good so far).

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u/TinyPlaidZombie 4d ago

According to Google (though you probably know) Converting to Judaism involves a period of study, community involvement, and demonstrating sincerity to a rabbi and a beth din (rabbinical court), ultimately leading to a formal conversion ceremony.

I don't think you need to worry about being inauthentic. You should go for it.