Autism

The hardest part about figuring out you're autistic is just the fact that so many of the symptoms are things that are perfectly normal, but you experience it to either an abnormally high or low degree. And you really only have your own experiences to go off of, so when you find out that one of your experiences is a symptom of autism, it's like "wait, you mean to tell me that's not normal?"

And that first discovery starts down the rabbit hole and before you know it, your entire life is flipped upside down and you spend months re-evaluation your entire life and putting the pieces together.

Not officially diagnosed but my dad and niece recently were. When I figured it out a few years ago, I pretty much shrugged it off and ignored it.

I’m paying a bit more attention and slowly learning more now, mostly because my sister has been researching so much. Don’t really feel ready to do a deep dive into analysing everything about me that affected by autism, but I am learning more.

My sister actually said to me that she didn’t realise how hard it must have been for me in school without out any support and pointed out specifically how an issue with my neck and wearing a tie is a sensory issue.

Blew my mind as I’d never considered it, just thought I was being overly dramatic and weird with feeling like I was suffocating. I ended up crying so many times after being told off for not wearing it properly and having the top buttons of my shirt undone. Only thing I got in to trouble for at school.

She’s also made me rethink some other issues I’ve had. Like my gullibility. It’s hard for me to know for certain if someone is messing around or lying and I usually take things more literally than I should. I’m better now than I was as a kid, but still see it if I think back on some conversations. And my penchant for answering personal questions honestly even when the questions were inappropriate and shouldn’t have been asked.

Big one I’ve been considering lately is just how much of my replies at work a basically a script. Most customer conversations repeat in the same basic way, and I repeat the same responses to them all. May be why I get annoyed with overly friendly regular customers. They’re more random in what they say, tell me more personal things and I don’t know how to respond.

This is how I've been feeling the last few months. As I've started peeling more of my masks off and reading about others experiences and symptoms, yeah. I'm self diagnosed for now since I can't see a therapist (no money or insurance) and free resources (city/county mental health) have been useless or at worse a hindrance.

If I have almost all symptoms of Autism or ADHD but don't get diagonised, what will I miss out?

Mr. Morgan.

(Whose voice did you instinctively read that in? I’ve been on rdr2 for the past month or so. On my second campaign play through and it’s hands down the best campaign I’ve ever played.

Thanks for sharing this. Even after a year I’m still doing research for my self diagnosis and hasn’t run across this. Looking forward to reading it!

I had the same feeling reading the comments in a reddit post that reached All, the happiness of finally being part of a group without making a huge effort is amazing

This was my experience when my son was diagnosed. Going through all the questionnaires, interviews, etc was incredibly eye-opening for me.

I recommend getting on a waiting list asap. Where I am it's a 3-year wait to see someone who can give you a formal diagnosis.

welcome to the club ❤️

here's a welcome gift: consider that every bit of advice that you have ever been given in your life, has been given to you in the belief that you are ""normal"" (read: NT, like them), and because most of that advice is not tuned for your autistic brain, most of it is complete trash 😀👍

consider this example: has anyone ever told you to "just read their body language"?