Just checking in with pre diagnosis angst and other business :)

Hello 

This forum has helped me so much over the past few months.  I've heard women and men here articulate things which haven't even been concious thoughts I've had over the last 43 years, rather have been things which are 'just me' and which I thought were quite unique to me.  I have felt alone and and different.  For years I described myself as "Marmite" - some people seem to really like it and could eat it every day but most people really don't like it very much and can't understand why anyone else does either.  I'm different.  The worse thing is that I look like 'one of them' and can 'act like one of them' - for a little while anyway.

So I took all the tests AQ, EQ you name it.  AQ is 45, EQ is 13, IQ is gifted VIQ and high average PIQ.  I am blunt to the point that people just think I'm rude and I know no boundary when talking.  I saw an OT last week and I've been diagnosed with sensory processing challenges which are severe.  So severe that I can't go out on my own and I've had this my whole life.  Some clever clogs called it agoraphobia at one point and that stuck but it's not really agoraphobia and I do go out, just not on my own.  Oh and OT told me I've also got Dyspraxia!  The plot thickens!

Sensory problems extend to every area light (and visual disturbances), sound, smell, taste and the 'feel' of things.  All really bother me quite badly and affect me every day but I've got this absolutely useless high IQ (at least verbal anyway).  IQ doesn't get me out the front door on my own though! 

Last year I was diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed medicine that was fantastic and lifted the fog from head but it didn't solve the 'bluntness' 'literal thinking' inability to lie (or at least tell direct lies).  I can withhold the truth without too much problem.  Direct lie, nope can't do it.

So for years I thought this was all just "odd little quirks".  My husbands even called me a diva!  Other people have not been quite so kind!.

I was wandering around like a black sheep on my own for 43 years and then I came here and I think I found my herd!

So diagnosis is next week Thursday.  D day.  I've gone private because I can't bare to be dissected by men in the NHS who are likely going to evaluate me using a male presentation ASD lens.  I will not fit that.  My masking is pretty damn good!   I can turn the volume right up on it for professionals.  An hour with a professional is just long enough for me to keep a mask firmly on.  Thing is the point of ASD assessment means I must remove them.  All of them.

So now i'm pretty sure I'm autistic, nothing else has ever made more sense (even the ADHD diagnosis didn't make this much sense).  It's like I've fully embraced it and I'm so tired of hiding and masking that I just don't really bother anymore.  I don't know if that is going to get me in trouble.  I mean not massive trouble but a bit of trouble.  NT like NT.  I can't be bothered to fake NT anymore.  I don't want to either.  I'm fed up of doing it.  It's too tiring and burns me out.

I just want them to hurry up and stamp me on the head with this diagnosis so I can fully exhale.  I don't feel like i can properly enjoy this new freedom to be me until they do.  Clearly I'm still looking for some version of NT validation :O 

So I've not been here for about a week and I missed it.  I've been out here with them lol  I just wanted to come back and say hello!

Also it's my birthday on Sunday.  I'd just like my diagnosis please :) How crazy am I?  All these parents desperately looking for cures (yuk) and here I am desperately wanting to be diagnosed lol

I don't want to be neurotypical because If I am then there is something else seriously wrong with me and that doesn't bare thinking about.

Thanks for listening.