Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all, I hope it's all right to post this, because it probably gets asked a lot.
I'm in my mid-30s now, but for as long as I can remember I've always felt different and I've never been able to pinpoint why. Several times over the years I've tried to "figure myself out" and on more than one occasion I've ended up researching autism but I have never gone any further than reading about it.
Apparently when I was a toddler I was very chatty but at some point I don't remember, probably around the time I started primary school, I became shy and withdrawn. I've had a lot of trouble over the years with people thinking I'm weird, and looking back now I can kind of see why. I self-analyse a lot, and focus too much on regrets that have no relevance today.
I've always liked meeting new people and having lots of friends, but I feel utterly incapable of maintaining friendships or even staying in touch with my own family regularly. I cannot hold a conversation unless the other person is doing most of the heavy lifting, and I've always hated touchy-feely things like hugging.
I have always been terrible at maths, even now I don't know my times tables and I can't do mental arithmetic beyond simple addition, and when I had a retail job I had to be extra careful counting change. Even Carol Vordeman videos and extra maths workbooks couldn't teach me. I'm actually a bit surprised that I never got diagnosed with a learning difficulty just based on that.
On the flip side of the maths issue, I've always been good with words and I apparently knew my alphabet before I started school (thanks to Blockbusters, according to my mum!), and I love games like Scrabble and crosswords, and I'm even writing a novel.
I used to have a lot of anxiety and had a generally negative outlook on life, and in around 2005 I started self-harming and when people started noticing I decided to see my doctor. I was diagnosed with clinical depression and referred to a psychologist. They really helped with some things and I'm much better at copying with stress, but I do wish I had told them everything - I didn't even tell them or my GP about the self-harm. I didn't wait to be discharged from the psychologist - I just stopped going (another regret).
When I'm put on the spot I get flustered immediately - even when I'm asked something I know about it's like every bit of knowledge in my brain suddenly becomes inaccessible to me. This was mainly a problem in school when I would then get accused of not paying attention, but it still happens occasionally in adult life too.
The main problem I have in adult life is that I find it difficult to focus on work and even on things I like doing, or I just have a problem sticking with things I'm working on. I much prefer having a plan in place for what I'm going to do, so with personal projects when I am the one calling the shots, so to speak, I am notorious for starting things and then abruptly dropping them leaving them half-finished. At work when I have set tasks to do, a simple distraction can derail me for the whole day - luckily we are still in a start of the year quiet period, but an inability to focus could be pretty bad when our workload gets larger and we are on tight deadlines.
This has turned into a bit of an essay, and I could probably type for hours with numerous examples, so I'd better stop.
I guess I feel a bit lost, and others have suggested I make an appointment with my GP, but I actually hate going to the doctors because I always feel like I'm not going to be taken seriously (I was actually called a hypochondriac once), and I kind of don't want to tie up valuable NHS resources that could be helping other people.
Thanks for listening (or reading, even)
Just found something interesting, but didn't feel like it warranted it's own thread so I'll just post it in here as a kind of update, whether people see it or not.
I recently changed doctors, due to moving home, and have just got access to the app that allows booking appointments but also shows a partial medical history.
There is a note on my file for "hearing difficulty" added when I was about 1 year old. Clearly I don't remember this, so I asked my mum and she said that during a home visit the health visitor was unable to give me a pass on a hearing test because I wasn't responding to sounds properly. They had to take me to a follow up test at a nearby general hospital where it was eventually determined that my hearing was fine but I was just ignoring the nurses who were making sounds to try and get a normal reaction from me.
I'm not sure if this means anything, but I thought it was interesting. This was in the 80s, by the way so testing was probably less sophisticated back then (I assume).
It means that you discovered something about your past which is very common. Even these days, and much more so before autism was better known, the failure to respond to sounds, especially the calling of one's name, is often one of the first infant autistic traits which gets noticed; and it's often first assumed to be a hearing problem. In fact, I'm just re-reading the book "Neurotribes" about the history of autism, and it's a recurring theme in the book, going as far back as the first suspicions that there were a bunch of traits which might be an unrecognised condition.
I discovered quite a bit about my early years during my assessment (they interviewed my Mum by post). It turned out that I had quite a few early signs (though I had them far too early historically for my autism to be recognised as such). I found out that my reading was in advance of my verbal development was I was little, and that I've done most of my crawling as an adult (when I was a caver), as I never crawled as an infant. I can also see now how there's a thread of autism running through our family, so my traits were never looked down upon by my family, as they'de all been seen before in previous generations, such as when my Mum used to babysit her younger brother, who is very much the "me" of their generation.
I found Neurotribes a fascinating read, though be warned it is rather horrifying to learn just how badly autistic people have been treated over the course of history, and it's quite a long book. It totally puts into perspective where so many of the misconceptions and controversies that we're still dealing with have originated. And the compassion and respect of the author, Steve Silberman, for autistic people and their families shines through on every page.
Thanks, it does make me wonder what else could be hidden on the bits of my record that I can't see.
That book sounded really interesting, so I just went and found it on Google books and read most of the free sample. I'm going to have to get the rest of it now!