Hi, I'm not really sure about how to start this. I have official diagnoses of BPD and OCD, (along with some other stuff like general anxiety and c-PTSD, but the abuse is a whole other story), and I've been thinking recently whether I should broach the topic of me possibly having autism with someone. These are my reasons:
- My mum was autistic, and required a lot of support. I've heard (perhaps incorrectly?) that having an autistic parent could make you more likely to have autism yourself? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
- BPD apparently has a lot of similarities with ASD, and combined with the fact that there is also anxiety, depression and OCD, which the NHS says commonly occurs in people with autism.
- Going through my medical history, I received speech therapy at three years old, and I had special measures at school such as being taken out of class regularly to go have personal classes. This kind of implies there's something going on right? It could just be the c-PTSD and the abuse I suffered, but I'm not sure...I never struggled at school, in fact I was incredibly high achieving and always 'a pleasure to teach' because I was always so quiet.
- People have alluded that I might have autistic traits, in some oddly specific ways. I have a distant cousin who is constantly approaching me asking for autism advice, which strikes me as a bit odd - maybe he sees some similarities? A friend says I am obsessive once I get into something, and I am pretty bad at relationships - I get way too intense, rely on a friend, like the one who used to explicitly remind me of her autistic friend who used to do similar things and that ruined our friendship because I just don't really know what to do with friends.
- Somewhat trivial: I have recently learnt that it is not entirely 'normal' to be constantly worrying about eye contact, forcing yourself to look at a specific spot for like 5 seconds, forcing yourself to look away and then worrying if your eye contact was way too much, because you have been known to stare. I know I have social anxiety, and my OCD implies I have repetitive behaviours. I'm really rather bad at judging the right info for the situation.
- I imitate social situations a LOT, and I am very repetitive. People tell me I talk too much about non-relevant stuff, and I mimic people's social stuff to the point where I change my accent between work, home and uni.
In short, I have an appointment on Tuesday, and should I mention this stuff to the person? Considering the family history and the stuff I struggle with, I genuinely think it's likely that I may have ASD, although my partner says I don't 'act' like I do, but that's because I feel like I'm constantly having to pretend to be someone else. If this all seems really trivial and I should just get my act together, please let me know - I'm also a bit worried that I'm just 'being ridiculous' and that there is definitely no autism involved, I just can't get it out of my head.