For some time I have been wondering if I fall somewhere on the spectrum. I know for certain that my brain is not totally typical. I have Aphantasia and SDAM - never had those diagnosed but hearing that people actually saw images in their minds just a couple of years ago totally shocked me, and as far as the SDAM is concerned yesterday seems to be as clear in my mind as 50 years ago. Ask me to recall some things I did with my father growing up and all I can tell you is that we went fishing once. Ask me what I ate yesterday and I’m going to need to expend a lot of brain power coming up with the answer. However, ask me what date I first visited the judo club that I joined and I can tell you with ease it was Wednesday, March 12th 1975. Until recently the whole eye contact thing was another idea I was mistaken about. I always took it to mean ‘look in the general direction of the other person’s face’ and I even remember thinking that it couldn’t actually mean look at their eyes, since I can’t actually do that - I mean I could stare at their left eye or their right, but how on earth can you look at both eyes at the same time? I normally look at people’s mouths - that is where all the information I’m supposed to be attending to is coming from. Growing up I was sometimes told off for speaking too fast, speaking too loudly, speaking too much, being inconsiderate of others as well as working rather slowly and having messy handwriting. I was terrible at sports and didn’t learn to ride a bike until I was 18. In university despite studying science and maths I still didn’t know my times tables or my left from my right. One of my hobbies at uni was collecting electronic calculators, something that I only really thought people might think of as odd years later. I’m not sure if the meltdown thing applies to me - maybe I have my own version of it - when under stress I remain calm right up until the last second, then just explode in anger. At least I used to before learning to just remove myself from the situation before that happened. Regarding repetitive behaviour I’m not so sure. I’ve never rocked in my chair, or had repetitive hand movements or anything like that. However, I do like to watch the same videos over and over again and to listen to the same music over and over. I tend to wear the same clothes, just in different colours - grey, black or blue. I like to do things on my own, though I can appear quite social when I need to be, however, after being in a busy social atmosphere for a few hours I will feel drained enough to go to bed for a few hours. I have had many special interests that I have pursued over the years, though none have lasted more than a few years. I never really thought of myself as having sensory issues, though the feel of one or two food items can make me gag and loud noises are accompanied by a flash of light behind my eyelids. When I started looking into all of this I realised my career in Science and IT seemed to be typical autism professions, but luckily my present work in accountancy didn’t fit - yes, someone did let me know that was a profession autistic people often went into too. To this day I do still take things very literally and phrases like "have your cake and eat it too” have always seemed totally bizarre to me - I mean, what is the point of having a cake if you aren’t going to eat it?! So my question remains... am I autistic, or just an outlier of neurotypical?
PS. Not sure that I will ever pursue an official diagnosis as I’m now in my 60s and unsure what real benefit I would gain from it.
