Can anybody relate to this?

There are times when I end up dreaming about them too, whole episodes of Buffy happened in my sleep!

Good question around social events. I’ve always thought of myself as being highly social but over the past few years I’ve acknowledged that I’d rather stay home to most social events. But I put this down to laziness yet feeling now this may be my true self. I also find myself doing stuff such as driving a longer route so I can spend more time on my own - I enjoy my own company. I do however get a buzz from busy social events.

My colours were yellow and green. However again, I question myself on whether I’m being 100% true to myself or whether I’m masking my true self - either consciously or subconsciously.

Most of the things you have listed can be linked to autistic traits (special interests, routine driven, need for predictability, hypersensitivity, visual learner, difficulty displaying typical facial expressions)

What doesn't fit is enjoying social events. Do you really enjoy them or have you convinced yourself that you do to fit in? What activities do you do and how do you cope with the environment and a lot of people talking at once? Does it exhaust you?

I like personality quizzes too. When I did the colours one I was half red (determined) and half blue (analytical)

Hi NAS 93140

Things that usually indicate autism, that you experience, include:

Difficulty with verbal communication (including rehearsing conversations/jokes)

Strong/special interests (including researching for hours on end)

Routine driven (needing to plan)

Need for predictability (disliking unexpected events, unable to change tasks suddenly)

Hypersensitivity (to noise, smells, bright lights, etc)

Difficulty with learning by imitation (visual learner)

Difficulty interpreting and displaying typical non-verbal behaviour (including inappropriate facial expressions or body language)

Other common signs of autism are:

Noticing details & patterns

Stimming

Difficulty with reading facial expressions / recognising people

Difficulty making friends, maintaining relationships.

One thing that might flag you up as "not autistic" to someone assessing you is that you say you have a large social circle and enjoy social events. That's unusual for autistic people who post on this forum. You might want to examine that side of your personality more - do you really enjoy those events, or have you convinced yourself that you do to "fit in"? What places do you socialise in, or do you spend time with friends at your house or theirs, where there are no crowds of strangers and you can control the environment in terms of music levels, lighting, etc?I

I'm also interested in "personality quizzes" and remember doing the colours one where I worked some years back. I came out almost equally red (determined) and blue (analytical) 

One thing I've noticed is that since I stopped masking and decided to just be myself, it's been easier to develop friendships, Although I still don't have really close friendships, apart from my partner - just a few people at work I get on well with.

If you are borderline on autism tests, a formal autism assessment could go either way. There are many people who have autistic traits, but do not have enough or to a sufficient degree to pass the threshold for a diagnosis.

Mine are either with people I know of, and I imagine they are a huge part of my life and make up all sort of scenarios in my head involving them.

Or fictional characters where I almost “write a novel” storyline in my head. 

Thank you I’ve taken quite a few tests - some I score higher than others. On the AQ50 and RAADS-R I scored just slightly over the threshold for Autistic. However I took a masking/camouflaging test and scored very high. I am quite confused about what is really me and what I mask.

Exactly, I do it before sleep too. Sometimes even way too much, so much that I don't wanna sleep, but that's rare. 

Ohh, I do that too, I thought it was because I was an only child and where I lived wasn't close to where my friends lived. People confuse daydreaming about fictional characters with imaginary friends, the fictional people i play with exist soley in my mind and don't "come to tea" as it were. I couldn't go to sleep at night without my fictional friends,

Hi NAS93140

I can relate and don’t think I know myself that much. A life of masking does that. The only advice I could offer really is try to monitor your own behaviour when you’re out and around people. When I say something I often ask myself if that was the way I genuinely wanted to say it. I think I might be getting somewhere now as I watch myself more now if that makes sense? 

Catwomen, do you have a link to the personality test at all please? 

I looked online and did some but they wanted me to sign up before the results were revealed. 

I always turn on subtitles on TV and dvds,  this helps me but really annoys other people.

I relate to quite several points from your post. I also repeat what to say, I was fascinated with girls in general. Not only older. I liked to observe them, but sitting with them was overwhelming. I used to say, that they are so expressive and I hated my “wooden expression” when compared to them. I could never catch the point, it felt like they had some secret language hidden behind words that only they understood but I couldn’t. I was always left behind and when they realised I don’t get their topics, they started laughing and bullying me. I also prefer reading, than listening. There are always some noises in the background that disturb me and I have to repeat the audio/video. I don’t like TV either, for the same reason as mentioned before plus light sensitivity, I often get headache. For me completing daily tasks is something normal and natural, if I have it in my habit. Worse, if it’s something new- then I’m likely to forget about it. I’m also a daydreamer and I like to plan things but my experience showed me that planning too much may bring me disappointment when things don’t go as expected. I always prefer having some more time / be somewhere earlier to prepare/ get used to etc. I’m also sensitive to shouting and any sudden explosive noises. 

My advice, if you want more clarity, would be to take some online autism tests. AQ10 and AQ50 (sometimes called just 'AQ') are the most commonly used by clinicians in the UK, but the RAADS-R is the most definitive. They can be found here: embrace-autism.com/.../
If you score in the autism range it will give you more certainty about possible autistic status.

I daydream a lot too! Either with myself and some fictional characters, or just completely fictional characters.

I’ve always been interested in personality type quizzes and had workshops through work that categorise us into colour types based on our personalities. I’ve always been fascinated by these always hoped I would “get the answer” as to who I am. In a way, wanted someone to explain to me who I really am. 

Not sure yet whether I want a diagnosis. If I did, it would be more to get answers and clarity rather than seek professional help or services. I’ve survived this long “being me” so I’m absolutely fine, but this would explain some of my behaviours and past behaviours which I’ve been so confused as to why I do and always felt like I’m odd.

I used to do personality trait quizzes, the good old cosmo quiz was something I did every month. I spent a lot of my 20's and 30's trying to find out who and what I was. I thought it was a post therapy thing, I'd had years of therapy and when it ends it you feel a sort of gap where all the trauma used to be and the negative behaviours and ways of thinking, but I didn't know quite where to go with it. Many of the things that had created the trauma were still there, poor social skills etc didn't quite seem to explain it, it wasn' tuntil I was in my late 40's that I started to learn more about autism and that it could effect women, although at the time it was thought mildly and rarely. I read one article and all of a sudden everything fell into place, all the awkwardness, the intense interests, the problems with friends and socialising, with body contact and sex and allergies. I have loads of allergies, I seem to collect them, suddenly it all made sense, for women theres often a physical side to autism that there dosen't seem to be in men, I wasn't a hypochrondriac, I was autistic! I was diagnosed when I was 50, given no help or anything, just left to get on with it, it was felt that seeing as I'd managed to reach 50 relatively ok I didn't need any further help. I still struggle with some things, a diagnosis dosen't magically make everything better or OK, you can face a different set of prejudices, but some things are much better. I don't think you can have power with something you can't name and for me diagnosis gave me a starting place to research and build on, to empower myself to try and find the right sort of help. Some people find a diagnosis less helpful and seem to see it as a full stop and seem to feel powerless in the face it, only you can decide if you want diagnosis and how you will deal with it, will you be empowered by it or not?