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Am I autistic, gay or lost?

Rainbow
2 months ago

I spent a lot of my life struggling with my sexuality and thought coming out as gay would give me the answers I needed as to why I always felt different. But 5 years on after coming out as gay and being in a happy relationship, I still feel I find daily life hard. Over the past few months I have discovered I may be autistic and feel a diagnosis would literally validate my life, however when I’ve asked close people to me whether they think I could be autistic they have said no not at all, so I’m very confused. I’ve listed below just a small number of significant things I’ve realised could make me autistic.

Childhood traits which felt “normal” and fine to me at the time:

  • In primary school preferring to either play with much younger children or spend time on my own or I enjoyed walking around the playground by myself making up imaginary stories in my head.
  • Other children would make fun at me for staring at them but I didn’t realise I was doing this.

Teenage traits:

  • Although I had a group of friends I would sometimes prefer to spend my lunch break in the computer room researching topics of interest.
  • Huge interest in train timetables. I collected these and knew all the local routes.
  • I studied obsessively other groups of friends and their relationships between each other.

Adult traits:

  • Shoulder twitch that appears as a tick.
  • I prefer to be late for work to avoid previous shift handover and prefer to process this information in an email rather than face to face.
  • I don’t understand comedy or find things funny that the majority of people do.
  • If I am doing something “different” the next morning such as going swimming I will spend hours thinking and planning my morning routine.
  • To cook tea I have to read the recipe multiple times throughout the day and spend a long time preparing the steps in my head.
  • I smile at innapropiate moments or when accused or lying which makes me look guilty.
  • Very very very nostalgic. Find a lot of comfort in familiar places.
  • Tasks such as clearing mess from my desk are extremely overwhelming.

However, I also have a lot of non-typical autistic traits which very much confuse me. Examples of these are I love socialising and I am not very direct in communicating whatsoever, Infact the complete opposite and struggle to be honest and direct.

Thank you for anybody who has read this entire post. I don’t feel I can talk about this with anybody so writing down has helped.

Parents
  • 2 months ago

    I'd actually ignore what other's say about whether you might be autistic or not, some might say no you're not because they think that you need reassurance, others because they're embarassed about things like autism and know little about it. I'd do some of the online tests to give you more of an idea about where you sit on the spectrum if you do at all. Lot's of autistic people like being around others, don't forget that we all have things that make us doubt our autistic traits, for me it's my crapness with tech, apparently all autistic people are brilliant with tech. I was told I couldn't be dyslexic because I'm crap at maths and all dyslexics are good at maths. I love to cook which apparently I shouldn't, don't let you life be narrowed down into a series of boxes defined by others and not yourself.

    It's OK to not be sure who you fancy, or if you fancy anyone at all. Everything sounds so up in the air for you at the momment so maybe its something you don't need a definative answer too, if you need to define yourself to yourself, then maybe sexually curious would be the thing to go for.

Reply
  • 2 months ago

    I'd actually ignore what other's say about whether you might be autistic or not, some might say no you're not because they think that you need reassurance, others because they're embarassed about things like autism and know little about it. I'd do some of the online tests to give you more of an idea about where you sit on the spectrum if you do at all. Lot's of autistic people like being around others, don't forget that we all have things that make us doubt our autistic traits, for me it's my crapness with tech, apparently all autistic people are brilliant with tech. I was told I couldn't be dyslexic because I'm crap at maths and all dyslexics are good at maths. I love to cook which apparently I shouldn't, don't let you life be narrowed down into a series of boxes defined by others and not yourself.

    It's OK to not be sure who you fancy, or if you fancy anyone at all. Everything sounds so up in the air for you at the momment so maybe its something you don't need a definative answer too, if you need to define yourself to yourself, then maybe sexually curious would be the thing to go for.

Children
  • 2 months ago in reply to TheCatWoman

    I am definitely gay, I just thought coming out would have given me the clarity about who I am however I still feel there is more about me to explore. 

    Thank you I’ve taken lots of tests and most score as autistic, some are on the lower scale though. But yes you are right it is a broad spectrum.