New to the forum

Hi all,

I suspect I may be on the spectrum and wanted to express how I feel.

I'm well into my 30's and only just considering this possibility partly because I knew nothing about autisim before, I wrote it off as a possibility before learning about it as I have a career, a house, a wife and now a baby so I appear to function and manage to do what is considered normal 'so I can't be surely?' so I thought. I have been questioned whether I think I may be by people close to me including my wife over the years and decided to consider it recently as I find life a struggle at times and I've always known I'm different. I just explained alot of things which make me different with various explanations e.g. I'm very introverted, it's normal to have hobbies, maybe I'm just not a social person, I'm just a bit of a daydreamer, I'm not a people person, maybe my social skills aren't my strong point etc. etc.

Maybe I'm not, I'm not a professional or haven't seen one and I'm not precious over labels infact I rather not be labelled if I can avoid it. However, I went through a long list of things which may indicate someone may be and I started to connect the dots, these many things may actually all be connected which I never considered before. I either brushed them off as strong character traits or blamed myself for not doing more to develop my weaknesses for example. Most of them I never really thought about and just lived with as a challenge of life, I started to realise how much on this list which I strongly relate to probably doesn't apply to 'normal' people and hence is not part of an average life.

For excample, it sounds stupid in hindsight but the fact it took me until my 30's, over 15 years of work, before I could look people in the eyes much as they talk to me or I talk to them, still not 100% but miles better than before. I pushed myself for all those years to try and overcome it as it put a real hinderance on my social and work life and I just always put it down to me having poor social skills but couldn't understand why? Then there is discovering that acting around people to fit in and observing people to learn how and copy them is called masking apparently and it's something I just did without much thought just to get through life socially.

All my life I've struggled with what seemed like everyday things for people around me but I couldn't figure out why. Is there something I need to learn? Maybe a skill I need to develop? Could I just be broken? Always got the feeling of being a square peg in a round hole of life.

All of it wouldn't bother me if life wasn't such a struggle when objectively it's good and I get frustrated at struggling with what seem like straight forward things. It's taken all my energy to achieve what seems like 'normal' things like a job etc. You feel the pressure, especially as a man, to pull your weight so struggling with things really puts the pressure on and can burn you out. You can feel the judgement of people who question why you struggle? What the problem is? If you struggle with 'normal' things then you must be useless or stupid. You feel like people look down on you. I'm an engineer, I design things so I'm probably not but I'm not well rounded either.

I'm at a point where I've discovered things which make life a bit easier through my own deduction but I'd like to find more ways to make life less of a daily struggle espeically now I have a family and work still weighs down on me hard, but don't know where to start.

Thanks.