Questioning whether I am really autistic?

I'm glad I'm not the only one who questions my diagnosis!

I got diagnosed in September 2024. As more people are getting diagnosed, I do think quite a bit "Am I actually autistic, or is this a newish label medical professionals are trying out on me?" As my way of thinking and behaving has been life long, I don't see it as a disability. I believe everyone else thinks the way I do - Don't we all like a routine? Don't we all have preferences? Doesn't everyone plan conversations before having them? 

It's also why I don't use the sunflower lanyard in public, in case people don't believe me and think I'm making it up.

When you're having a good day, have no stress, are well rested and are not doing anything challenging, you think there is nothing different about you.

But when tired, stressed, under pressure, trying to do something new and done is talking to you, can you cope? Can you then sleep that night, do you replay what happened?

I'd younger given a pile of ambiguous instructions when stressed do you know what to do?

Can you go hone after a day at work and have a conversation, or do you need quiet time. Can you get active all week and all weekend and still function.

I keep thinking I'm ok, but if you look closely you see things. If you had burn outs, you can compare ND burnout to NT burnout and see the difference. I can't dispute that one.

Being able to cope on a good day is not the issue. It's what I takes out of you abd how sustainable it is. It is hard to accept.

But the professionals should not be easily fooled.

Martin_91 said:

now I’m questioning am I really autistic, did the psych get something wrong.

The tests are pretty comprehensive and the professionals trained to spot where we "mask" and try to pretend we are normal.

If you really want to be sure then I would do 2 things.

1 - take some of the many free online autism tests and see if you reach the threshold for a diagnosis. They can't all be wrong.

2 - Look at the checklist of autistic traits here: https://thespectrum.org.au/autism-diagnosis/checklist-adults/

List which of these you exhibit and by the time you finish if you have more than a handful then you can pretty much map out your autistic profile there and then.

As Kev says, imposter syndrome is common for the recently diagnosed so take some time to process it. 

I would recommend learning about it. A book like Autism For Dummies (2025) - ISBN 9781394301003 (paberback); ISBN 9781394301027 (ebook) is a great way to get bite sized bits of info and be able to look up the traits you identified from the checklist.

Once you have a reasonable understanding of all the confusing details then I would engage with a psychotherapist who understands autism well and take at least a half dozen sessions with them to work through what it means for you.

You will most likely learn a lot more about yourself in these sessions than you have done through most of your adult life and if this works well for you then continue if finances allow and dig a bit deeper. There is a lot of benefit from things like unpacking old traumas that actually has a lot of impact on your life now that you probably were not aware of.

That would be my approach anyway but I'm just some random off the internet so don't follow my advice without doing your own research of course

Imposter syndrome is a psychological pattern where a person doubts their diagnosis and fears being exposed as fraud even though there is concrete evidence to confirm your diagnosis. You have to trust that the professional who diagnosed you knows what they are doing.

I have had imposter syndrome at many points in my life. It does pass once you reflect on it a while.