Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi.
So, I think I'm autistic, but I guess it doesn't feel like all the descriptions that you read.
A lot of the descriptions I read are about communication and understanding people. But to me it feels like I'm trapped in my head. I do like hanging out with friends, but even when I do that I'm half in my own internal world.
I have this habit where I fiddle rapidly with bits of torn up card, twirling them between my fingers. I do it any chance I can get. I don't know if my friends notice because I try to hide it but it's probably obvious. I remember meeting a young boy when I was young who I think had autism and lived in a care home. He said he was out looking for 'fiddly sticks' and I related to that, thinking "I do that!".
I get easily overwhelmed, for example by supermarkets and I can't really follow logical reasoning unless I do it very slowly. I also continually get lost when walking because I always enter a kind of hypnotic state.
The thing is: I have learned social skills, and I think they're quite good. I'm good at reading people, and I'm good at communicating when I need to. But it often takes it out of me emotionally. So by a lot of descriptions that would mean I'm not autistic, but I'm pretty sure I am. It's confusing!
Here are a few things I think make me autistic. I'd love to hear people's thoughts.
- I'm always living in my head and prefer this state of mind (although I do enjoy hanging out with friends)
- I'm very single minded, only focusing on one thing at a time, often quite intensely
- I either have very intense attention to detail or I'm scatty and all over the place
- I get lost easy
- I hate talking on the phone, it makes me feel trapped
- I find daily tasks like cleaning my room, getting out of bed and taking a shower really difficult and actually painful in a way
- I use lots of cliched phrases to create sentences, unless I'm concentrating
- My voice is often very flat and monotone
- I am extremely sensitive to negative emotions
- I struggle to deal with my own feelings of anger
- I often feel like I have very subdued emotions
- I think I've suffered from depression and sleep disorder since a young age
There's more stuff that I can't think of now but I hope you get the gist!
- I get very fixed ideas in my head I struggle to shake
- I really want labels and descriptions to understand myself (maybe this means I'm not really autistic. As I say, it's confusing)
- I love working on my own and don't like talking to people who aren't my friends. I setup a writing business so I would be able to work completely alone.
- I'm very tired of pretending to be a "normal" functioning adult and need people to acknowledge I am neuroatypical.
Do people relate to this experience? I think if I could just tell people I'm autistic it would be such a relief. It's not like my life isn't functioning, I just need a way to communicate that my mind works differently to most people.
Thanks for reading and I'd love to hear your experiences and thoughts on my post.
I have recently been diagnosed as autistic and I can relate to a lot of what you have said. One of the things that my assessor talked about was that I have learnt a lot of how to socialise (I'm not sure I'd describe these skills as good though) but I find this very difficult with someone that is unfamiliar to me. He also talked about reading people and said he doesn't think it's always a case of not being able to read people but not wanting to guess which I do think applies to me quite a lot. I don't always get it right but sometimes I will have known how someone was feeling but then I doubt it and imagine a lot of different scenarios which causes me a lot of anxiety.
I very much wanted a label for myself as that is how my mind thinks. I like things to be specific and fit into categories.
I spend a lot of time in my head but it's not as positive place as yours sounds.
Have you tried doing the aq test online? The thing with autism is that everyone is different and some people have traits that others don't. The main thing is you have to fit traits from the different areas. I'd advice taking the test and seeing how you score.
Update: the test doesn't seem to think I'm autistic! (20 out of 50)
The test is not a diagnostic obviously but it does often give a good indicator. Was there any pattern to the questions you scored on?
It may also be worth thinking about other reasons for the things you find difficult and whether you had these difficulties as a young age. You mentioned depression - could this be a reason for your need to retreat into your head and feeling overwhelmed? You also mentioned fidgeting - do you fit into any criteria for something like ADHD?
I do personally believe that some people have autistic traits without actually being autistic. This could be you.