Hi, could somebody clear things up for me?

First of all, excuse any grammar mistakes I make, I'm foreign.

Due to quarantine I'm unable to contact a psychologist, so maybe some of you could help me? I recently started researching autism and it turned out I had a lot of symptoms. I'll try to share some informations about myself, so you can tell me, if I'm wrong.

I'm a girl, currently a highschool student. I learned to talk at a very young age. As a child I was considered intelligent and eloquent. I used, and I'm still using rich vocabulary (I'm talking about my native language of course). As a child, I found it difficult to socialise at school. It seemed like I didn't know how to react to what other kids were saying or I couldn't understand their intentions. I had only one close friend in primary and middle school. Things changed, when I attended highschool. Starting conversations is like the hardest thing ever to me. I always start overthinking and get anxious about other people rejecting me or such. Still, I tried my best to make new friends at the new school. I actually have the ability to keep a conversation going, if the other person puts effort in it too. As I got older, I'm now able to tell other people's intentions more often. My close friends sometimes say that I read their mind. I also have a pretty good sense of humour, I'm never the last one get the joke. I get it when somebody's sarcastic and I understand non-verbal messages, but I heard that most autistic people don't. Is that true?

On the other hand, I'm obsessed with symmetry and geometry. For an example, when I talked to my friend when we were outside, I kept staring at the cars parked behind him. I was unconsciously lining them up in my head, if that makes any sense. I'm also quite often unconsciously thinking about geometrical figures and diagonals, or I stare at car license plates.  I often experience derealisation, which freaks me out a bit. I've never been obsessed with one specific thing, but I easily get obsessed with new topics, that I learned about. I sometimes try to talk about these subjects that fascinate me with my friends, but I'm able to tell if they're getting bored or tired of it.

I'm also synesthetic. When it comes to sounds, I guess you can say I'm an auditory person. I can focus on individual parts of the music I'm listening too. It seems like listening to music became a part of my routine, and I get tense if I don't do it. I generally don't like to break from my routine, ex. when I make my bed, if the pillows were put in a different place than usual, I start feeling oddly uncomfortable. It's not extreme, but still. Little things make me upset, such as someone not responding to my text can make me feel bad for the entire day, even when I forget about it. In my daily life, I randomly start feeling overwhelmed with things. I get panic attacks everyday before school to the point I'm about to throw up. I suffer from guilt and overthinking. If someone asks me a question, I sometimes have to repeat it out loud to understand what they're saying, which makes people think I'm dumb or retarded. I struggle with multitasking and organization, I'm a slow thinker, I easily lose focus. People catch me repeating the same phrases when talking.

With all these problems in daily life functioning I started feeling really bad about myself. Am I making this up? Am I just telling myself that I have some sort of disorder, when I'm just a socially awkward, shiftless teen, who's struggling with confidence and self esteem and this is just a phase? At least that's what my mother said to me yesterday. When I told her about the idea of me being autistic a few days ago, she said that she suspected that since I was a child, because I always lived in my own world. But when yesterday I told her, that high functioning autism can make you struggle with self-organisation, she said, that I'm just looking for excuses. For so many years I tried to get better at this, but nothing changed. It's truly making me feel worthless and my mom calls me dumb and lazy.

I'm telling you about this from my perspective. Others don't notice my strange behaviours that much. My parents' friends see me as a golden child, my close friends think I'm fun to be with and a nice person. But on the inside, I really don't know what to do and why am I making all these weird things. Is it just puberty? And if that's so, why am I experiencing this since my early childhood?

Please tell me if I should see a doctor or not.

Thanks a lot for reading this.

  • Hello NAS66605,

    While you wait to see your doctor, you may find it useful to have a look at our autism page on our website which has a vast amount of information. The page contains information on the basics of what the autism spectrum is, how it's defined in a clinical sense, and the characteristics of autism: http://www.autism.org.uk/about/what-is/asd.aspx.

    Also, if you were interested in finding out if you are on the autism spectrum, you would need to have a formal diagnostic assessment. You may find it useful to have a look at the following link for further information about diagnosis and the benefits of getting one:

    http://www.autism.org.uk/about/diagnosis.aspx

    I hope this helps. All the best, Karin Mod

  • *echoes Qliphoth*

    From my youthwork days, I'd absolutely flag this for referral/assessment from more qualified person.

    Emailing doctor maybe an idea to get things started until covid situation resolves.

  • Your mother should be kinder to you, calling you lazy is one thing (I'm sure most people get called lazy when they were a teenager, adults tend to forget how exhausting puberty can be) but it's absolutely not fair for her to be calling you dumb.  You are obviously not dumb.

    I'm no expert but what you describe sounds typical of ASD, so go see your doctor about a referral (although wait until coronavirus is less of an issue, most ASD services are/will be suspended for now).  You might consider writing your thoughts down beforehand, it helps to have it all there in front of you on the day.