After a lifetime of travelling...

After a lifetime of travelling in search of something, in the words of Bilbo Baggins, I am embarking on an "unexpected journey".

Hello everyone!

About 5 weeks ago, following a re-referral to my local MHT, it was suggested that I was likely somewhere on the Autism Spectrum. "Sure" I responded in my ignorance, "isn't everyone?"

I watched a couple of documentaries that I had been directed towards and found an online AQ test to take, no big surprises there, just a few autistic traits. Then in a bored moment I looked on YouTube and found a video of late diagnosed people talking about their experience of life, before their diagnosis. BANG! It was a proverbial light bulb moment. Disconnections between thought and body, missing jigsaw pieces, a trail of lost friendships that I could not fathom and social norms that I will never understand. My collection of music that would take more than a year to play, ridiculously detailed in my extensive database. (I have multiple recordings of the same track as each band member changed and album art representing releases in different countries).

As I started to research autism, I realised that my easy ability to make and hold eye contact, was exactly what my doctor's receptionist called aggressive behaviour. I can not make casual eye contact at all, which is probably why my mother forever told me I had a guilty face. I began to understand that my habit of walking into a room and loudly introducing myself to a group of strangers was an attempt to own the room, which once lost, became a painful babble of competing voices, too distressing to bare. 

Every repetitive job I've had quickly became double shifts, 16 hours a day and preferably with a canteen which saved me from panic inducing supermarkets. These jobs always ending in crash and burn. I eventually settled for my own business centred around another special interest, and located abroad, where the strangest thing about me was being a foreigner and limitations of language allowed me to abstain from the crowd. Later a second business in the hedonistic festival industry, where I often stated, it was easier to succeed in a barrel full of crazy people who had no interest in my quirky ways.

I could go on but suffice to say, following my screening at my MHT I have now been referred for a formal diagnosis. My case worker says she is in absolutely no doubt of the outcome. Neither am I and at the age of 60, I am embarking on the greatest journey of my life. This time, no off the peg character in which to hide, no script to learn, no map to follow. I don't expect this journey to be easy and good or bad I'm happy to share or support, sometimes, when I can.