I've been referred for an assessment

Hi. I've felt out of place all my life. I'll be 50 next year. I've made this document to take to my assessment. I'm putting it here to see if anyone relates to my weirdness.

Possible signs of autism 

I have full blown conversations with myself, to the point where I explain things to myself like I don't understand what I'm talking about, as though I was explaining something to another person. The conversations can last for hours. I have to actually say the words, it's difficult to physically stop myself and I feel highly agitated if I try to stop.

I have full blown conversations with other people in my head. They are usually intense arguments, either trying to rewrite arguments from the past or just completely made up scenarios which seems to be my brain practicing for those events just in case they ever happen (even though I know those scenarios are unlikely to happen). The conversations can be just normal conversations though. The normal conversations seem to happen because I really want to talk to the person but I don't currently have access to them.

I have been severely socially anxious since birth. The anxiety never goes away. I can even be highly anxious when alone and safe. There doesn't seem to be any reason for the social anxiety. I'm not worried about rejection or embarrassment. The fact that I didn't talk was what was embarrassing but I would feel so much fear so my muscles would tense up so I couldn't physically speak. I'm not really thinking anything during these situations. My mind seems to just shut off.

I am unable to make friends. People at school have made friends with me but I never really liked them. I was unable to talk to the people that I actually liked. I would have no idea what to say.

I would often spend my evenings after school imagining having intense dramatic and emotional friendships. They would often have a science fiction element such as fighting off alien invasions together. Other times we were just hanging out at school. The friendships I imagined were always with boys, but in my fantasies they were far more emotional and sensitive and mature than they were in real life. I think this is what they call maladaptive daydreaming.

I've been obsessed with videogames since I was 12 but haven't enjoyed them much since I was 14 but was still obsessed and read loads of magazines about them and still bought the games even though I wasn't enjoying them. I repeatedly tried to abandon videogames but I would eventually get sucked back in.

I was never interested in progressing academically although I did very well initially. By the third year of secondary school I lost all motivation to do my schoolwork because I felt I had no future because I couldn't talk to people. I became suicidal and thought I'd be dead by the time I was 14. I never managed to complete any college courses. I've tried a few correspondence courses but I didn't have the motivation to do them.

I had been depressed since 1988 at the age of 13. This only subsided since I started living alone at my house in 2023. I spent most of my time alone there so I began to feel somewhat safe and comfortable.

I was only able to communicate spontaneously and be myself once I was put on an antipsychotic called amisulpride in 2022. My sister said there is now back and forth in our conversations which didn't exist before. It has always felt like some part of my brain was faulty or asleep and now the antipsychotic has fixed whatever was wrong. I'm still incredibly anxious but can now communicate despite that. But I still don't feel I can socialise with the general public. I only talk to my mum, brother, and sister. Since the changes in my communication ability I have got on with everyone much better. But I have to limit socialising because I still get overwhelmed with anxiety.

I get anxious when I am talking to my mum in her bedroom and I start uncontrollably rocking back and forth. This doesn't happen anywhere else or with anyone else and it has only been happening since 2022.

One incident I recall when I was about 10: My sister, me, and my mum were watching the Transformers cartoon and there was a joke, so I said "what's so funny about that?!" And they both groaned and complained. I was frightened because their reaction was so visceral. Around 30 years later I realised they thought I was saying the joke wasn't funny. But I was actually wanting an answer to my question so that I could understand.

I'm just learning that it's ok to ask questions and make conversation. When I was a child I used to ask questions and my mum would call me nosy, so I stopped asking questions. I realise now that was me taking things too literally and not understanding playful banter.

People have said i get things wrong but they wouldn't explain. I was always considered weird at school, and there was a girl that shouted "what's wrong with him?! Why is he like that?!"

I never appreciated the disgusting humour of the other boys at school.

I always initially appeared dopey and dumb to other people but they would end up being incredibly surprised at how intelligent I turned out to be to the extent that they would start expecting too much from me. This intelligence doesn't translate to academic or conversational ability though.

I was always an incredibly slow worker at school. Plus while I was good at factual work I struggled with anything creative.

I always feel like I'm going to be punished even as an adult and don't feel comfortable simply doing whatever I want to do like any other adult would. I don't feel on an equal level with other adults and still feel like a child.

I was sent to a special school at age 4 until 8 because I didn't talk at all at school (I did talk at home though). I did manage to talk when at the special school except to one teacher. I don't know why I couldn't talk to her as she was very nice. Every school report I've had since going back to mainstream school has said I was far too quiet.

I've always been a completely different person in private to how I am in public. I'm very quiet, withdrawn and robotic in public. In private I'm much more lively and cheerful and laugh a lot.

As a child I felt I was far more mature and sensible than the other schoolchildren but as an adult I feel like I have regressed and am far less mature and sensible than other adults.

I have not made any friends as an adult apart from on the internet.

I am very sensitive to sound. My dad hums frequently due to his dementia and I can't stand it and it makes me absolutely rage so I use noise cancelling headphones. I also can't stand the neighbours talking and the baby crying next door and they also make me rage, so once again I am very thankful for my noise cancelling headphones.

When I left secondary school I started to spend all day in bed. This lasted a few months. I thought it was depression but it was possibly autistic burnout.

I have intrusive thoughts which are highly distressing. I often can’t do anything but pace up and down processing the thoughts and it can completely interfere with my normal functioning. The thoughts are related to two arguments I had on the internet over 20 years ago with a group of people, including my friends, who savagely criticised everything I said during the prior three years I was online, including things I said in private emails, and they repeatedly threatened to kill me. To this day I don’t know why they ganged up on me and I’m still afraid of these people. My brain keeps repeating the arguments in my head in literally hundreds of different permutations as if it were desperately trying to rewrite history, and it just won’t stop no matter how much I understand that the past can’t be changed. The thoughts will go away for a few weeks or months but they eventually come back and they can last weeks and can make me feel suicidal. Holding a cuddly toy helps to calm me down when I'm having these distressing thoughts. The extreme effectiveness of cuddly toys is surprising.