To start, I'm not officially diagnosed with autism and I'm discussed my deliberations in other posts in an effort to get to the bottom of my hopes and fears and all the things. I don't want to feel crazy anymore. I feel like I'm just faking it and I don't deserve to even be considering the fact that I might be autistic.
I finally thought I had gotten over that feeling. I was accepting myself a bit more although not having anyone trusted to talk about it with has been starting to weigh on me along with guilt. Guilt that its not an actual diagnosis and it might just be imagined even though its been resonating with me more and more.
I went down to my guidance counselor's office today because I've been feeling completely and totally exhausted recently and stressed over every little thing. Even the act of getting ready for bed at night feels like a lot of work. Talking has been especially hard as well. I struggle to express myself on a good day although when I really get on a roll with something (like about my writing) people say I become quite eloquent. Recently I've been slurring my words and having trouble reacting right away when people greet me for the first time. So that's the things I wanted to talk about.
As per usual I got side tracked and just started rambling on and talking about everything under the sun. As I was getting ready to leave I finally got around to trying to explain how I've been feeling after a comment from him about how I was apparently feeling more fine than my email made it seem. On the outside I always seem fine. I can't express how I'm feeling in words very well. I don't know what else to tell him other than I'm tired and stressed even though I know its more and deeper than that. I started getting into my social struggles, the awkwardness I feel and how I'm always an outsider in every group and I have to work really, really hard to fit in and adapt to my environments and how exhausting it is. He responded basically by dismissing it. He said that in all the time he's known me that I've never really been awkward, just that I see the world in a different way than other people. he said I don't have social difficulties, that I'm just over thinking it (I do over think things a lot). He said that its more likely that my girlfriend has actual, diagnosable social issues (I also think that she's autistic).
Once again I was told that I was being ridiculous and that its just my anxiety and PTSD that make me appear neurodivergent.
But I just can't... I can't express what it's really like. I'm always shocked when people tell me that I'm "not that weird" or that I'm "a little quirky, but in a good way" when I apologize for being weird or quirky because people have told me all my life that I'm those two things. I FEEL weird and awkward in every social situation I'm in even if on the outside I appear to be doing okay. I feel like an outsider, like I can't connect to the people around me no matter how much I try or desire to. But I guess I do a better job of fitting in than I thought. I don't know.
I'm feeling discouraged again. That I can't possibly be autistic and I'm just reading too much into a few shared traits. That's even when I relate more to this community than most people in my day to day life and when my parents (who absolutely think I'm insane for thinking I might be autistic) constantly describe things I do that are autistic things. I used to not respond to small talk (though I've since come to realize that sometimes the weather needs to be talked about no matter how stupid it is), I never let relatives hug me, I cant lie (I can tell a white lie, but if anyone presses into it I immediately recant because I can't hold it up), Mom told me that I speak a different language that she had to learn how to translate.
I feel so alone.
Is there anyone out there that has had similar experiences and has wisdom?
