Around two years ago at that time I found out about autism and more precisely the "high functioning autism" absolutely accidentally. This term is not used professionally, but this is what I heard. I didn't research anything about mental health. I was deep sunken in my inner world with aliens, which I'm busy with 4 years already. During that time I manage to write few sci fi stories about aliens, time travel, future human colonies etc. July 2023 there was the Congress hearing about UAPs and I was excited listening to David Grusch. Of course one may believe, one may not. I listened to him and two other guys David Fravor and Ryan Graves. I was interested more with Grusch, I find him handsome and somehow interesting. So then I watched an interview of him with Joe Rogan. Grusch talked about ancient records of flying saucers, about the Mussolini's UFO and then he mentioned retaliation from the agency for disclosing things and also about his mental health PTSD and when he said that he is "high functioning autistic", I stopped the video and my attention flew like an arrow to this point. I asked out loud "What?" How is he autistic, he was nothing like the boy from our neighbourhood who used to slam doors for hours and there was no communication with him. I saw a highly intelligent, handsome guy who speaks and behaves absolutely normally. But instead of saying "no, he can't be autistic, he doesn't look like" I decided to check it out, what is this "high functioning autism". I googled, csme across the term "Asperger Syndrom" which was confusing, i red an article about tge symptoms in both males and females and even the male section seemed kind of like 50 % of me. But when I got to the female section I started crying in the middle and couldn't do it to the end because I was shaking and my eyes were full of tears and I got full meltdown. High pressure shower helped me calm down. Then, after calming down I decided that it was just my delusion and I couldn't be autistic. I removed the video from my watch history and the site with the article, and kept watching about aliens and space. And around 1 month later (February 2024) my Youtube wall suddenly got flooded by videos about autism. No aliens, no favourite music, only autism and Asperger's. I got upset, wanted to write a complaint to Youtube for sending me such videos but realised it was an algorithm. I wasn't sure why it targeted exactly me, but I seemed to not be able to do anything about it. One video caught my attention- channel "Asperger's from the inside" by Paul Michalleff, the name of the video was "most common autistic experience" I clicked and got that moment again "why he is talking about me?". Then I slowly started accepting that I might be "high functioning autistic". There are controversies around this term, also around Asperger Syndrom, but this is the condition I started exploring. I got huge amounts of memories refreshed, some of them painful, but it finally started making more sense.
It was difficult journey with ups and downs, there was obsession, also doubts (imposter), i also found out about this forum and I'm here since March 2024.
Now I can say I found out just in time. First didn't think I would need to do anything about it... till I started getting down again. Decided to not disclose to my therapist that I suspect bring autistic, but to just describe my problems as they are. And I shared with him my previous diagnoses I received in the past. It turned out there were things, I had no idea are symptoms of autism, but he picked up on them and I just shared them because they are my problems. So i got oriented on the issue, not label and it was also kind of challenge- if my suspicion was actually correct. It's still not the formal diagnosis, but more of a confirmation. It's not just me thinking that I might be autistic, but also a professional, doctor with experience in work with autistic adults. I don't know if I go get diagnosis, or not, there are obstacles such as lack of support from my family (lack of informant and medical records, because my mom threw them out long time ago) also long waiting times. So if there is any good reason to get the official diagnosis, then I may try. Otherwise I will just stay here with suspected autism or "self identified" or "self diagnosed" - I got scolded once for the last one. The thing that keeps me here is the common experience that I share with many other members of this forum.
Thank you for this place and thank you, moderators for your work to keep it safe.
