Hi everyone,
My name is Naomi, 25 years old and from the Netherlands. All my life I knew I was different, was bullied from age 7 to 19/20. I was always the "weird" kid who refused to conform to the mainstream, to wear socks, got angry very suddenly and was tired all the time.
When I was 18 years old, I was diagnosed with BPD, social phobia, BDD, PTSD, pervasive depression, unclassified eating disorder and paranoid personality disorder. This was a very turbulent time in my life (family drama, toxic relationship, quitting Nursing School) et cetera. We're like 7 years ahead now and I don't recognize myself in specifically the BPD diagnosis.
Several of my friends are autistic and I was discussing this with them. She asked me if I had ever thought of autism because we are basically the same person in a different font. When I started researching this, it started to make more and more sense. I started to realize that I've been masking to get along, but failing at that (for what my enviroment expects of me, I guess).
I'm now awaiting an autism assesment and diagnosis (12 to 24 months), but 2 or 3 health care providers and LOADS of people in my direct environment have told me stuff like "I don't sense autism in you", "but you make eye contact", "you're just telling yourself that", "but you are smart" et cetera et cetera. I start doubting my reasons because of this and this makes me feel invalidated.
So my question is basically;
What are your autistic traits, even the ones that aren't explicitly talked about and how did you deal with the invalidating comments?
My suspected traits are listed below:
- Masking the entire time and not always able to unmask
- Social battery gets drained
- Sensitive to sensory input; warmth, touch, intimacy, wet/moist/mushy textures, hate microfibre, loud and/or unexpected sounds, sensitive to light causing frequent headaches, hightened smell
- Easily overstimulated and needing rest time to be able to function normally.
- Strong moral compass/principles/views of the world
- Feeling more at ease without eye contact, especially in deep or emotional conversations
- Either overanimated or completely deadpanned
- Speaking too loud or too quiet
- Still having my blanket and stuffed animal, who I never wash because of textures, smell and familiarity (is this a word?)
- Special interests, almost obsessive; disneyland paris, disney in general, collecting disney pins, ears, bags et cetera. I also often say that gathering information is my hobby, but the area of expertise tends to move around sometimes. Mostly related to movies, series and health
- Always watching the same series and movies even though I've watched them more than 100 times
- Eating the same foods most of the time
- Needing big flavors for something to taste good; salty, spicy, sweet, aromatic.
- Difficulty interacting with unfamiliar people, even if it's just someone at a register
There are a whole lot more but this post has gotten rather long. Please share your input or opinions :)
