New here, still questioning

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Hello, I just signed up here, mostly just trying to understand... I apologize in advance if something's wrong, this is the first time I post

I'm a 22 years old girl and I've been recently diagnosed with avpd and ptsd. However, this doesn't explain much of my condition and I know there has to be something else besides this... for a very long time I've been wondering if I am on the spectrum or not.
I've had breakdowns when I was around 3-4 years old, despite starting to speak very early I always had problems actually expressing my thoughts and needs, to the point that often it put me (and still puts me) in extremely uncomfortable situations.

Speaking still takes a huge physical effort most of the time, sometimes when people talk to me I just cant even react to it and they get angry because they think I'm ignoring them. If i speak I feel like I cant control my voice/speak too loud or too low. I dont like most sounds and light unless I'm the one who is in control of them (like listening to music by myself/opening a blind myself when I decide), I get overwhelmed by people who speak loudly, by too many things happening around me, its like I dont even process them, like I cant see well when more than one thing happens around me and I end up seeing them in a blur. I can't make eye contact, can't pick up social cues, don't understand what "script" I'm supposed to use to talk to others, which is why I never had real friends (just online) and now I am essentially a shut-in. I often can't put thoughts into words and I can only talk to people if they share the same specific interest as me, and if they do I end up dominating the conversation without even realizing... I like repeating details about things I know of my interest, it doesnt matter if it's in my head or to others. I've had "obsessions" with specific interests during my entire life, they can rarely change but the intensity and the behaviors are the same. I dont like change, even a slight change in what I perceive as normal throws me off and I often experience derealization from this. I dont like trying new things, they make me uncomfortable unless I can somehow bring them back to my interest by comparing and finding a pattern. I love finding patterns everywhere, it bothers me beyond limits if something doesnt match the order I have in my head, no matter how abstract it is. I like making lists and I create scenarios in my head constantly, they end up being always the same too, and I often use fiction/identification with fictional characters to cope.

Also I've done for most of my life things that count as stimming, mostly pacing back and forth - I dedicate ritually a few hours every day just to pacing in a room, sometimes even just spontaneously.

The symptoms I don't relate to are lack of empathy, it's the opposite actually - I feel so much empathy for anything that it frequently affects my daily life - and sensory problems with textures/eating etc

I took many tests and scored pretty high on all of them, but I'm extremely scared of bringing it up with my therapist, because when I speak I can never express the intensity of the symptoms, I always hold back so much and try to control my symptoms and end up saying just 2% of what I want to say, so she might say these are just normal or results of social phobia + avpd + trauma. And since I dont have it too bad in my eyes, I feel like I'm appropriating someone else's struggles and trivializing them. If i tell her and she'll tell me it can't be that I'll feel so ashamed and stupid that I won't be able to face her again, no matter how kind she is about it. Part of me feels like just even thinking that I might be on the spectrum is exaggerating my struggles and stupid. Is this worth bringing up and risking having a very long breakdown due to feelings of invalidation? I think that even if she says no I'll still feel like it's my fault for not explaining clearly enough, and thats why she thinks I can't be on the spectrum... I've been obsessing over this for a while now, it doesnt leave me alone and I don't know what to do. Which is why I'm here, I'm hoping to understand better...

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Welcome.

I would say you need to give us more examples. For now it sounds you read some article/criteria about autism and are trying to convince yourself you have it by having your own interpretation of the traits. It doesn't mean you are not autistic - that kind of mechanical approach without getting into details might actually be an autistic trait(its as if you think we know what you mean). But you might also be misinterpreting/overinterpreting something and the mechanical description might be anxiety or OCD related thing as well. Noone can tell without knowing what exactly makes you think you have the traits and how much of this is social anxiety.

What made you develop your social phobia/pstd? Did you experience a lot of neglect/aggression as a child?

As for talking to your therapist:
Write everything down and hand her the paper. Focus on giving examples. Don't just say "I dislike most sounds". Mention a few sounds you dislike that don't seem to bother other people and try to describe your reaction (for me it would be: "When I hear a train stoping I cover my ears ever since I were a kid, the loud screech makes me very uncomfortable. It's overwhelming and scary although I know it is nothing to be scared of.").
This way you will be able to convey much more. And she can ask questions as she reads the paper in front of you so you don't have to lead the conversation.

Thank you for your replies.

Kiriae, the reason it sounds like that is that might also be that I do take sentences from others describing the symptoms when I can recognize mine, because finding the words to describe just by myself is pretty much impossible for me, even if when I read them I feel like finally everything makes sense... that's what I mean by not being able to express myself. Also english isn't my first language (and it's even harder in my native one)... that "as if you think we know what you what you mean" thing is actually the reason I struggle to communicate, because I think I explained everything/it's already obvious what I mean when in reality I didn't say much... (it's a huge problem during therapy)
As for sounds, mostly I mean people speaking, but also any just slightly louder than normal sound... not just if they're talking to me but in general, my reaction is essentially just curling into myself and trying to hide from the source if I can do it at the moment

I find it really hard to explain, because it's something different from what I feel when Im having a panic attack for example... the best way I can say it is that it feels physically different than what i feel when I experience social phobia symptoms... Im sorry

Ptsd is from both neglect in family (which is why I could never get therapy until now) and emotional/physical aggression, however I don't know if avpd actually has a source besides social phobia getting progressively worse because I've had anxiety-related symptoms/out of the ordinary behavior since I can remember (already around 3 years old), years before those events happened

At this point I probably won't tell my therapist though, not now, I did write down something but maybe it's not the right decision if it doesn't sound very genuine...