Am I on the autism spectrum? SPD, social anxiety...

Post Reply New Topic

Hi all,

I don't have time or money to go to a therapist and get an official diagnosis, and I don't care enough about the label to want a professional opinion... however, if you guys could let me know what you think, I'd be really interested in hearing your response!

I have a pretty extreme sensory processing disorder - certain textures, smells, tastes, sounds, lights, light touches, loud noises, things being in the wrong place, things being organized differently than the arbitrary way I set it up make me completely crazy. I'll drop to the ground and roll around in pain, often hitting myself in the head and pulling out my hair. I'll scratch at my skin and my body just jerks around for 5-15 minutes, sometimes for an hour, after the offensive stimuli. Smells are especially bad, with cigarettes, pot, perfumes, bacon, and dog being among the worst - I'll have a complete meltdown and won't be able to stop crying. This being said, I'm a 19 year old female who's away at college, and can make attending some of my classes extremely awkward and uncomfortable. For example, when a classmate who smelled of cigarette smoke sat down next to me in one of my lectures, I fell to the ground and ran out and had a meltdown (as silently as I could) outside of the room. This has also been causing a lot of issues with me and my boyfriend, where light touches and the feeling of any sort of wet stimuli make me have a complete meltdown.

I also have pretty extreme social anxiety, and am unable to have conversations with strangers. I'm extremely awkward, and don't know how to respond to what they say. Sometimes I'll just start crying when there's a lot (more than five) people around me, and they're all talking. (Loud voices hurt so, so much.) Once I had to spend 5 hours alone in the car with one of my boyfriend's friends without him, and I was so uncomfortable - it caused me physical nausea.

I also stim a lot, especially flapping my arms whenever I get excited or upset.

That being said, I'm able to hold eye contact, and am pretty easily able to read people's emotions and pick up social cues. It's basically all of the physical / behavioral aspects of autism (stimming / SPD) and the social anxiety, but without the deficits in typical social interactions when I *am* in a comfortable conversation with someone I know and trust.

What do you think?

It seems like you're on the spectrum, but that's not a bad thing.