Hello ! My name is Eli, I am 21 years old and I come from France (yeah..).
I have never been diagnosed with autism but I do have a diagnosis of dyspraxia. However I've always found I have a lot of things in common with people who have aspergers.
I do not, however, have aspergers because I lack the routines and the rigid thinking patterns (even if I have special interests and I stim a little, since I have a few sensory issues).
Also like really, my dyspraxia is very mild and the strongest part of it is more the perception and social problems than the coordination problems (oh, also I'm very very emotional and sensitive and anxious)... I also have mild dyscalculia.
yeah, I do have social problems, but I don't know, because they were way way way stronger when I was younger, I have been bullied from 7th grade to 10th grade because of those. But now at college I am able to make friends, even if I find it hard to get close friendships, I mostly have big groups of friends because I find one-on-one interaction difficult (I read everywhere that it should be the contrary ? But one-on-one : more things to say, more awkward silences, when with several people I get to sit back and smile and nod and add my own thoughts from time to time and it's fine...)
I am able to meet people if there's ONE person I already know who can help me and introduce people actually. It's how I made all my friends.
I've read about NLD recently and it's like mixing all the symptoms of dyspraxia I have and all the aspergers symptoms I have into the perfect diagnosis. Like really I fit for everything.... but I have no choice but to self-diagnose, because in France nobody knows this
(well tbh if I had AS it'd be the same. geez, this country)
So yeah here I am ! Oh and yeah, I mod the Dyspraxic Panda meme on tumblr so this is where my nickname comes from.
Gotta admit I have a special interest on autism too, so.. Yeah.
I study media and communication (what a joke I know) along with linguistics at college but I'm going to finish my degree very soon and then go into a "Medias management and theatre" master. It's going to be terrifying because if I get in I'll have to leave home and live in a city far away ;w;
That was very boring so thank you if you've read all of this. uwu