Still undiagnosed but looking to get diagnosed as soon as possible because I can't handle more burnouts and I feel like I need external help to manage them (I live alone unless you account for my two cats).
Anyway, my story's kind of very long and complicated, but the shorter version is that I suspect I had Asperger's but I pushed it aside because I couldn't relate to the stereotype. I also figured it's very unlikely I had it anyway, given it's a rare condition and it's a known problem among psychology students to overidentify with various diagnoses once they learn about them. Like many, I ran across it because I just needed an answer why I had always felt so different, which took me down the rabbit hole of psychology and sociology that are still two interests that are with me today. I used what I learned from these and other sciences to compensate for my lack of innate understanding of social relationships.
The thought has always kind of been there though and I don't know why, because a lot of the time when I look up online diagnoses and read about them, maybe they can stick with me for a while where I go "Sure, I can see myself in that and that makes somewhat sense", but eventually it just fades away. Autism never did. And frankly, back then, I didn't know that much about it beyond what I found on Google, and since this was in the 2000s, the information about the diagnosis was not very accurate either.
No one has pointed out that I seem autistic though. Instead I've managed to slip under the radar of many therapists and even the psychiatrist who evaluated me for my gender dysphoria. Then again only one therapist thought I had PTSD and not a single one has picked that I probably have alexithymia. So for me it came as an epiphany where I suddenly saw my life in a much bigger perspective than usual and realized what I thought about myself and my life wasn't quite what I thought it was and actually hit a lot of typical traits, just not in the way the stereotype always describes them. So I have spent the past weeks reframing the person I thought I was and I see how more and more things just click into place, really. Also, hanging out in autism meeting spots online and talking to other autistics and to take part of their experiences has helped a lot, though what really sealed it for me was the topic of monotropism and the theory of mind, because these two theories explained so many of my struggles both in daily life and social relationships. It was that golden key to explain the theory of all social relations I had been looking for but never found before.
24 Nov 2023, 2:34 pm
