I am 27F. I’ve been wondering if I am on the autistic spectrum for a while now as I feel alien, disconnected and weird during social interactions. I’ve never been taken seriously because people see me as socially gifted. So I took an online test, not as a way to diagnose myself, but to show proof to my actual therapist there might be something to explore. I scored 154 on 200.
Weirdly, she didn’t dismiss me like other professionals did. She just said it’s a great question to ask but as part of her training she did not study this so she can’t evaluate me for it, I’ll have to ask my psychiatrist.
Now I am terrified of getting a diagnosis, the little voice inside of my head tells me “what if I am creating a whole story in my head?”
You have imposter syndrome. Have you taken cat-q test on embrace autism site? I’d say if you made it so far till here you are probably autistic lol. But seriously speaking I’d do more tests on the site https://embrace-autism.com/ and do more self evaluation and research. Try to learn about sensitivities more and see which might apply to you, if you figure out you are sensitive to loud sound/light or certain situations then try to learn to stim and see if stimming feels natural to you. Watch some videos from this channel to get rid of imposter syndrome https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3hsywnsl7c It took me half year to properly self diagnose I am around your age and figured out myself just recently but I’m man, for woman and non binary people there is way higher masking and camouflaging level so self diagnosing is even more difficult. Half year ago I was convinced light and noise don’t affect me and I am very good with looking at everyone’s eyes and now I have ASD lvl 2 evaluation from clinical psychologist who said that I actually suck at eye contact lol (well they said not “suck” but struggling). I also learned I’m quite sensitive to environment, its a process of self realization. If something looks for you as “nah no way I am never like that/ never had it” then after self realization it might turn quite opposite and you will realize you actually just wasn’t self aware enough and was hard masking.
Thank you for the ressources I’ll take the test.
I suck at eye contact too, I asked my parents some questions about my childhood and it seems I already showed signs of autism, which isn’t too shocking for me as I remember isolating myself from other kids and staying with adults instead… I never had many friends and as I’ve told my therapist I learned body language through books.
I already stim and it calms me down, I always thought it was nothing much since my stimming is just moving my leg up and down, I always thought it was because of my anxiety.
Well, thank you for the ressources you’re really nice.
No matter what, you are still you.
A diagnosis, or a professionally assessed lack of one, can only help you understand better.
Yes absolutely
My diagnosis helped me to understand why I had difficulties with some things, how to work with/around it, and why I needed to put less pressure on myself.
A diagnosis doesn’t make you different or worse, it gives you a language to describe yourself. You don’t need to use that language if you don’t want to, even after a diagnosis.
The main discovery for me was autistic burnout. People often experience burnout when working too hard or getting stressed at work, but for someone with autism, just trying to survive in an environment built for neurotypical people can cause the same symptoms.
The cure for burnout is the same, but an autistic person doesn’t have the option to stop participating in society. A diagnosis can (depending on where you live) assist with finding supports to help take care of overwhelming tasks.Autistic burnout is also relatively new to the medical field, so it is very often misdiagnosed as depression and anxiety. While some medication can help with the symptoms, only treating the root cause with fix it.
I was diagnosed with depression, and nothing seemed to help. It was only when I realised that I needed to stop push so hard and actually rest that my symptoms improved.I still have bad days, but now I can recognize why (most of the time), and have strategies to slowly bring myself back to normal.
Thank you for your comment, I understand better now.
I mean, what is the downside?
Your diagnosis comes back positive? Great, now you can leverage that to access support and resources to help.
Your diagnosis comes back negative? Cool, now you know and nothing changes.
Not always… After the tests I was considered to be “broader autism phenotype”, some obvious traits but neurotypical, until after about a year and no further testing the same psychiatrist decided that yes there were enough met criteria and set a diagnosis. 🤷♂️
Then again the “some obvious traits” was enough to gain the self-understanding, just I didn’t dare access peer support.
