For starters, I am self diagnosed. I have brought it up to my family doctor, therapist and psychiatrist a few times. Each time I was shut down because I either didn’t have problems with communication (or some other dated reasoning) or that there was no point to be diagnosed as an adult because there are no support systems for that. Which was disheartening to say the least. I always knew I was not neurotypical but I didn’t have the words to describe it yet. I was just quirky, weird, introverted but also out spoken with a strong sense of justice. I began going down that rabbit whole because of tiktok, honestly. It had been on my radar before hand but I had an ignorant view on what autism was before that, I had never even heard of a female being diagnosed. I was however diagnosed with ADHD when I was 26. As well as schizotypal, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder. To name a few. None of them felt right to me. Until that is, I started listening and reading about autistic women when I was around 28. I had just had a 6 week trip to the mental health ward and was unknowingly on the road to the end of the bad relationship I was in (a blessing). That’s when I started seriously thinking I might be autistic. Four years later at 32 I have accepted my self diagnosis as truth and don’t doubt it nearly as often. I do sometimes wish I had an official diagnosis but I understand that’s asking for alot. Most doctors dont have the knowledge of what autism can look like in women, let alone that it is a spectrum.
I look forward to hearing your stories!
On the possibility that no one will respond to this post since our group is just beginning and I often ramble, I hope I will have the confidence to try again to begin some sort of engagement here. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Take care!
*Artwork done by me, @ strange.roots on Instagram. Just thought this post could use some colour.
I remember being 5 years old in my back yard wondering why I was different.
I always looked. I actually read books by a woman who worked with kids who have autism, and even wished it wasn’t just a boy thing because it sounded like me. Forgot about that until one day a few years ago I was looking at cnn.com and they had an article saying something like autism isn’t just for boys, it presents differently in girls. I read that article and cried. It all made sense.
Everything I’ve read since has just reaffirmed it, and my husband, having a normal brain and in the psychology field, took me step by step through the DSM criteria. I originally thought I had maybe 3 of the symptoms. As he went through it, he pointed out things I do that meet the criteria in every category but 2. So I can’t even trust myself to diagnose me since my brain works differently from the author.
I tried in 2016, before I met said husband. I got the dreaded social pragmatic language disorder for my trouble.
My husband and I have gone over the idea and I’m going to try again for a diagnosis. I went through autistic burnout after I was fired from yet another job and my husband has had to take care of me because I went from being a strong independent mother of two, to being unable to wear shoes because I strangle my feet with the laces. It’s been so hard to deal with this and I feel like I’m made of glass now after being steel for so long. There ARE supports for adults. Just as there are with all disabilities. Because this IS a disability. My husband works with people of all ages with various mental conditions, with autism being the most common, and naturally being an expert with it thanks to me.
So in October I will be going back to the only person within 100 miles who can diagnose me. All so if something happens to him, someone is taking care of me. Otherwise I would literally starve because I refuse to leave the house.
Also, I can trace every single bad thing that happened to me in life, and there was a lot, to an autistic trait. If I had known, or my mother had taken it seriously that I used to go scream and cry in a corner when frustrated instead of making it a somehow funny story, most of those things wouldn’t have happened.