Am I Even Autistic?

[Puppywings49]

This might be a long and weird post, sorry.

I've been diagnosed with autism for around a year. I diagnosed myself first, then after around a year, I was professionally diagnosed. But for this past year, I've been increasingly anxious about the diagnosis and none of my friends or family know much about autism, so they aren't much help.

I am aware that the people who diagnosed me are professionals, but at the same time, one of the two people evaluating me went from talking to me like I understood words to talking to me like a child after the evaluation. It went from, "Tell me about how you think your potential autism has impacted you in your daily life," to, "Shake my hand. Ah! Too firm! No, no, you're too close. Step back. Now look me in the eye. Yeah, good job! Now remember, don't tell your friends about this, because they may not like you anymore." You can probably see why I don't trust them much.

In addition, when I was talking about it to my mom during the car ride home, she mentioned something she told the evaluator talking to her and my dad, and what she said was entirely wrong (I can see how she thought that, but it was still wrong). If she said something untrue like that once, what guarantee do I have that anything else they based my diagnosis on was true?

And I don't seem like other autistic people. Because I'm me, here's an organized list of symptoms and their counters.

Meltdowns. I have them, but I can count the number of them I've had as far as I can remember one one hand. But on the other hand, they were both at birthday parties because I was forced to be around people a long time and I freaked out.

Shutdowns. These are a lot more common for me. I've had at least five in the past month. My emotions go blank and my thoughts drift away and my body is numbed and I feel kinda drowsy and all my answers to questions are either automated or don't make sense or are just silence, and it's really hard to talk. Plus, my perception of sight narrows to a strip, and I'm basically numb to everything outside that strip. But that might be just my brain tricking me because I think I should have them? I don't know.

Sensory sensitivities. My ears can be pretty sensitive, but I don't know if it's normal or not to feel physical pressure in my ears when brakes squeal. Is that normal? I never asked. The sound of my math teacher's voice can start to make my brain feel weirdly itchy sometimes. I have to wear earplugs at school dances and at band practice because it's too loud, and I guess I haven't noticed other people doing that, but at the same time, school dances seem like they should immediately destroy me because they're loud and there's flashing lights and people everywhere, but they don't. I usually end up shaking afterwards, but I can still laugh and talk with my friends just fine and be perfectly happy.
Tags kill me, and I really can't stand a lot of fabrics. If clothes are too tight, I start to panic. I guess there's that. That's why I wear pretty much the same thing every day.

Sensory deficiencies. If I stay still, my limbs sorta fade away and it feels really wrong. That's why I'm constantly moving, whether just sorta knocking my feet together or bouncing off the back of my chair.

Stimming. I suppose there isn't much to debate here. I rock, spin, pace in circles, chew on my fingers, flap or shake out my hands, kick my legs out, chew at my mouth, sit with my hands pinned under me, lay with one arm pinned under me, and twist my hair into knots. I used to chew my hair, but I was forced out of that.

Routines. I used to have a lot of them, but now I have pretty much none. They've all been destroyed. It has resulted in me getting practically nothing done, but other than that, it doesn't upset me much. The ones I do have, I'm pretty attached to, but they're so small that it doesn't seem like it matters.

Emotions. I tend to absorb upset, but then spit it back out as anger or other things. People have called me apathetic, especially my mom, but I don't feel like that's true. I do get upset when others are upset, but it's usually either that I end up angry or annoyed or I end up feeling like it's all my fault and feeling terribly guilty about it.
Plus I don't seem to feel my own emotions a lot of the time. For example, I'll feel a negative feeling and be unsure of what it is for a bit? Usually, I'm able to differentiate between fear and anger and sadness, but the little complexities escape me, and I can't name any times I've felt more than one emotion at a time, though I'm sure I have.

Special interests. When I was little, I loved space and volcanos and Pompeii and the Titanic. When I got a little older, I loved dogs. More recently, I was obsessed with Wings of Fire and autism and movie criticism and Steven Universe. Whenever I get into something, it does tend to take an all-encompassing hold of me. I talk non-stop about it, spend hours every day learning about it or watching it or reading it. There's... really no counterargument for this one.

Eye contact. I can do it. I unconsciously do it sometimes. Other times, I can't and I end up looking down or to the side or at anything else. But a lot of the time, something in my brain goes, "look at their eyes! it's important!" and I do with minimal discomfort.

Thinking? I think in words most of the time. A lot of other things are impressions or images, but a lot of words. Mostly words.

Honesty. I'm a liar. Nothing more to say here.

Body language. I use context clues to figure out emotions, but a lot of body language reading happens unconsciously, so how do I know if I do it or not? I've asked my friends what it's like, and they just shrugged. Admittedly, all of my friends are rather odd, and there's no guarantee that they're not all also autistic. It... makes sense in a lot of ways.
Anyway, the best reference I have for that is books, which say things like, "his jaw tensed, and I trailed off, realizing it was a touchy subject," and I have no idea if that's realistic or not? My mom says it is, but that seems a little exaggerated to me. Any non-Aspies or non-Autis who see this, would you be so kind to let me know?

Overall, I'm just unsure of myself, which is causing a lot of anxiety, and I felt like I needed to ask people who knew before I exploded. Thank you if you read this, and even more so if you take the time to respond.

 

[Nervous Rex]

I couldn't tell you if you're autistic - I'll leave that to the professionals.

What is clear to me is that, if the counselor isn't working for you, you need to find another one.

You're also welcome to post and participate here, ask questions, find out what works for others and see if it works for you. I think you'll find this to be a very supportive place.

 

[Voltaic]

When I first heard my doctors say I was autistic, I didn't believe it. I didn't research before trying to diagnosis myself, and autism didn't fit the bill. I sat on the diagnosis for a while, the doctor said it was pretty clear cut but I didn't see it.

It took a while for me to start to see the connections, and understand what being autistic means. They call it a spectrum because it effects everyone differently. Sure, there may be people who suffer with an almost stereotypical set of symptoms, but to some it is harder to see.

Over time, you may learn more about the diagnosis, and learn more about how you fit into it.

 

[Thinx]

Maybe the label is feeling onerous now you have it, and I do think that when we realise we are generally in a loosely defined group we can start to feel the discomfort that the label may carry. Especially if it's a minority or in some ways disparaged group. When I was at Grammar school in the UK 45 years or so ago, there were plenty of people like me and there was no label for us if we were doing well at academic work. Plenty of us were shall we say Odd, and as it was a girl's school I feel sure some of us were masking our confusion about things.

I ticked most of the boxes back then but labels applied were shy, intelligent, awkward, disorganised, creative, funny, individual /original, lacks focus. No one really noticed or cared if we had few friends and were socially awkward. That doesn't stop you going to university was probably the opinion, and it didn't, although it was socially very challenging but again, this was seen as shyness etc then. I had lots of really clear markers but I also had a strange family so I spent a lot of time with counsellors at university and after trying to work myself out. I got work that was commensurate with my intelligence and was always able to cope. I feel sure you will too.

The diagnosis is somewhat behavioural and isnt a science, but you sound like you are in the ball park, as you originally noticed. Sounds like you are an interesting bright deep thinking person. Overthinking and obsessing does go with the territory if you're in this general area, so maybe work on some self distraction strategies to stop yourself brooding on this? I do things like say, whatever, so what to myself... I try to only obsess about interests rather than worries. It works quite well on the whole.

Your thinking is what will get you through, try to use it to find ways around the difficulties caused by emotional confusion. Some of us are on the edge of a diagnosis field, are we or aren't we? If diagnosis is of use to you in some ways, maybe just embrace what it offers, but the life you have may in any case benefit from you picking up tips from others similar to yourself, if these are sometimes useful.

 

[Progster]

I can relate to this, as I often have some doubts, even though I have an official diagnosis of Asperger's.

 

[pjcnet]

Firstly there's no such thing as a typical autistic person because we are all unique and we have varying levels of different traits, in fact it's not uncommon not to have some traits at all and still be autistic, this can even be the case with the most severely affected people on the lower part of the autistic spectrum. Both my adult brothers are on the very low functioning part of the autistic spectrum and are so severe that they were first diagnosed as young children way back in the 1970s when it was very rare for anything other than low functioning autism to be diagnosed (I was also diagnosed because I was very slow to develop speech, although unlike them I later started improving, although I still kept numerous autistic traits). They are both about as able as an average 2 year old, but are different in other ways, for instance they can't count to 5 or read and write. They have most autistic traits at a very high level and some are at an extreme level. David is however extremely good at controlling a football with his feet (AKA. soccer ball for people in the USA), in fact it even became one of his 2 special interests along with drawing and he can also ride a push bike extremely well, yet autistic people are supposed to have impaired motor skills and co-ordination, something that hasn't seemed to affect either of my brothers or myself. It's a shame David has been unable to interact with others to play football properly and sadly isn't able to comprehend the rules of the game.

From what you've described it definitely sounds like you're on the autistic spectrum, although I obviously haven't met you face to face and got to know your traits first hand. It's not uncommon for autistic people who truly are autistic to question their diagnosis however, especially when there's always people on the autistic spectrum who are affected even worse than they are.

I couldn't tell you if you're autistic - I'll leave that to the professionals.

Actually I think many autistic people would be much better at spotting and even potentially diagnosing other autistic people better than many NT "professionals", only autistic people have been there and know what it's truly like, yet they are hardly ever in professional positions that involve working with other autistic people or in autism research Etc. when in my opinion they should be. I am sceptical on the accuracy of the diagnosis process when it is exclusively developed by NTs, especially when the diagnosis process is always changing while it also varies depending on your location. An autism diagnosis is far from consistent and yet the vast majority of people seem to accept the result as an absolute fact without ever challenging it. We can't tell how many non autistic people have been incorrectly diagnosed or not diagnosed when they are truly autistic, but there's bound to be a considerable number even though the vast majority of people are likely to be diagnosed correctly. Even if just 1% of people are misdiagnosed or not diagnosed, this is an awful lot of people. In my opinion there's likely to be more cases where autistic people are not diagnosed however because some autistic people are very good at covering up their traits and can emulate being an NT really well, on average more autistic women seem to be better at this than men and may pass as an NT while also failing a diagnosis. At least some "professionals" are starting to recognise this, although it's still difficult for them to spot these autistic individuals.