Went through quite some time on waiting lists to be assessed, and one has such questions in ones mind.
Questions like "If I am not autistic, then what am I as I always assumed that there was no one else like me, and suddenly there are lots of me if I am! But if I am not, what does that mean? And what am I even thinking about?"
All sorts of questions!
Is funny, as when one "Finds" all the clues and first puts them together, one can hardly believe it! One has a sort of silly feeling inside.... A sort of playful feeling as if it is some sort of joke! A feeling that returns massively when it is mentioned as a disability. As one has struggled on so many years to reach this point, one kinda forgets one has struggled, and it is then others who point things out...
But then it starts to sink in, that somehow, ones struggles... Well... Most who are not on the spectrum don't struggle somehow? And yet, they have enough to be concerned about on their own!
Is odd, as sometimes one feels those struggles. Yet other times one feels "Normal"! One can't define it!
But being diagnosed is an "Expected shock". One that is hard to define.
It is odd, as sometimes I feel autistic and other times I do not? Sometimes I can mask and hide!
If I can say nothing, and try to walk "Normally" (Whatever that is?) and no one will notice... "Oh... I am being stared at. Someone has noticed!" (Haha!)
Autism is something hard to define!
One either is or one isn't autistic, and if one is one can struggle to explain it, and if one isn't, one can struggle to define it in autistic friends!
Yes, one can point out obvious outwardly noticable difficulties, such as those who are effected in physical ways, but oddly, those traits may not in themselves be autism as in themselves, they could potentially have other causes.
Is why autism is not easy to define or explain...
But what is autism? Is a condition where brain signals in the frontal area of the brain are not connecting to their receptors for one reason or another and therefore cause the autistic person to need to automatically switch to trying to use other areas of ones brain to try and complete the tasks one is doing, which is why one of the key noticeable traits is when someone comes along and completes a task in a different way to how most people complete the task. (And this other approach can at times be an advantage, but this does not mean the artistically minded person always has it easy! The "Dissability" side of autism where it is not noticed physically, is that is the unseen element, that individuals on the spectrum themselves can't explain!
"Why am I being excluded? I have done nothing wrong! Tell me why!" (Where no real logic a l explanation comes, as one has not broken any written or spoken rules but is somehow made to feel as if one has and as if one should know what one has done wrong! Especially when someone explains, and one sees someone else do the same thing and one points the someone else out and one is told "He is one of 'Us'. He is allowed to do that", like situations ai have been in in the past when getting told off for things no one can define or put rules on!
Even on autism sites like another site I am on I am facing this! So many hidden rules that on there I can't function! Their written rules bend in all directions to make them fit situations to let others get away with things when if I copy them, I am not allowed to do! Why I am on this site where hardly anyone really knows me, and why I don't say too much about myself just incase!
Unwritten rules are the ones! Rules that can't be defined!)
So how does one know if one is autistic? Pass!
