I’m Pursuing An Official Autism Diagnosis

For now, I’ll self-diagnose!

It’s been an interesting week.

I’ve been writing about my ADHD diagnosis and aspects of the disorder for a couple of months since my diagnosis. I most recently published an article titled, “I Don’t Like Making Eye Contact With People” to which a few people related. The majority of people who responded to the article were autistic. One even commented that my discomfort with eye contact was more of an autism thing, and disrupted gaze was more of an ADHD thing.

This sent me down a rabbit hole.

I’ve been actively trying to learn about autism and ADHD for about two years, mostly because I find the topics fascinating. I knew that understanding how it affects people would make me a better nurse and, eventually, a nurse practitioner. I read and looked at infographics and stories told by #actuallyautistic people because it became clear very quickly that if I want to help them, I need to listen to them!

(I don’t have a Ph.D. in clinical psychology or anything, but that concept seems like a given.)

For the majority of the last two years, I had a sinking suspicion that I was also neurodivergent somehow. Neither autism nor ADHD felt completely correct because I identified with parts of both, and I didn’t think anything I went through growing up was severe enough for a real diagnosis. I eventually decided that surely one of the two fit me, and ADHD seemed the more correct and more accessible answer.

It took one session with a new psych provider to get diagnosed and begin treatment for ADHD. Let me tell myself again how my symptoms aren’t severe enough for a diagnosis.

In hindsight, my interest in autism and ADHD was… special. I kept it close to my heart and got excited whenever someone brought them up. I wanted to tell people everything I could remember to regurgitate, but I often held back (because of the responses I got from elementary school peers about early special interests). My (now) ex-boyfriend endeared himself to me by asking me about my interests and letting me infodump.

Well, flash forward to this last week, where I’ve been obsessively researching stories from late-diagnosed female autistics. I’ve found articles and taken screening tests, and it all points to one conclusion!

I am autistic!

It would take hours to type up all of my examples for all of my traits. There are things that I’ve dealt with for years that I had no idea were related to autism. Chronic constipation was certainly a surprise, and I would love to know why that’s so common. I’ve walked on my toes for as long as I can remember (not always, I alternate with regular walking), and I’ve never thought twice about it.

It’s also interesting to feel so called out for certain behaviors. I rarely consciously noted how much I copied other people’s social behaviors in order to fit in. I knew I often picked up on others’ mannerisms and phrases, but I didn’t realize that I was actually mimicking tones and body language. I definitely did that a lot, though.

I’ve always known I was introverted. That’s never been questioned, and it’s never been challenged. My mother — who I strongly suspect is also autistic — hates spending time with other people outside of her family and needs ample alone time. I’ve always been the same way. When I came home from school, I would change into comfy clothes — because school clothes felt grimy by the end of the day — and retreat to my room. I was perfectly content to spend most of my afternoons and evenings by myself or next to my mom. In fact, I needed that time. The more time I spent outside of my comfortable spaces, the more likely I was to break down.

I believe that the insufficient amount of alone time I got in college contributed to what I thought was severe depression and anxiety but was actually autistic burnout. That is why I had such a hard time pursuing my special interests, that’s why I no longer enjoyed learning, and that is why I started displaying more autistic traits. I no longer had the ability to mask.

There are so many people — especially those who identify as female — who have been on the same journey I’m on. They’ve described feeling like they became “more autistic” when they started learning about autism or when they were burned out. The truth is, we aren’t “more autistic” after discovering this about ourselves. We’re simply more educated and know what to look for, or we’re too exhausted to mask our traits. In my case, it was both.

I am still recovering from burnout, and it’s been about four years.

For the longest time, I’ve berated myself for becoming more introverted and requiring more time away from others, terrified that I would be friendless and partnerless forever. Now I understand that I need to be more compassionate toward myself and allow for rest and recharge. I need to learn to stop feeling bad for needing so much time for myself.

For the last week, I’ve constantly been stimming. I also wrote an article about this a couple of months ago, but to sum it up, stimming is any behavior that helps to self-regulate or self-soothe. Whenever I feel an intense emotion, particularly happiness/excitement, I stim. I tap my fingers, my collarbone, and plenty of other parts of my body. I make noises, I rock back and forth, I wiggle, I rub my feet together, I squeeze myself, I do so much that I don’t even notice what is or isn’t a stim. If I’m home alone, I’m probably stimming. It’s my favorite thing about autism.

I have a bachelor’s degree and am on the waitlist to begin my master’s. I have a well-paying job, and I live by myself comfortably. There’s probably not any physical benefit to obtaining an official diagnosis because I most likely won’t qualify for any accommodations. I still want a diagnosis.

I crave validation. I crave being told by a qualified professional that I’m right. I crave having something to officially tell me I belong to a community, even if that community already accepts self-diagnosed individuals.

Even if the diagnosis says I don’t need any accommodations due to my “high-functioning” case, I still want to be able to tell my superiors that I might need some extra help now and then. If this would allow me to never work three shifts in a row ever again, or if it gets me out of attending those awful phone meetings, it would be worth it.

It might take me a year or longer to get a diagnosis. I’m willing to wait.

(Actually, I have ADHD, so I will not be patient.)