I’m Autistic.
AuDHD, actually, since I’ve got ADHD, too.
I kinda figured on the ADHD thing for a long-while—that made sense. Not gonna lie though: I was kinda surprised by the Autism diagnosis.
I’m Autistic?
Where to begin…
It started last year—the diagnosis, not the Autism, that is. A year earlier (2024) I had been diagnosed as ADHD at age 39, after having suspicions for a loooong time, and realizing that I really wanted to see if medication helped. Work was getting really difficult. I’ll prolly return to ADHD, it’s the Loki to my Autism’s Odin. Or something. I dunno, I’m not good with analogies. Metaphors? Whatever... Anyway, I want to focus on Autism first.
A month or so after my ADHD diagnosis I was having coffee with an old friend—my oldest friend, might as well be my brother—and we got on the topic of Autism. We were discussing if either of us had it (we’re both ADHD and have a lot of the same cognitive...differences), though he’s known about his ADHD much longer I did my own. I was pretty sure that he might be Autistic, but not me. I felt pretty certain about that.
As the next few months passed, however, I repeatedly thought back on the conversation. Might there be something to it? I couldn’t stop this itchy thought that maybe I am Autistic. I’d seen a number of Autistic-focused meme dumps and a lot of them felt very familiar—the ADHD ones always felt all too familiar. Then early Spring hit, the worst time of year for me mentally (not gonna get into here, let’s just say some traumatic shit happened about a decade ago that comes back around each and every spring). I decided to get back into therapy, as I had stopped in the early months of Covid lockdowns. I also reached out to the university’s psychology program to ask if they did adult Autism assessments. They didn’t, but they gave me a referral to a local psychologist who did, so I sent an email requesting an assessment. Got on a waitlist, and learned I would have to wait ~6 months. Fine, no biggie. In the meantime, found a therapist: EMDR-specialist. Had always been fascinated by EMDR, was briefly introduced to it in the last few sessions with my previous therapist right before Covid. He’s a nice guy—I’m still seeing him ~1x/month, but I also have a new therapist who I see weekly: he’s AuDHD specialist and is fan-fucking-tastic. Never felt so understood, never had such results from therapy as I’ve had working with him.
[note: you’re seeing my ADHD come front and center right now—the ever-present need to feel that everything I say requires qualifiers, detailed explanation, and context, both historical and situational. Fuck...this side note itself is providing a case-in-point example...]
So, anyway, I have the few early introductory sessions with my EMDR therapist (just talk therapy, not EMDR) and later mention that I’m on a waitlist for Autism diagnosis, mainly just out of personal interest and learning more about myself. He laughs and says that’s a good idea, because he was going to recommend it.
Uhh, okay…
I was not expecting that. But cool...I guess?
Months pass, therapy going pretty well, waiting on Autism assessment. Late summer hits and while it would pass through my mind every now and then, I wasn’t really dwelling on the upcoming assessment. Then I hear a podcast interview with Dr. Megan Anna Neff, she’s being interviewed on the “Clearer Thinking” podcast. The title of the episode is something hilariously direct like: “A Conversation With an Autistic Person.” I listen. I’m dumbfounded. I’ve rarely felt so “seen.” Dr. Neff’s descriptions of her reality is all-too-familiar.
“Wait...that’s Autism?!”
I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I think I was in a bit of a state of denial. Not because I didn’t want it to be true, “fear” of being Autistic was never a concern of mine. More a feeling of Imposter Syndrome. Hell, here I am just over a year after my official diagnosis and I still feel like an imposter, though less and less as time goes on. I’ll return to that, I’m sure. So I listen to the episode again. And the next day, again. And a few days later, for a fourth time. I track down the episode transcript and send it to my wife, because I know that she’s not gonna sit through a one-hour+ audio interview, but she’ll prolly read it, especially if I ask her to. She does. She tells me that yes, there are a lot of similarities. I get the impression that she doesn’t see them as strongly as I do, but they’re there. Honestly, that makes sense. I tend to live in my head, in my own little world, and I’m absolutely fucking terrible about expressing myself, especially verbally, and particularly when it involves talking about feelings. Not because I’m some wannabe “macho” man, but because I quite literally don’t know how to express the emotions and thoughts that I feel outside of intellectual processing. Hell, I don’t even know why I feel the things that I do a lot of the time—I later learn this is not uncommon for Autistics: alexithymia.
So anyway, my assessment appointment is about 5-6 weeks away at this point. Now I’m getting into it. I start reading up on Autism, I start listening to podcasts (especially Dr. Neff’s own “Divergent Conversations” that she co-hosts with another AuDHD mental health specialist). When I say I start listening to the podcast, what I mean to say is that I systematically work my way through the entire fucking catalogue of 100-ish episodes. I take every Autism screener that I can find online. Like ALL of them. The results? Well, let’s just say that I’m totally winning at Autism. My scores are high, sometimes really high, on pretty much every screener. Of course, these are just screeners I tell myself, they’re not an assessment. Nonetheless, I’m getting more and more convinced. But there’s still this voice in my head saying: “nah, you’re just faking this shit; you’re not Autistic.”
Hmmm. Maybe it’s right? So I take the screeners again. And again. I take them at different times of day, in different moods, I take them and actively try to be as conservative (non-Autistic) as possible to see if maybe I’ve just been unconsciously inflating my scores. After all, at this point, I have a pretty good idea what the questions are getting at/measuring. Does it make a difference? Not really. Even my most “conservative” attempts still show me scoring well within the threshold for Autism.
Huh…
I then read the book “Is This Autism?” While there are a number of aspects of Autism and reported experiences from Autistics that I don’t vibe with—or rather, not to the same degree/severity—a lot of it clicks. Most of it. I check all the boxes for the DSM-V-TR’s criteria. Okay then. Whelp, I guess I know what’s coming.
I figure that since I’ve taken all these screeners, I might as well share them with the psychologist who was going to do my assessment. Looking back now—though my wife did also mention it at the time—this was an incredibly Autistic thing to do. Not the sharing so much, but how I went about it. I didn’t just share the screeners. I made an entire document that included the questions and answers, the scores, and my own annotations. I made notes throughout breaking down all the questions that I particularly found weird/overly-broad/vague/not sure of what it was asking me. I end up with this like 30-page document, ~5 of the pages just being my personal annotations: notes/observations/comments and in-depth, detailed explanations for why I answered the way I did, or why I felt the question was too vague.
I even included a fucking table of contents page.
I sent it to the psychologist.
Long story short, the first scheduled assessment meeting falls through due to a miscommunication and a malfunctioning automated-reminder system. It stresses me out. I end up driving around town desperately trying to find the psychologist’s office (there are multiple addresses online: fuck you Google…). Turns out, the session was telehealth and I miss it. The psychologist understands, recognizes that their own automated system was to blame, and apologizes. We reschedule for two weeks later. Argh. At least it’s not another six months!
The assessment day finally comes. I will not get into details, but after ~3 hours I walk out having been told that, yup, I meet all the criteria.
I’m Autistic.
I’m Autistic?
I’m Autistic.
Not gonna lie. Still feels kinda weird to say that. A year on and I do definitely feel it more. It’s not a completely foreign concept to me. I do periodically, though less and less, get hit with Imposter Syndrome. Like, is this all some ruse? Am I just so manipulative that I managed to game the system and get a diagnosis? Is this all for some sense of a desire to be “officially different/unique?” But why? What purpose does that serve? I’m not getting any accommodations. I chose the more affordable, non-accommodation-seeking assessment route, the route for people who are simply curious and want to learn more about themselves. It’s not like I’m getting any tangible benefit from this diagnosis. Well, that’s not entirely true, I do get the benefit of having a framework for understanding so many of the struggles that I’ve had throughout my life, and now I have a name for it. But it’s not like I’m getting paid more. Or getting special treatment. Hell, a year on and there are less than 15 people in the world who know I’m Autistic, three of them are mental health professionals, and one of them a medical professional (my doctor). I guess you now know. Whoever you are…
I think I’ll turn this into a series of posts. There’s a lot more to cover, like: what are my experiences? What specific Autistic traits am I regularly experiencing? What has changed since learning this about myself? What do I do with this knowledge? There’s a lot to cover. Eventually, I’m also gonna have to invite ADHD into the conversation, because my experience of Autism is definitely impacted by my ADHD.
But that will be for another day.