I Am Autistic

I have arrived at middle age, a lot of years behind me. It's been a long, hard road. I have felt misunderstood, I have felt outcast, I have felt like I was on the outside looking in. I have wondered why I find it so difficult to connect with people and to maintain friendships. Why something as simple as small talk and eye contact is so difficult for me. I've wondered why I feel like an alien. Like, genuinely, from another planet.

I think my experience has been tinted by being an artist. I kind of accepted my being different because I have a creative mind, chalked it up to me being an eccentric artist. It's a common enough stereotype that ... I was mostly satisfied with that.

But it doesn't actually explain my social difficulties or my sensory issues. It doesn't explain why I so enjoyed lining up my toys when I was a kid, or why I would just hit a breaking point and have what I now realize was a meltdown.

I just thought it was me. That I was alone in my unique brand of weirdness. I've known a lot of "weird" people but I didn't even mesh well with most of them.

Years ago, a friend of mine who is autistic looked at me in the middle of our lunch conversation and said "you know, you might be autistic". I brushed it off. I didn't really consider it. At the time, I didn't really know what autism was. Most of my exposure to it, surprise surprise, came from movies, tv, and such. Which, I realize is a terrible resource to learn about something. But I never saw myself in those characters... well... maybe one of them. That would be House. But only a little bit. In retrospect, now that I am more aware of the trope of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, yeah... I match up with a lot of those characteristics. Right down to how guys I've had relationships with have seen me.

I didn't think that I stimmed. I didn't realize my sensory issues were... well... sensory issues. I always knew I thought differently, my favorite way to explain it was that most people go from A, to B, to C, to D, where my brain seems to go straight from A to D. It just ....takes a different path. I arrive at conclusions much more simply and easily than others do. I just assumed that was a feature of what I was told was a high intelligence.

I thought... I make eye contact. I can interact socially. Sure, eye contact is super uncomfortable and I spend the whole time trying to figure out if I'm doing it right.... but I do it. I can talk to people casually, and force myself into small talk if I feel it's necessary, but again, I spend the entire time hyper aware of every little thing I am doing. I'm monitoring my every gesture, the tone of my voice, my facial expressions, trying to make sure I'm doing it right. And I don't know if this is because it's just always been a part of me, but I guess I never really thought about how easy all of this seems to come to other people. I guess I just thought it was me being me.

But then I watched a TED Talk by a girl who spoke about how she is autistic, like her brother, but went undetected... unlike her brother. He was diagnosed earlier than her. The reason for this is because she adapted and masked her autism from a young age, made it invisible to the outside world. While she appeared to be allistic, the reality inside of her was that she was struggling because she was constantly juggling masking and just trying to live life and accomplish the things we must accomplish.

It put a bug in my ear for a second time. I remembered back to what my friend had said over falafel. Maybe it was worth looking into deeper.

Still, time passed. Nearly a year. I felt like autism was some how too good for me. It was like I thought I didn't deserve it. I discounted the things that made me feel like I could be, I wrote them off as coincidences. But I didn't know enough.

A couple of months ago, on a whim, I started watching more people talking about their autism on YouTube. I heard them say things that I had felt or struggled with my entire life. I suddenly felt seen and understood. These people were describing me. They knew me better than most of the people I have ever known.

I dove deeper, I took quizzes, I joined Facebook groups. I read and learned. And........

Then I self diagnosed.

From tending to want to walk on my tippy toes when I'm barefoot, especially when I was younger to my intense avoidance of eye contact with people I don't know, to the realization of just how much I stim, in how many ways. (Hint: it's a lot.) I started to realize all the autistic traits I carry and what I've struggled with since childhood.

Of course, I still doubt myself. I have imposter syndrome, I've known that for years because it's appeared in other areas of my life and I looked into it. Every day I wonder if I'm actually autistic. And every day, I hear something from someone who is autistic that reaffirms that my self diagnosis is correct.

Even if it isn't, I fit so well into this community that it would genuinely surprise me.

So here I am, two months into the realization that I am autistic, and finding answers and a community that is slowly changing my life.

I'm autistic...and I get it now.