The Alien Society

You touch down on a foreign planet.  The people there look like you, have the same biology.  They even speak the same language.  But as you meet them, observe them, and interact with them, you start to realize you're very different from them.

You exist in a nearly telepathic state.  You can feel the emotions of people around you.  To some degree, you can tell what they're thinking about, what they want, what they need, what they expect.  You sense the goings on around you that are unspoken.  You don't speak of your inner world, express your emotions or sympathies.  You may be mute, partially or fully.  Speaking, finding the words, making eye contact, these are all very powerful and deep interactions that are so emotional to you.  You rarely say anything that doesn't have a deep emotional attachment and you're disinterested in the words of others that lack an emotional attachment.  You don't feel right making eye contact "just because" and prefer to do so only with people whom you want to be deeply connected on a soul level.  If you do force yourself to make eye contact, others may find it unsettling or piercing because your gaze carries a weight with it.  You don't just see the mundane visible world.  You see a persons spirit, their intentions, their motivations, their feelings.  And they sense this.

Some are drawn to you, some are repelled.  How this alien world responds to your presence is wildly varied.  You scare some of them.  Others instantly love you, and you're confused because you can't imagine what you did to earn their love.

They bewilder you.  They seem content to prattle on about such mundane topics.  They talk about things with no emotional attachment.  They seem disconcerted by your ability to rapidly sink into a deep reflective state and "disappear" from the room.  Initially, you trust.  You take things at face value.  You don't realize how easily or often they are deceptive, so you appear to be naïve though you also carry a deep wisdom.

There are things you just know, but you don't realize how unusual this is until it starts to create issues with communication.  To others, you're starting halfway through the sentence, halfway through the thought.  Your speaking to something you thought was just understood but that they need explained.  You in turn are frustrated by the length and amount of speaking they have to do to arrive at the point or question.  The amount of unnecessary information, things you already know, baffles you.  Do they not realize you know this? Is it not common sense?  Does everyone not just become easily aware of these details?  No, you find, they don't.  And that's where your alien-ness really starts to sink in.  You start from a place of knowing things you should not know.  You don't realize it because it feels completely natural for you to know.  They don't realize this because they don't expect anyone to simply know things, since it's not how they experience life.

You begin to feel disconnected, rejected, alone.  Where are the people like you?  Are there any?  All of these people seem to understand each other.  They all seem to be friends, to get along, to mesh.  But you don't and you're stuck feeling like you're on the outside looking in.  You observe them and you learn to mimic their behavior.  You don't want to be alone.  You want to be a part of this society, where you find yourself.   You grit your teeth and bear the noise, the lights, the social expectations.  You feel a heart greeting when you enter a room, your heart says hello to everyone in a quiet way but on top of that you must say it aloud.  It feels awkward, extraneous, unnecessary.  You feel the presence of others, you feel their welcoming-ness and you send out your own, why does it need to be said in words?

Those words, all the words, they're so tiring.  It's so much to keep track of, to remember.  This custom and that, this way of saying things, this tone of voice, this smile, that eye contact.  Keeping it all in line in your head so you're performing the rituals correctly.  Because, that is what it feels like.  These empty rituals of greeting and chatting about nothing, asking how someone is but not really wanting an answer.  Finding some small thing to discuss that isn't remotely interesting or educational.  Speaking for the purpose of speaking, no deeper meaning than that.  It's all so exhausting.

You become overwhelmed.  These people seem to like for everything to be out on display.  Everything said, lit, everything must be so tactile and bombarding.  It's true, in this alien society there is such an information overload flooding your eyes, ears and senses.  It's overwhelming and you must retreat.  So whether you physically remain and retreat internally, or physically leave the space, it's met with "where did you go" "I couldn't find you", "why aren't you participating".  They can't understand your need for quiet and solitude.  Your need to recharge from their loud, bright, obnoxious world.

Even their sun is just too much.  You find respite in cloudy days, in thick fog, in twilight.  It sooths your soul when everything is muffled by snow or covered by the white noise and appearance of rain.  The world is softer and more manageable in those moments.

Then there is the overload of interaction.  The phone calls, the knocks on the door, the passersby wanting eye contact, the person next to you wanting to engage in conversation.  People seem to constantly be demanding your attention.  Even when you're quiet and avoiding eye contact you can feel it.  You can feel when someone looks at you, when they want your attention.  You may avoid it to conserve your energy but then feel guilty for not participating.

You look at the place in which you find yourself, and know that you just don't fit here.  None of what comes natural for them is natural to you.  The comfort they receive from that interaction stands in stark contrast to the stress that it brings you.  You see them able to overlook the injustices between, them, ignore the homeless in the streets, allow other members of their society to be cruel and unkind.  And you can't fathom it.  You feel it all, it all hurts you, it cuts you to your core.

This society feels so alien.  It makes you feel alien.  You wonder if you'll ever find your home.

Let's Talk About Food (Sensitivities)

I have a love/hate relationship with food.  It's been a lifelong struggle with me and is probably the most obvious and most commented on of my sensory issues.

As a child, I would try a food and if the texture wasn't just right, it would gross me out.  The most glaring issue I had was with meat.  I liked process meats more than other kinds of meat because they're somewhat homogenized.  But even with processed meat I would encounter gristle or weird textures, and that would make me gag.  Once that happens, I would completely lose my appetite. At that point even eating something I like and that I know is good and has a nice texture would still leave me feeling sick and my stomach would be very unsettled, making me feel like I may vomit at any moment.  The worst offender for me was ground beef - because crumbled up in a dish like spaghetti or hamburger helper, it all felt like gristle.  I tried, I really did.  I wanted to eat the pasta part of spaghetti but I couldn't pick out all the meat and I'd just end up gagging at some point and feeling unable to continue eating anything for a while.  I have always loved canned spaghetti pasta that has no meat,  but couldn't stand real spaghetti because of the association with ground beef and crumbled sausage that has made it so any thin pasta is off-putting to me.

I also had issues with chicken nuggets because I'd occasionally hit gristle in there, and for whole chicken I could eat just the outer-most part of the drumstick, and the breast, but wouldn't fully pick all the meat off of the pieces because the deeper it went the more likely I was to get a weird texture.  I got a lot of flack for that and I was called wasteful an awful lot as a kid.

My issues with not being able to eat so many of the dinners prepared at home and some of the ones prepared at school lead to me overeating dramatically when I was able to get a meal I actually enjoyed.  If there was pizza with no gross toppings, I ate every bit I could get my hands on.  Same with mashed potatoes, sandwiches, any potato except sweet potatoes (pureed is ok but not if those strings are in there).  There were a lot of fruits and vegetables I couldn't bring myself to eat as well.  While I could have banana I'd obsessively pick every string off of it because those grossed me out and i often left the very end in the banana because I do not like eating the stem connection points of any fruit or vegetable.  Even that tiny dot at the bottom of a cherry tomato is not allowed.

As a kid I could not get anyone to understand these issues.  I was mocked and belittled for being so picky.  It's like you're stuck between two strong opposing forces - on one hand your brain and body react violently to the food but on the other hand you have an authoritarian presence you are afraid of telling you that you must eat it.  It felt impossible, and I learned to just pick at what I could, wait for meals I did like or sneak food when my family was asleep or at work.

To this day, these issues will end my meal if they arise.  If there is sand in a seafood dish, egg shell in an egg dish, gristle or fat in any kind of meat, bones in any kind of meat except sardines and salmon where they are softened, a smooth, soft or creamy food with any kind of crunch, like celery in tuna salad, crunchy onions in anything, mystery items or ingredients I can't identify, the food is poky or stabby in my mouth - for example I can't eat the really spiky spring mix lettuce or the baby spinach that has those long stems.  I can't eat the stalks of any lettuce, so for me to eat romaine, which I really like, I have to slice out the stem then chop up the leafy parts.  I don't like overly chewy foods, I absolutely cannot do bubble tea, and any food that is just a mix of stuff with tomato sauce is an absolute no-go.  I detest lima beans for their pasty, gritty texture, I hate pineapple or anything with a pulpy texture.   Basically, any food that has mixed textures is probably going to be a problem for me with the glaring exception of putting potato chips in a sandwich, which I love because it covers up any gross texture in the meat.  Apparently I like the crunch of chips that much.

This is an area where I would advise parents to be sensitive to your child's food sensitivities.  I know the focus is on your child having a broad diet and good nutrition, but forcing them to eat foods that make them genuinely feel sick can cause them harm.  It can contribute to dysfunctional eating habits and to emotional disturbances.

There are so many different ways to prepare foods that it is possible to find a way to get them the nutrition they need while also giving them the texture they need.  An excellent example of this is I am ok with drinking smoothies containing vegetables I absolutely will not touch if they are not pureed.  A protein shake is very welcome, while meat itself is not.  Simple foods that aren't mixed are great, for example when I might have refused a vegetable filled casserole, I'd gladly eat raw veggies with ranch dip.  Let your kids cue you in to what works for them and you can find solutions that work for both of you.  In the long run, it makes things easier and happier.

Autism Self Diagnosis

For the most part, the autism community is very accepting of self diagnosis.  This is a good thing, when the path to clinical diagnosis can be very difficult.  For those who are past childhood, some psychiatrists are resistant to diagnose autism at all, saying the person is past the age where there is any benefit to it.  Then there are those professionals who still consider autism to be specific to the male population.  And of course, then there are those who don't recognize masking or understand just how skilled at masking we can become.

Even when one finds a professional who is willing to consider the idea and understands all of the above, the process can be time consuming and very expensive.  It often is not covered by insurance making the thousands of dollars an out of pocket cost that few can afford.

Then there are the barriers of simply being autistic to begin with.  It can be challenging to seek professional diagnosis just because making phone calls, driving, and leaving the home are intensely stressful to begin with.   Having to face a professional and discuss your whole life, knowing they could decide you're not autistic or not autistic enough to warrant a diagnosis in and of itself is extremely difficult.  For many of us our familial ties are strained.  Our families may not believe there is a possibility we're autistic.  They may not want to be involved, they may lie to make themselves look good - yet they're expected to be involved in the process in many cases.

All of these factors make it daunting to seek diagnosis, especially if one is not immediately in need of assistance that may (or may not) come with a formal diagnosis.  For those of us who aren't in need of assistance, why would we expend the time and energy, the money and hardship, for that little confirming statement that we were right about ourselves?

Even when we have received a clinical diagnosis, our friends and family, even employers, may still not believe or accommodate us.  They may deny it, say we lied to get our diagnosis.  They may say it doesn't matter that we're diagnosed because we're the same person.  We may even doubt ourselves despite the formal diagnosis.  Yes, even after having been clinically diagnosed, we may still doubt that we are truly autistic.  We may feel we don't deserve the life altering explanation for who we are and have been.  We habitually feel not good enough or like we've achieved anything despite our lack of merit.

Self diagnosis and the acceptance of it is extremely important in the ASD community.  It is important we welcome those who have self diagnosed and reassure them.  It can be extremely harmful to reject those who have self diagnosed.  For one, autistics have been on the outside of a seemingly exclusive club all of their lives.  For them to finally, finally! have found a place where they genuinely seem to fit, and be rejected and excluded there too, would be devastating.  Autistic people are already at an increased risk of suicide, and the last thing we want is to tell someone they don't belong in the ASD community and have that lead to them taking their own life. 

 I think that compassion is more important than some sort of purity in the community and I'm so grateful that the vast majority of autistic people agree with this.  I myself am self diagnosed and at this time I do not plan to seek a formal diagnosis for many of the factors I've mentioned.  

I am deeply grateful to the ASD community for welcoming me with open arms.  It is a new feeling for me.  I have always felt like the person on the outside looking in, and at least now I know I'm not the only one on the outside of the glass.

We ARE Empathetic... We Just Don't Show Sympathy

There is a myth that autistic people are not empathetic.  It is a common belief within the psychiatric community, such that some people seeking their diagnosis are told they can't be autistic because they display empathy.

It's a dangerous assumption to say that autistic people are not empathetic.  For some people it would lump us in with psychopathy or sociopathy which can occur along with autism but is not a feature of autism or a comorbidity.  And, it can give autistic people an even more negative view of themselves than we already tend to have.

We are empathetic.  Many of us have to avoid watching the news, because we so deeply feel the problems of the world that it can send us into a meltdown or shut down.  For many of us, the issue is that we feel too much.  We feel it all, and it overwhelms us.  We are considerably more sensitive to the feelings of others as well as our own emotions.  It is common for an autistic person to cope with this from an early age by avoiding and locking away this part of themselves as much as possible.  We bury those feelings so deep that we sometimes don't even know what we're feeling, we just know we feel bad.

We feel it truly and deeply when someone is hurting, or struggling.  Much of the time we can sense it before we're even told - as we tend to be able to see the truth of other people even when it is hidden.  We're excellent at spotting liars for that reason.  (but we give everyone the benefit of the doubt anyway)  We genuinely want to help.  What we don't do however, is display sympathy.  We often feel extremely awkward in these situations because any type of social interaction is difficult for us and we each have a history of experiencing rebuttal and rejection for our lack of social skills and it leads us to overthink and question ourselves, especially in more difficult, emotional charged situations.  We end to freeze up and not know what to do, we fear doing or saying the wrong thing because we have done it so many times before.

So while we seem to be sitting there silently, saying nothing about the fact that your loved one just died our that you've fallen ill, we are radiating love and care your way.  We just don't say it aloud. We don't know how.

Those of us who mask, may have better abilities with this because we have been studying what other people do in these situations for so long.  Yet, when we say the words we know we are supposed to say, it feels hollow and empty.  It doesn't feel like enough.  There's a novel worth of words in our hearts, so much we want to say but we have learned that kind of gushing outpour of emotion is rarely welcome. Even if we were to say it, we'd then question if it was too much, not enough, if it is pale in comparison to the emotions, if it sounded patronizing. And that stops us again, from saying it, because we've worked out all the possibilities and we know that if we say the wrong thing we can cause an already hurting person to feel even worse - and because of how empathetic we truly are - that is the absolute last thing we'd ever want to cause.  We absolutely detest the notion of causing or adding to pain.  We know pain.  We feel ours intensely.  We feel yours.  We want to see less of it in the world and its a large part of the reason we struggle to lie or be deceitful, except where we've learned to do it as part of masking.  It's just not true to our hearts.

Now for the irony of all of this - when we see an allistic person expressing sympathy to others, we can tell when it isn't sincere.  When they're going through the motions because they're supposed to, because that's what you do.  On the surface, to everyone else, that person may seem sympathetic or empathetic but we know that they're just saying it...they don't truly feel it.  And that's not in every case, but it is common and I think many people know this about themselves even if they don't admit to it.  It's not to say that a person who sometimes expresses false sympathy is never empathetic, just that it does happen in many people, pretty often.  We autistics struggle to do anything that is "just going through the motions".  It is one of those things that our brains simply cannot fathom.  If we know we don't actually feel that way then it feels like a lie.  And we truly do not like to lie. 

Many autistic people are brimming with empathy, but it seems when allistic people say we don't have empathy what they mean is that we don't display sympathy.  It is a conundrum, when we so easily read a lack of empathy in allistic people.  It's just another way we are misunderstood.

You Could Be Autistic...And Not Know

If you've read my first post, this title shouldn't surprise you.  If you're a person who was clinically diagnosed or self diagnosed late in life, past childhood, this title shouldn't surprise you.  For everyone else, here's why:

I reached middle age before I found out that I might be autistic.  Decades of my life passed, with me having no idea.  And I am not alone.

You could be autistic too.

There are tons of people with late diagnosis of autism.  Typically autism has been seen as occurring specifically in the male population.  So females have been passing under the radar for quite some time.  The thought is that we are better at masking, at mimicking, at blending in to society, so we go unnoticed in our autism.

But, and this is my own speculation, I don't think that females are the only ones good at masking.  I believe there are males that have gone undiagnosed because they also have skill in masking.  It's also possible there are males who grew up in families that simply saw them as difficult children and disciplined or ignored the behaviors.  Many autistic people display a combination and severity level of traits that is not quite as disruptive to everyday life, to education, and can even provide advantages in those areas.  You see, autism isn't screened in everyone.  It's only diagnosed when a child's behavior causes enough disturbance that they are brought to someone who will diagnose them.  In many cases, they can even be misdiagnosed as something else, like ODD or ADHD when it is actually, or also, autism.  So many kids, especially those from poor or abusive homes, will never be diagnosed.  If they're lucky, they'll figure it out as adults but there are large barriers to adult clinical diagnosis as well.  Psychiatrists may not be as well versed in diagnosing autism in anyone other than a male child who doesn't mask.  Everyone else can just wonder what's wrong with them all their lives until they figure it out or.... don't.

So yeah, you might be autistic.  If you've always felt different, have sensory sensitivities, have discomfort or difficulty in social situations especially eye contact and small talk, or you find yourself unable to keep still, frequently doing some sort of repetitive motion, it's worth looking further into it for yourself.

Here are links to some quizzes that can start to shed some light on the question.

This first one gives you a graph!  (Which I am clearly excited about)

https://rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php

https://exceptionalindividuals.com/candidates/neurodiversity-resources/neurodiversity-quizzes/autism-quiz-test/

https://www.wired.com/2001/12/aqtest/

You Don't Look Autistic

You may have said this yourself.  It may have been said to you.  You may be wondering who the heck says such a thing.

For those of you who haven't run into this statement before, it typically pops up when a person "comes out" as autistic to a friend, family member, coworker, or whomever.  The person to that point never thought of this person as anything "out of the ordinary" and so they respond by saying this infamous sentence.

You don't look autistic.

Many of us are frustrated or angered by this statement.  Rightly so.  It feels dismissive.  It feels like we are disbelieved, or like we aren't autistic enough to receive any consideration for our needs as autistic people.  It feels like a slap in the face when we were trying to share a deep, emotionally centered part of ourselves.  Telling you that we are autistic isn't something we take lightly.  For many of us we have put a lot of time and energy into thinking about and preparing ourselves to tell you this important part of us.  Receiving this response hurts.

But I think that it is incredibly telling.  It says something about society.  About our culture.  It says, loud and clear, that most people have no idea what autism actually is.  I certainly didn't.  The simple misunderstanding that autism has some kind of look feels absurd to those of us who are autistic.  But, being the people we are, we've researched and read up on autism.  We've found communities of other autistic people and reveled in finally feeling home, and understood, and seen.  We finally feel just a little bit less like an alien on this planet.  We have learned as much as we can, as quickly as we can what it means to be autistic, what it feels like.  We have quizzed, we've read stories, we've commiserated, we've celebrated that we are not, in fact, alone.

We have learned that there's not a "way" that autism "looks".  We are a remarkably diverse group.  There's no height, color, weight, hairstyle, face shape, body type, ethnicity, gender or sexuality that defines autism.  We run the gamut.   It's not like the conditions that present with distinct facial features.  That isn't a feature of autism.

So when someone says, "but you don't look autistic" it feels insulting and hurtful.

I want to ask, what do you think autism looks like?  

But instead I'll tell you.

Autism is invisible.  It doesn't look like anything.  And we desperately need the general public to be aware that autism is an invisible condition.  Yes there can be things that we do that hint at it but for those who have become good at masking, an external observer would be hard pressed to identify them as autistic.  Some of those people don't even know themselves..... and I hope they find out soon because I know how they're feeling.  They don't know why they are the way they are.  They don't know why they've been consistently rejected.  They don't know why they just can't do what they're supposed to do, or why they occasionally act ways in public that embarrasses their friends or family or even gets them fired, though none of that is their intention.  They don't know. They think they're bad people.  They're at a high risk for suicide.

I sincerely hope they find out soon.  This is why I feel, of all the types of awareness campaigns that have existed, autism awareness and education of the public is critically important... some of those potential suicides may be prevented, and the anguish and loneliness people feel can be unraveled.

It's a Spectrum, Not a Gradient

People like to say everyone is a little autistic.  This implies that Autism in the population is a gradient.  At one end are people who are least autistic, and at the other end are people who are most autistic.  While this belief is very common, it's false.

There is no such thing as slightly autistic or a little autistic.  There is the possibility that a person can have a few autistic traits without having the distinct neurology that causes autism, like a sensory issue or difficulty maintaining eye contact, but that alone is not sufficient for an autism diagnosis.  Now this further compounded by the issues surrounding masking.  Masking is something that autistic people learn to do early in life and is essentially an autistic person learning to mimic neurotypical people in order to fit in with others and avoid a lot of the negative impact of being so very different.

Masking can make it difficult to assess whether a person is autistic because they've hidden and suppressed their autistic traits for so long that they may not even remember that they had ever had those traits in the first place.  There are many people of all ages who have no idea that they are autistic and masking.  Maybe they're some of the people that say "we're all a little autistic" because they are subconsciously expressing a bit of truth about themselves.  But that is just speculation on my part.

So no.  We are not all a little autistic.  Autism is a divergent way for the brain to develop.  We experience the world and life in a different way than neurotypical people.  Our brain functions differently.  You can't partially have a different neurology.  Either you do, or you don't.

There's lots of resources out there that are probably better at explaining the spectrum than I am.  But I'll give it a shot, and explain it how I see it.  

There are a lot of different traits expressed by autistic people.  We each express some traits but not all of them, and the traits we express are to different degrees.  When talking about color, such as in color theory, there are a few different ways one specific color is identified.  First, it has a hue - that is, the percentages of each of the primary colors that combine to make this specific shade.  Then, it has the percentage of lightness - how light or dark the shade is.  Then, there's the amount of saturation - how rich the color is, where it falls on the range from gray (completely neutral) to the purest expression of that hue.  Autistic traits are similar to this.

Let's say each hue represents an autistic trait.  A person on the spectrum may have each trait to some varying degree of severity, and then there is the degree of how much that trait is visible and the degree of how much it affects us.  Stimming is one trait.  I stim constantly.  I'm rarely still.  But I wouldn't say that it affects my daily life to a significant degree and none of my stims are harmful to myself (with two exceptions that are borderline but I'll discuss those in another post).  No one comments about my stims and, other than some mild embarrassment when I realize I've been bouncing my leg through an entire meeting, it is just part of me and I've not seen it as negative.  Those are the three aspects of that trait - what it is, how much I experience it, and how the experience of it impacts my life.  That, is why autism is a spectrum.   We each are like a color wheel with all these different colors that represent the traits we personally experience and express, how much we experience them or to what severity, and how that affects our lives, creating a beautiful rainbow for each autistic person.  Together we make up all the colors of the rainbow which is an innumerable amount of unique expressions.

I hope that this has clarified what the spectrum is and that no, not everyone is autistic.  If we were all autistic, the world would make a lot more sense to those of us with ASD and we wouldn't feel so alien around the majority of the population.

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.