Self-Diagnosis is Already Helping Me

My wife shared with me today the fact that having the framework of autism as a prism through which to view my behaviors has already helped her to understand me better.

We have a fantastic marriage and she is a remarkably patient and empathetic person who also happens to have an academic background in mental health (how lucky I was to find someone like her!), so she's been a tremendous help to me already over the years as I've struggled to make sense of my brain its effects. But this one piece of information - the possibility that I am on the autism spectrum - has aleady helped me to make sense of some of the things about me that have baffled her for decades.

Of course, it helps that she knows me as someone who is constantly seeking to improve himself and better understand himself and to be a better husband and father. She knows that I've already spent years in therapy working on so many things, and that I'm not seeking to absolve myself of responsibility for any of my failings.

But how amazing to have this one piece of information (about my possibly being on the spectrum) to have already been helpful in understand me and, therefore, our relationship.

(I am still arranging for a formal autism evaluation for myself.)