MerCsDs
eating.words
It’s very weird to me how much I’ve been researching to understand autism.
I only started suspecting I was dealing with autism in late 2022. In 2023 I was misdiagnosed as only have sensory difficulties but without having ASD which I internalized ‘as is’ until last year when I was chatting with a ‘now’ online friend who also has autism and she just validated me by saying something like ‘no honey/babe you definitely have it’ then it just clicked.
Before that moment, I was unable to fully wrap my head around not having it but I would repeat what the psychiatrist said to me, a lot and to other people too in certain circumstances “You can have traits of a something without having the disorder” which I justified a lot of things with.
I was so demoralized but didn’t have any other answer besides that but they’re the ones with the answers so only they have them…
Nonetheless, I researched it way more than I’m conscious of even now. In 2022, I looked at a few sources listing symptoms. I made my first list of how I could remember each symptoms to manifest and have manifested since I was a kid. Yet, I was doubtful, scared and unable to fully communicate all of them since each professional doubted me even more than myself or denied it, so I forgot things and couldn’t speak my mind fully.
More recently, I started pushing for it again with my personal doctor and professionals from the BPD program. It’s so awful. Since I continued to search about it: I got into this mom who reversed engineered genetics involved with autism to better understand her daughter with autism, I got into online communities more, I realized that I gravitate towards other people with neurodivergent and have had convos about it with close friends, I realized that many of my siblings have undiagnosed ASD or ADHD, I realized that a lot of my environment and genetic mental health predispositions informed me struggling with mental illness more than my other family members have, etc. yet it doesn’t feel enough then and even now.
It’s awful how much it feels like that won’t end, I mean I still don’t have a formal diagnosis for AuDHD or most of my disorders although I’ve spent hours thinking, observing and searching to evaluate whether I have them or not, how people function when they have it versus how neurotypical or people who don’t have it function but each time I mention it, assert it or have to identify what I have, there’s the doubt and result of invalidation where I’m hesitant to even think of myself as this or that bc of how important the formal diagnosis is important, how important it is to be right and see how important things must be for you to have the important information and important decisions, I don’t feel important and now the diagnosis that I don’t have, weights more on professionals than the chronic struggle I face having to deal with it on my own. I absolutely hate having to explain any of my situation to a new professional because I don’t have the energy to refute my importance over their perception nor having to explain why I have something that I have, like I just do. And it’s even worse to be treated as not having it while drowning with it than having it “formally” and not being treated for it could ever be. But even then, I’m not that important since it wasn’t me who gave my own disability to myself, it’s the 2729282th professional who got to finally say what’s “wrong with me” after I have been continually searching for an appointment anywhere.
I think it’s one thing to not have support while you have lower support needs but when people who are paid and studied to supposedly support you with evaluations are blind to you and only see things with themselves, it’s alike demonizing your struggle or complains. Why is it so hard for me!
I only started suspecting I was dealing with autism in late 2022. In 2023 I was misdiagnosed as only have sensory difficulties but without having ASD which I internalized ‘as is’ until last year when I was chatting with a ‘now’ online friend who also has autism and she just validated me by saying something like ‘no honey/babe you definitely have it’ then it just clicked.
Before that moment, I was unable to fully wrap my head around not having it but I would repeat what the psychiatrist said to me, a lot and to other people too in certain circumstances “You can have traits of a something without having the disorder” which I justified a lot of things with.
I was so demoralized but didn’t have any other answer besides that but they’re the ones with the answers so only they have them…
Nonetheless, I researched it way more than I’m conscious of even now. In 2022, I looked at a few sources listing symptoms. I made my first list of how I could remember each symptoms to manifest and have manifested since I was a kid. Yet, I was doubtful, scared and unable to fully communicate all of them since each professional doubted me even more than myself or denied it, so I forgot things and couldn’t speak my mind fully.
More recently, I started pushing for it again with my personal doctor and professionals from the BPD program. It’s so awful. Since I continued to search about it: I got into this mom who reversed engineered genetics involved with autism to better understand her daughter with autism, I got into online communities more, I realized that I gravitate towards other people with neurodivergent and have had convos about it with close friends, I realized that many of my siblings have undiagnosed ASD or ADHD, I realized that a lot of my environment and genetic mental health predispositions informed me struggling with mental illness more than my other family members have, etc. yet it doesn’t feel enough then and even now.
It’s awful how much it feels like that won’t end, I mean I still don’t have a formal diagnosis for AuDHD or most of my disorders although I’ve spent hours thinking, observing and searching to evaluate whether I have them or not, how people function when they have it versus how neurotypical or people who don’t have it function but each time I mention it, assert it or have to identify what I have, there’s the doubt and result of invalidation where I’m hesitant to even think of myself as this or that bc of how important the formal diagnosis is important, how important it is to be right and see how important things must be for you to have the important information and important decisions, I don’t feel important and now the diagnosis that I don’t have, weights more on professionals than the chronic struggle I face having to deal with it on my own. I absolutely hate having to explain any of my situation to a new professional because I don’t have the energy to refute my importance over their perception nor having to explain why I have something that I have, like I just do. And it’s even worse to be treated as not having it while drowning with it than having it “formally” and not being treated for it could ever be. But even then, I’m not that important since it wasn’t me who gave my own disability to myself, it’s the 2729282th professional who got to finally say what’s “wrong with me” after I have been continually searching for an appointment anywhere.
I think it’s one thing to not have support while you have lower support needs but when people who are paid and studied to supposedly support you with evaluations are blind to you and only see things with themselves, it’s alike demonizing your struggle or complains. Why is it so hard for me!
