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Hello

H

HLW

New Member
Hello. I've been staring at this empty white box for a while now and I just don't know what to say... this is unreasonably scary for me, as I have a lot of social anxiety.

I'm 36 and I'm in the process of getting an autism diagnosis. I have a few other psychiatric diagnoses already - GAD, panic disorder, agoraphobia... I was also assessed for avoidant personality disorder but scored just below cutoff. I've had several depressive episodes, starting in my early teens.

My best friend has Aspergers and ADD, and she's been saying from the very start that I probably have it too. It would explain why we get along so well, I suppose. I'm definitely more "high functioning" (I hope I'm not offending anyone by using that term) than her though, and didn't really think I would meet the criteria for diagnosis... but now I'm starting to rethink. I'm probably just better at pretending to be normal, but the older I get it's just making me so very tired, and I don't think I can keep it up anymore. I'm hoping an official diagnosis would lessen the burden a bit, if that makes sense.

I miss the old days when the Internet was new and it was easy to form real friendships online, when you could really get to know someone through livejournal and such. I don't know if this is the place to make connections like that, but... here I am. I would love to get to know you all.
 
welcome to af.webp
 
Hello and welcome! I hope you have a good experience here. Let us know if you need any help finding your way through the forum. It’s good to have you here.
 
I can diagose you for free and it only takes a few minutes.

What did you have for dinner the last 14 days?

;)
 
Hi and welcome @HLW
Glad to have you in here and I hope you find it helpful to you.

BTW - we do have a sense of humour in here

Tom said:
I can diagose you for free and it only takes a few minutes.

What did you have for dinner the last 14 days?

;)
Click to expand...
@Tom - either she will remember what she had, or it will have been the same thing. I see that both of these could be linked to autistic traits, but what if the answer is I cant remember?
 
Hi and Welcome to the group.
Don't worry, I couldn't tell you what I had for dinner the past 14 days and I have
been diagnosed. ;)
 
HLW said:
Hello. I've been staring at this empty white box for a while now and I just don't know what to say... this is unreasonably scary for me, as I have a lot of social anxiety.

I'm 36 and I'm in the process of getting an autism diagnosis. I have a few other psychiatric diagnoses already - GAD, panic disorder, agoraphobia... I was also assessed for avoidant personality disorder but scored just below cutoff. I've had several depressive episodes, starting in my early teens.

My best friend has Aspergers and ADD, and she's been saying from the very start that I probably have it too. It would explain why we get along so well, I suppose. I'm definitely more "high functioning" (I hope I'm not offending anyone by using that term) than her though, and didn't really think I would meet the criteria for diagnosis... but now I'm starting to rethink. I'm probably just better at pretending to be normal, but the older I get it's just making me so very tired, and I don't think I can keep it up anymore. I'm hoping an official diagnosis would lessen the burden a bit, if that makes sense.

I miss the old days when the Internet was new and it was easy to form real friendships online, when you could really get to know someone through livejournal and such. I don't know if this is the place to make connections like that, but... here I am. I would love to get to know you all.
Click to expand...
Hello and welcome! We're glad you're here.
 
Tom said:
I can diagose you for free and it only takes a few minutes.

What did you have for dinner the last 14 days?

;)
Click to expand...
I know you're joking, but I still feel compelled to answer the question..

I have coffee for breakfast and a nature valley protein bar for lunch, always. I actually like to cook when I have the energy so dinner is usually a bit more varied, but I bought bread last week so to keep it from going bad I've had toast with pickled jalapenos every day this week... I loooove jalapenos. Growing chili is an interest of mine, I have seeds from around 30 different verities.
But yeah, I'm a very picky eater. If I have a bad day with a lot of anxiety I'll just not eat at all. My autistic best friend is the same way, so maybe that's an autistic trait too?
 
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