I am female, 51, always had trouble with social situations, emotions, OCD, and the like. Recently, I'm not sure how the idea came to me, but I started to research autism more and consider if I might fit that description. The more I read, the more of my own experience made sense to me, the difficulties I've always had, my childhood experiences, the way I think and look at the world. I've taken a few of the online assessments and my numbers were well into the autistic side of the results, and that helped me focus in on this a bit.
I don't see the usefulness for me at this point in seeking a formal diagnosis, for one, I live in a rural area with few doctors, and I have no insurance, so that would be difficult. I don't need any legal/work/school accommodations, treatment, social services, etc., so I feel ok with just having this new understanding of myself and ways I might cope better with the things I have trouble with.
I talked with my partner about all this today, and his response was "ok, if looking at it this way helps you, that's great, this is who you are and I love you, so just let me know how to help". He's a pretty great guy, so I feel fine there.
I don't think I want to talk with anyone else about it, my family tends to overmedicalize everything, so if it's not "official", they won't take it seriously at all. One of my brothers was medically diagnosed with autism after years of severe mental illness and many, many other diagnoses, and so I know they just don't do well with that realm.
My mind is just kind of running with it all now, I wonder if this is something anyone else has gone through? Re-thinking past experiences in light of this, re-framing difficulties through this new lens. Like, how sometimes someone suddenly calls me rude and I don't know why, or why I so often think some new person is going to be a friend and they just drop me, or how awful it must be for someone to hear me going on about some thing I'm obsessed with.
Anyway, here I am, a little adrift in this, feeling both better and worse with this realization, but grateful for this space.
I don't see the usefulness for me at this point in seeking a formal diagnosis, for one, I live in a rural area with few doctors, and I have no insurance, so that would be difficult. I don't need any legal/work/school accommodations, treatment, social services, etc., so I feel ok with just having this new understanding of myself and ways I might cope better with the things I have trouble with.
I talked with my partner about all this today, and his response was "ok, if looking at it this way helps you, that's great, this is who you are and I love you, so just let me know how to help". He's a pretty great guy, so I feel fine there.
I don't think I want to talk with anyone else about it, my family tends to overmedicalize everything, so if it's not "official", they won't take it seriously at all. One of my brothers was medically diagnosed with autism after years of severe mental illness and many, many other diagnoses, and so I know they just don't do well with that realm.
My mind is just kind of running with it all now, I wonder if this is something anyone else has gone through? Re-thinking past experiences in light of this, re-framing difficulties through this new lens. Like, how sometimes someone suddenly calls me rude and I don't know why, or why I so often think some new person is going to be a friend and they just drop me, or how awful it must be for someone to hear me going on about some thing I'm obsessed with.
Anyway, here I am, a little adrift in this, feeling both better and worse with this realization, but grateful for this space.