I actually finally sought out a diagnosis as the last piece of the puzzle when trying to figure out the health anomalies I’ve experienced my entire life. Over the years I've documented the connections between the various things my body does—it all connects back to a weirdly wired nervous system. Also just the fact that I use myself as a living science experiment is pretty autistic.
Before the "neurodivergence" social media boom, I found myself deeply-attracted to personality typing systems (besides astrology) and online quizzes, as early as middle school. So before I put myself in the "autistic" box, I was an INTP or an Enneagram 5w4. But it got to a point where I could "game the system" and influence my result when given a team-building exercise in college or at work, so some of the joy was lost. Whoops. There goes a special interest.
Deficits in social communication and social interactions across multiple contexts
Deficits in social communication and social interactions across multiple contexts
Diagnosis
*Lengthier version here / my reference
*~~Please do not make me make a phone call where I have to sit on hold, I will put it off for weeks.~~*
First of all, I thrive in an academic environment. I need ever-changing information to soak up, and I’m naturally curious about how other people learn. I went to grad school to avoid having to enter “the real world” for another couple of years. I think that’s part of why I work in education now, and why I fit in there, versus not completely being able to tolerate other work environments. I would always seem to lose momentum in other roles, or I’d pick unstable companies to work for and they’d simply not exist after a year. I don’t interview well at all, so I’d bomb interviews for better jobs. Fortunately, I work in technology where it’s passable to be “a little weird”, but that’s usually expected in men. Both academia and technology are havens for weird people. However, in a past job centered around “weird people”, I was once told by my boss I was like the office “Wednesday Addams” (personality and braids) and that it was creepy when I genuinely smiled, so not even safe spaces for the weird can be safe.
It hasn’t been easy and I’ve spent years of just brushing it off as being too introverted. But even introverts don’t get “hangovers” after light socialization…or be totally in-the-zone in personal projects without leaving the house for several days at a time, being mute, and only having pets for company. (This is not possible for me now because I’m married and have a child.) I am obsessed with my alone time.
Ever since 2020 I’ve been work-from-home. Without working from home, I’d be in a worse state of burnout. Part of my job duties includes tasks that require me to think deeply and hyper focus. I do that best in my own environment where I can control various stimuli. I can sit in odd positions, move rooms, blast obnoxious looping music, multitask by doing chores to process thoughts, take the afternoon off and work later at night, etc. Whenever I do have to go into the office for meetings or full days, I may end up with a migraine or exhausted enough to go to bed early. (And I usually cannot afford to do that because there’s adulting to do.) There’s no preparation that I can do to prevent this—it is not a matter of “exposure therapy” to get used to it. Over thirty years of trying to “stop that” and it’s not happening!
I check all the boxes in one form or another, but I am very good at “passing” as neurotypical during casual encounters unless the other person clocks me as different. I remember the concept of proper eye-contact suddenly clicking when I was in high school and college. (And then I’ll replay the encounter over and over in my head.) It’s in lengthier relationships: friendships, romantic partnerships, professional relationships, where the cracks start to show depending on certain events. It gets me in trouble if I don’t watch “my real personality” that many people perceive as bitchy arrogance. In my daily life I have zero people that I hang out with regularly. My most active friendships are long-distance and centered around a special interest. My marriage was the result of a shared special interest. In real-life friendships I was never great about knowing when I was “too much” or “not enough” and probably did not catch the myriad of ways I was indirectly invited to things. I’m indifferent about meeting people in real life presently.
As an adult I don’t do much of the “outwardly obvious” autistic stimming, but I have had a problem with clenching my jaw, grinding my teeth, and biting my cheeks for my entire life. It’s very difficult for me to relax unless ~conditions are perfect~, which is impossible unless I could pause time (and all annoying stimuli) to take a week off. I might flex my toes, play with my fingernails, look at something shiny, loop songs through headphones—hidden ways of participating in repetition. Most of my echolalia is inside my head, too. Parts of songs, lines from cartoons, and more, are the BGM to my inner monologue. It’s part of why too much noise in a room can overstimulate me—it’s because my head already has overlapping sounds! My default state is pretty quiet because my mind never shuts up. (My parents had to make sure I was in the car or in the house.)
I like to have short-term plans and it upsets me if, well, things don’t go to plan… If I can forecast all the possible ways a plan could be interrupted, then I’m usually flexible. But I will be visibly annoyed if I go through the trouble of getting dressed and putting on makeup and then the event I got ready for was suddenly canceled. It’s like suddenly putting on the breaks and getting whiplash. I’d already envisioned how the event would go and even what I’d do when I got home to decompress. Autistic inertia. I love sleep and don't do well if my sleep is interrupted. I was hard to wake up for school as a child, and I even liked to sleep in on Christmas mornings.
I typically eat the same foods in a rotation, and order the same thing from favorite restaurants. I am not a traditional “picky eater”, in that I love most foods and don’t have issues with texture, and so on, but I am picky about quality. I’m sensory-seeking in that I like certain strong flavors. I used to eat lemons as a baby through childhood, but now I try not to since my adult teeth are a bit ruined. I can also tell when companies change recipes and get pissed off when ingredients change, but I also try to avoid a lot of processed foods. If restaurants change owners, I usually never go back…
I have a handful of special interests, and this site is a showcase of most of them. Writing HTML by hand is one of them! I almost exclusively listen to Japanese music. I don’t delve deeply into the artists anymore (aside from Dir en grey) or seek out new music as much as I used to when I was a teenager. I just don’t have as much free time. But overall, my interests mostly passed as normal throughout my young adult years. Even the “alt” interests I had blended in. I was into Japanese fashion and visual kei and sort of just blended in with the emo kids. Fashion and makeup are supposed to be “default” teenage girl interests. It was only weird that I didn’t want to hang out with anyone on weekends and instead spent time in my room talking to people on the Internet. Now everyone has the Internet in their pocket and talks to people online all the time!
I have a high pain tolerance when it comes to migraines, and I did not feel my labor contractions as pain (pre-epidural)… But a paper cut could ruin my day. Omg, and if I accidentally get superglue on my fingers, I will want to chew my finger off. I don't like hugs, so if I hug you, it's special! I have light and sound sensitivity. I accommodate myself by having transitions glasses that have glare blocking. I wear noise-canceling headphones and ear plugs. In-ear headphones (like AirPods) are much better designed than they used to be, but I can’t stand classic earphones. I’m not great at regulating my temperature and can randomly feel feverish. I’m almost too good at fasting if I set my mind to it, because I can get absorbed in plans and skip meals. I consciously tell myself to eat based on the clock because I usually don’t feel hunger (or thirst) until it’s too late. I am a maximalist (as if you couldn’t tell) and love a well-designed cluttered space. I need stuff to look at and love displaying my collections of random crap. I prefer cotton clothing (and bed linens), skirts over pants, and graphic tees over other types of tops. I will keep favorite items until they fall apart, or I will buy a duplicate or extremely similar item. I also love velvet and velour. (Upholstery, curtains, pillows, sweatsuits, nightgowns.) I love bangs but can’t stand having hair in my face, so I either have my hair braided if it’s long, or short enough to keep out of the way. Hypermobility was great until my thirties. My joints ache most of the time, I have to sleep with an assortment of pillows, and I herniated a disc in my neck (requiring an MRI) by simply picking up something heavy incorrectly. I have stretch marks in atypical areas from puberty that used to embarass me. But hey—I do not have any stretch marks from when I was pregnant due to some other genetic anomaly!
