I use as many words as I need to make my thought clear; even if others tell me I am “too wordy”.
I see things very differently than most I meet.
I often feel the need to move parts of my body to relieve emotional stress and tension.
I am extremely sound sensitive. Sudden, loud noises, inescapable loud sounds, people, animals…. I just have to get away.
I am extremely socially anxious and tend to “try too hard” (bad masking) which just makes things worse.
My empathy response is so strong that I have to insulate myself from things just to keep from being constantly exhausted.
My autonomous system is so overclocked that it frequently does things that even I don’t understand.
I have been moderately depressed for as long as I can remember; mostly because there doesn’t seem to be many places where I can just “be me” without some repercussion from the surrounding culture and society.
I believe I may have a pretty intense case of pathological demand avoidance.
I know I was hyperlexic (reading at age 5, assessed at 3rd year college level English competency at age 10).
I know I was once possessed of an intelligence quotient that resulted in invitations from both MENSA and the International High IQ Society. (Not interested.)
I know I scored high enough at the Marine and Navy Recruitment office in the early ‘naughts that I had my choice of which OCS I wanted to attend and where I wanted to focus after boot camp. (Pregnancy at medical put me out of the running… no regrets).
I know that I have difficulty conforming to cultural and societal rules and etiquette; mostly because they only seem to be understandable in a context of “everyone but you gets a say” (with which I take much disagreement); shouldn’t we be well past pack animal pecking orders by now?
I know that I was severely bullied and abused by “family”, “friends”, and “support workers” across the board. Not to mention orphanage personnel who had utterly no business whatsoever being near children. Not to mention school personnel and “mental health” professionals alike. (Had a psychiatrist straight up tell me that he was surprised I hadn’t killed myself. I told him he could fuck right on off with that shit.)
I know that my autism made it impossible for me to be the parent I needed to be to both my son and my daughter.
I know this is why they are not in my life today.
I am tired of feeling as if something is terribly wrong with me, but for some reason, no one will just tell me what it IS.
I often wonder what it will be like when I am officially diagnosed. I’m really fearful that it will not help, only make things worse.