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Autism

Maybe It's Not Autism

Maybe It's Not Autism

It’s been terrible the last couple of weeks… I feel worse than I did last December, terribly sad, lonely, hopeless. My suicidal ideations still occur, frequently. I feel drained, tired; at school this third semester I’m beginning to struggle with motivation and lack of creativity that I know once was there. The courseload is much greater than any of my past semesters—I think the trend line is clear at this point. I’m not sleeping enough, I’m missing assignments, and I feel like breaking into tears more than half the time. I began feeling better during the first months of the year when I started attending events, going places, and ‘meeting people.’ Despite those out-of-character efforts, I still failed to connect with anyone. As I began writing another post—still unpublished—I began writing about my social experiences.I really struggle with making friends, I don’t know what makes it so difficult. I feel overwhelmed with fear, it forces me to stare at the ground, make zero eye contact, and thoughts that people are out to get me flood my head. I finished my last year of high school without making a single friend; there were many days I didn’t even speak a word at school.After writing one more paragraph I decided to zoom out and read back what I’d just written. “Thoughts that people are out to get me flood my head;” In that moment my mind made the connection to schizophrenia; “That sounds like schizophrenia,” I went, internally. I don’t know where I learned that such paranoid thoughts and isolation were symptoms of schizophrenia, but I knew it. I also knew that a person with schizophrenia experiences intense psychosis, such as hearing voices, which began feeling somewhat similar to other personal experiences. I began to question why I get so intensely overwhelmed in social situations. Most of those paranoid thoughts I get occur when I’m in public without necessarily interacting with people. I feel that people are staring at me, judging my every move, and that’s when I get thoughts of them wanting to hurt me, or if I hear laughter I think they are making fun of me. It gets extremely uncomfortable and scary. Sometimes people do look at me, even though I’m not looking at them I can see their heads turn on the edge of my vision. Sometimes they are just looking in my direction, past me, and this also triggers it, but I almost never look up to confirm they are not looking at me. I first described this feeling in a past post from high school as I was debating if it was all in my head or not. Feeling that scared makes it hard to feel relaxed, I do not participate in class, I get overwhelmed at temple, I keep my head down, and miss familiar people that walk by. It is a terrible thing. Shortly after, I recalled writing about what I call a ‘delusional episode’ on the Dysautonomia symptoms page. Knowing now what a delusion is, the way I call such episodes is not really accurate. They are times when I feel numb, in trance, fatigue takes over me, and sometimes I hear voices, or have conversations with people as if it were a dream but being very much awake. That time on August 2nd I was laying in an awkward position on the couch with my head under some cushions for some 45 minutes. I began seeing the interior of a noisy shopping mall with lots of people; my perception began feeling overwhelmed by the noise and occasionally, a person, more like a black figure would appear in front of me and say something very scary which made me physically spasm. So recalling a time when I heard voices in my head and my usual paranoia made me realize that, at least with the paranoia; my daily experiences look like schizophrenia, and the auditory hallucinations, of course, very much relevant to schizophrenia. So, some learning was in order. Ideas of reference could be like I explained, when I hear laughter behind me, I immediately think it’s people making fun of me. Magical thinking; this one was interesting to learn about. So, I’ve always felt a special connection with the number 13, my favorite. As 133, it was the username Instagram assigned to me since my first choice was taken. When I glance up at the clock randomly it just so happens that it is 11:33, or 1:33, or 21:33. In the airport, Gates 1-33. My heart rate lingers at 133 bpm sometimes; I have a screenshot of an hour long workout with my current and average heart rate being 133. I began thinking of this weird but frequent occurrence as a manifestation of Hashem in my life; spotting the number makes me smile and say Toda Lecha up to the sky, but it was only recently that I discovered that the gematria of ‘echad’ is 13, and you know how the Shema goes. 1:33 am right now finishing writing this paragraph. I also talk, a lot, ‘alone.’ I don’t exactly talk to myself; I have a hallucination of a floating camera that follows me around all day and through it I broadcast to an audience of some 200 people that can interact with me. So when I talk to the camera I look at it, it commonly sits slightly to my side and points down at me, I do gestures at it, I tell the audience what is happening, engage in intense conversation, more like speech or monologue, about my day, how are things going, what I need to do, serious topics, etc. Sometimes I whisper at the camera when I cannot be loud, and when there’s people around I tell the audience I am going to transmit my voice directly to the camera, so they won’t see my mouth moving but they’ll hear me. I can switch the camera to my eyes, so the audience would see my pov. The stream layout has at the top a box reading out my every thought which I usually say aloud right away, or if the thought is too long or too complex I tell the audience “Thinkbox,” so they read the box. This feels different from being observed at all times, I find it relaxing and helpful for self-reflection and do not consider it a hindrance. Also relevant to schizophrenia is excessive daydreaming. I commonly get absorbed into my own thoughts which is a problem sometimes. Mom always says I’m in my own world, I fail to hear what people say to me, fail to understand instructions, and I get frequently caught during dissociation which makes me very self-conscious afterward. So, recognizing the symptoms, I looked up some questionnaires that did indicate the possibility of schizophrenia. However the questions on the tests sounded familiar to me; I realized some of them were part of my autism diagnosis. I looked up the file for the BASC-3 test I underwent and sure enough, the type of questions on the schizophrenia questionnaire were categorized as ‘atypicality’ on the BASC. The graph displaying the T-scores of each category showed my atypicality score as being the highest of all categories and it is halfway through the clinically significant range. If you look at the atypicality questions it is pretty clear that they are supposed to screen for schizophrenia spectrum symptoms.I feel like people are out to get me. I hear things others cannot hear, People think I’m strange. I see weird things. I hear voices in my head that no one else can hear. Even when alone, I feel like someone is watching me.So since my autism diagnosis I have recognized that I have those weird perceptions but didn’t know what they were related to. The result itself says that such a high score usually warrants follow-up, and that never happened. I am doubting my autism diagnosis, because even though some symptoms of schizophrenia can be similar to autism, I can’t see an autistic person getting that kind of unusual perceptions, hallucinations, and odd thinking. My next clinically significant results on the BASC were social anxiety, somatization, internalizing problems, hyperactivity, and interpersonal relations. I can immediately see how accurate those results are; social anxiety, no mystery there, somatization would be struggling with physical health symptoms, that I have described extensively on the Dysautonomia page. I guess I do internalize my problems, I hesitate to ask for help, until I realize I just can't cope. I decided to tell my doctor about all of this. I wrote a note because I knew I wouldn’t be able to get it all out without getting nervous. She read through my symptoms and the confessions I mentioned in the last post; she was very supportive and tried to understand some of my symptoms that weren’t too clear. She said I should talk to the social worker there but she was out for the day. She made sure I was not at risk of hurting myself and that I had support in the meantime. Revealing what pretty much all I’ve written here and in the Lies post was very scary, but I’m glad I did it, and now I’m going to get some help. The social worker contacted me and I am scheduled for next week. Same for counseling at school, I finally called to make an appointment, and after the intake appointment, they are probably going to provide a referral somewhere else. I had been looking forward to my appointment for more than a month. I began developing a dread sensation and had frequent thoughts that I would never make it to the appointment, that I would die before it, from lack of sleep, driving tired, not eating, due to my dedication to my assignments. I did have my appointment, but now I have to survive until next week Tuesday, and then until Thursday, and then until whatever date comes out of that Thursday meeting until I don’t have to survive anymore and instead will want to keep living again. I know deep down I do not want to die, even though at the moment my mind is partial about it. Additionally, school is becoming increasingly difficult. My third semester has just started and I'm already having to pull all-nighters to get work done. I feel that my motivation is gone, and my drawing skills are too; it is hard to come up with ideas, I spend hours just pondering on what to do for a project, and when sketching I have such a hard time getting it just right and get it done quickly. I've become terrified of what will become of me professionally when I once had such optimism and motivation that made me feel I could tackle anything. On the Industrial Design subreddit people frequently post about the lack of jobs in this field, even senior designers are struggling. People shift to other fields, newcomers get a big slap telling them to seriously reconsider getting into ID; the future seems very scary. And even if I ever get an interview, it is very likely employers are not going to want someone like me. I am beginning to think I should switch careers to something that would be stable. However, on some posts on the ID subreddit people say that if you like doing design, if you enjoy it, then it will be a great experience, hard nonetheless; you will definitely need to be willing to move to where the jobs are, and practice, practice, practice your skills. I certainly do enjoy it, I love building physical models in the shop and recreating objects in Solidworks; even though I'm having a hard time with it now, I know I would have a blast ideating concepts and later focusing excessively on details. But ID requires social skills, networking is essential, presentations, emails, and phone calls are a daily thing, and that's scary because I know I have big social issues. I'm hopeful I will make it; when I can get my sketches done they are amazing, teachers commend those skills frequently, and I've made a bit of fame for making clean sketches and models. However, I guess I do need to consider that if my mental condition doesn't improve, or develops into something worse, I should at least be working on having stable economic means. Let's see what happens...

Overworked

Overworked

This last semester was crazy! I handed in my last assignment under a deadline extension and still late yesterday. When the semester started I tried to figure out if my workload was similar to or higher than my past semester and at first it seemed to be par, however, that quickly changed. For one of my classes, Form Language, each week I was asked to make a sculpture of sorts. Bending strips of paper, bending wire, cutting foam, using clay, etc. These projects required me to go to school when I didn't even have class—one such sculpture took eight hours to finish, although it was the simplest one, I'll get to that. For that same class, after the sculptures, we began designing our own lounge chair. In the ideation process, we had to draw 100 sketches—I believe I mentioned that in a previous post and that combined with assignments for other classes. I went from being able to observe Shabbat to needing to use that time to work on homework, it feels terrible. I began staying up all night, sometimes forgetting to eat and having to leave in the morning back to school. I drove so many times without proper sleep—Baruch Hashem I am fine. I was trying my hardest, but I began failing to deliver things on time, however, I am proud that the quality of my work did not suffer, my health did tho. My final projects included designing a chanukiah, designing a chair, and breaking down the manufacturing processes of a vacuum cleaner, all of which turned out beautiful. The goal for my chanukiah was to make it modern but still fit for fulfilling the mitzvah. It is made of Jerusalem stone: dolomite and limestone, and has a suspended silver Magen David filled with Eilat stone. I had to present my design and process to the whole class and everyone liked it, and thankfully no one protested; I think the only anti-zionist in the program left the classroom before my presentation. My chair came together beautifully! Iteration after iteration, I arrived at a design that represented three words that served as my design goals. Me being me, failing to see that I could barely keep alive, I decided to give myself a challenge. Along with my chair design, I also had to make a 1:3 model of it. Teacher wanted them to be all-white, so foam was probably the choice material. I immediately knew that if I were to use just foam I would need to do a lot of sanding. Someone asked teacher if we could use wood and she said that if we were to use wood, we would have to go all the way, using real fabric to upholster the chair. Everyone decided to go with foam, but I decided to upholster my chair. It was easy, I know how to sow; and during the process I learned how to stain wood, using pre-stain, and finishing it with polyurethane. However, after having an all-nighter finishing my model I failed to make my presentation, so I went to class Monday morning with just my model. Teacher seemed to like my model, and she just requested I finish my presentation before midnight. Having finished my chair presentation at midnight, I immediately needed to work on the manufacturing breakdown project due Tuesday at 2 pm. I only managed to sketch and render a hero view, and a sketch showing the pivoting motion of the vacuum cleaner. In class, teacher asked nonchalantly "Who's dropping out? I know you are all tired." I've heard him say in the past that people have left the program not because they don't have the skills, but because they can't keep up, and others because they don't have the passion. Now, I certainly have the skills and passion, and I worked my hardest, and yet, I was failing to deliver. About to start crying, I asked my teacher for an extension, which he agreed to. I told him I would probably be done in two days—I was so, so wrong. Failing to determine how long something will take me was a frequent challenge. After talking with him I went for a walk, I entered the staircase and went halfway upstairs where I knew no one would see me, sat down, and broke down in tears. How was I the only one who struggled so much with meeting deadlines; I worked day and night and still I couldn't finish. I remember spending hours, hours on a single sketch; up to a point is normal, but it's just too much. One of my sculptures for Form Language consisted of three rectilinear shapes, aka, just three rectangles put together. It really shouldn't have taken me more than one hour, it took me eight, I went home 9 pm. Being autistic I pay extreme attention to detail, something very useful in this field and frequently recognized. However, it's too much it has become a hindrance. I sat sobbing on that thought for a few minutes before going back to the classroom. To meet my planned new deadline in two days, I probably should have left right away and keep working. However, I decided to stay and asked my friend Liz if she wanted to play Among Us which we were unable to play last week. We were just two people and Among Us online with strangers sucks, so she introduced me to Brawl Stars. We played until 6 pm and during that time we bonded further. She then walked me to the bus station and said goodbye for now. It was so nice to just relax and play with a friend which I hadn't in years. I finished the vacuum project Sunday midnight, I decided to keep Shabbat and not sketch. And even though I didn't finish in the two days I had planned, my project turned out beautiful. It was one of my first attempts at rendering with color pencil yet it looked awesome. And my teacher gave me a very good grade. I put myself through a lot, I could have just waived a white flag, accepting there was too much on me, and prioritized my health instead. I didn't do that and instead ended up with As. I have conflicting opinions about that; on one hand, I am closer to success, and with those grades, I finally made the honor roll—I was 0.005 GPA points short last semester,— but on the other hand you have my mom's opinion, what's the point of getting straight As if at the end I'm gonna be dead. So now I can finally rest and get ready for next semester. So many things have happened with my Judaism, and I can't wait to get that stuff written down.

Judaism

Judaism

So this one is unusual, but hopeful, and happy. So during my depression time, December (Kislev), I began seeing this nine-branched candelabra everywhere, and wondered what it meant, though I knew it was a Jewish thing and related to Chanukah. Wednesday of the second week, before my Anatomy Sketching test I heard someone refer to it as a Menorah, though I actually didn’t understand the exact word. So I went on Wikipedia to the Chanukah page and there I learned about Menorahs and later Chanukah, I read both pages entirely in hyperfocus before my teacher arrived. But I didn’t go any further into more research. I also came to realize that many people around me were Jewish, I remember we didn’t have class on Rosh Hashanah earlier in the year. One of my favorite childhood books is “When Hitler Stole the Pink Rabbit” which is about a Jewish family escaping to the UK. And I have also been very interested in the war between Israel and Hamas. And I became more interested to learn more about Judaism and Jews. Later when I was in Mexico, on New Year’s Eve I had some kind of impulse which I can only describe as coming out of nowhere. I went to the Judaism article on Wikipedia and read it. In a citation, I saw a website called JewFAQ so I went on it too. And then I had the most intense hyperfocus session in a long time; I lost track of time and spent hours reading and learning about Jewish life. I learned about the Tanakh, Divided into the Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim. I learned about Halakhah and the 613 Mitzvot, about Kashrut and Kosher/treif foods, the holidays, Shabbat, the calendar, and even Hebrew. I also began reading the Torah. I really don’t know from where all this motivation to learn comes from while I couldn’t even enjoy things like flag trivia or playing Geoguessr, things that would make me very happy before. And so, the way that I see it is that G-d, through my autisticness is driving me away from bad feelings. And yes, my self-harm thoughts have stopped, and I feel much better now. And I say through my autism because G-d made me that way, and it of course was no mistake. And it is my autism and hyperfocus and hyperfixation that have distracted me from negative feelings. And I am very thankful for that. Also, within Judaism, or at least certain branches, I am accepted as a trans woman. I even found a Tefillat with Brachot for trans people, it includes blessings for when you feel gender euphoria of dysphoria, for when making a trans friend, and even for before taking your estrogen, the last of which I have been reciting for the last three days. No one ever told me that religion could be inclusive of people like me, trans. Jewish people are very inclusive and accepting of someone like me who is trans. And the community is very tight-knit and wholesome! I am feeling a lot better now, I log my daily mood on my phone and there is clearly a difference now. I feel very thankful for having found a new connection with G-d. And so I want to convert to Judaism. I feel a push from within, as if I had found home after a long time. Where I live there are many Synagogues and Temples; I’m going to visit some of them to see which one I feel more comfortable in. At first I was thinking about Reform, but services are wildly different from what I have learned, so I think Conservative might be a good fit. There is a Jewish Center nearby, which is conservative, and the building is beautiful. They offer Hebrew classes and Torah Study classes too. So to start the process I need to talk to the Rabbi there about conversion and see if they would be interested in guiding me. A very cool thing that happened after reciting the Bracha for estrogen is that the next day, I was lying on my bed with my arm resting on my chest. I suddenly moved it and felt my left boob being a bigger size than usual. This happens every now and then. Even though I look at my body every single day, the changes are not noticeable right away, the realization just hits me like a truck one day. And it feels awesome, full of gender euphoria. Old me might have not thought much of it. But now with my newly acquired knowledge, I feel very thankful that I am able to transition. G-d helps me with that, and reciting the blessing the day before was my first time thanking for the blessing that is being able to change your body to bring me happiness. So after feeling euphoria, I then recited the other Bracha, for when you feel gender euphoria. Since I am still learning Hebrew, reciting blessings has felt like reading something with no meaning, although clearly, that is not the case. But this time, I felt a connection, I felt listened. And I began to cry, but now out of happiness. Learning about Judaism has brought me so much happiness with this inexplicable motivation, so for now, I will keep learning as much as I can.

Mom Won't Understand

Mom Won't Understand

Ever since I learned I’m autistic, I have made efforts to improve my experiences. These efforts included buying a pair of earplugs—they work great! The thing about sensory overstimulation is that it degrades your mood over time. I would get through the day before buying the earplugs, but I would feel incredibly tired and irritated afterward, with no explanation as to why. Now I know that being in a noisy environment causes this reaction, and now I avoid such environments to prevent feeling down after. It works great, I feel like I have more energy. It’s like avoiding feeling overwhelmed and sad before so that afterward, I can feel happy and energetic. (Ok, I wrote the above in November last year and didn’t finish it. Long story short, The last months of last semester were absolutely terrible.) I don’t know what the problem is with my mom and my autism. For a very long time, I thought she wouldn’t accept it outright, even though I’m formally diagnosed. Then I think she finally accepted that I am autistic but would express disgust when I wore my earplugs or my glasses. She very frequently asked me to take my headphones off when washing the dishes, a very noisy activity. I would decline and she would get very upset. She would say things like: “Why are you acting this way now?” I told her before that she might have that sort of reaction as I unmask and learn to take care of myself. As usual, those comments would be followed by insults like stupid or retarded. That denial, the insults, isolation at school, and a new environment drove my mood to absolute bottom. It was terrible, and yes, I’m thankful to say that I am finally escaping—I will explain in the next post. Every clash with my mom triggered long-dormant self-harm thoughts. The first of these was when driving my car home from the dealership. My mom was giving me advice, I was nervous and everything felt louder. I told her to lower her voice but she wouldn’t do it because she was not talking loudly according to her. I told her again to lower her voice, but this time she got mad. On purpose she started shouting at me, she said: “that is not loud, THIS IS LOUD!” That caused me a meltdown. I began to cry, and scream “shut up!” repeatedly, I began banging the steering wheel. And then it happened, just as I had merged into the interstate at the far-left I had a sudden flash showing a simple motion of the steering wheel which could end it all. I calmed myself down by breathing and didn’t act upon that thought, I am still here. That happened in August and slowly through December, the frequency of those thoughts increased.

Diagnosed

Diagnosed

Well. It was challenging to find someone that diagnosed autism in adults. After telling my mom about my autism, she didn't believe me. She said things like "You're stupid," and "You're crazy." Eventually, she agreed to help me find a diagnostician. She was calling around but no one was answering the phone, and those who did said they don't treat adults. She said that someone recommended her to check out AANE. She called me and told me what she had been doing. I was very happy, I thought she finally understood and abandoned her wrong perception of autism. Later that day she joined a meeting from a mother's support group. After it ended she called me back and she was talking in a different tone. She said, "I told you you are not autistic, you have no idea what those mothers go through every day, you are nothing like their children." I was pretty sad after that, I thought she had come to understand me, but she didn't. Autism is a spectrum disorder, some autistic people have higher support needs than others. It is a series of values, skills, and traits that go up and down for each individual, therefore, no autistic person is the same. My mom might believe that I have nothing in common with them, but I can see it. She seemed to be very fixated on the fact that those kids couldn't tie their shoelaces, or go to the bathroom. Now, I don't know much about the latter, but I remember it took me a very long time to learn to tie my shoes, way more than my peers, if that matters. But it's not just that, now that I'm more knowledgeable in autism, looking back, I can see hints of it. It has always been difficult for me to make eye contact. And as a child, I didn't altogether. It wasn't until a school counselor in 2016 pointed it out to my mom as "something to note." She told me about it and since that day I've forced myself to make eye contact, even if it's just for less than ten seconds. But anyway. We finally found a provider who specializes in late-diagnosed autistic people. The whole process was very stressful, I didn't know how things were going to turn out. The diagnostician asked me things about my childhood, and I said the things I described above and in other blog posts. And then she asked me to fill out very lengthy questionnaires. Later that day I received my diagnosis letter. I'm autistic. I felt happy and relieved. This difference I identified as autism months ago was finally confirmed. I say relieved because now I know that there is nothing wrong with me, or that I don't know how to do things, or that it could be something else. I have been following the advice of autistic people in regards to sensory overload and unmasking for a few weeks now and it has really helped me. I know that I could do those things and more without a diagnosis, but what I really wanted from a formal diagnosis was my mom's acceptance. She said multiple times I couldn't possibly be autistic and that I couldn't self-identify or self-assess as such. That is why I wanted an official diagnosis. In it, my differences and difficulties are explained, and which ones are significant that should be looked after. But she still refuses to believe that I'm autistic. I don't know if she is still going through a denial phase, and I don't know if it will go away. I want to be able to unmask and be myself without being ostracized by her. But well, now I have a better understanding of myself, and I will be working to minimize burnout, manage my emotions better, and live as a happy autistic person.

Extraordinary

Extraordinary

My mom has been into pronunciation Shorts lately. I was studying Korean and she suddenly said, ”I have a challenge for you.” The challenge was to guess the country of the flag on the screen and pronounce it properly. I got them all. Panama. Qatar. Hungary. Cameroon. Then she found another one but for guessing the capital with the flag. Ottawa. Nairobi. Stockholm. When the creator said Stockholm exactly like I did my mom just said, “Oh my god, you’re—you’re amazing.” Even though I’ve told her about my autistic traits, she still maintains that there’s no way I’m autistic. My guess is that it is hard for a neurotypical person to understand the traits that are considered autistic, and that changing the weaknesses is not as easy as “learning to be social,” or just “stop moving my hands, head, and whole body.” I’ve been listening to the melody ”Overture” from the show Extraordinary Attorney Woo. With it as background, the show begins by showing many yellow rubber ducks and a blue duck between them. I’ve always felt like that blue duck. The feeling was shared between not feeling comfortable in my gender and not fitting in socially. It was always clear to me that I was not a normal child, and everyone said that to me. I didn’t play how everyone did; I didn’t at all. I was not interested in things they liked. I have always loved learning. Always wanting to learn how to do things. The other day we were walking the dog and my mom said that she doesn’t think I’m autistic because I have had friends. And I thought about it and here’s my reasoning: Yes, I’ve had some friends in the past because others have noticed me struggling to talk, and have been kind enough to approach me and eventually embrace me. Without them, past years would have been like this senior year, lonely. Because I wouldn’t speak to anyone if I didn’t need to. But I was able to see that they were nice people that wanted to help. This last year, there was no way for anyone to know that I was new to the school. I was never introduced to anyone. I didn’t introduce myself to anyone. No one introduced themselves to me. No one even knew I was a senior in any of my classes; I only share one class out of twelve with seniors. I didn’t need to talk to anyone, so I just didn’t. I made my way around the school, mapped out where my classrooms were, and scored the highest grades ever; not that they were ever bad. During recesses, I learned things on my phone. Read through articles, news, played GeoGuessr, answered flag trivia, learned languages, so many things. That is my superpower, the eagerness to learn. That enables me to know and do a wide variety of things. From learning about nuclear energy and disasters, to the North Korean regime, flags, capitals, places on the map, Japanese, Korean, anti-trans legislation, how to fix electronics, how to read a music sheet, play piano, sewing, Java, HTML, Adobe, Product Design. It is all truly beautiful to me. Being able to do lots of things is very rewarding. It makes me very happy and proud when I learn something and I actually help others with it. Like, I’ve brought the electricity back up from a burnt fuse, jump-started a car, fixed clothes, fixed dead computers, put furniture together when no one else in the room would know how to do it or would give up. However, it comes with a detriment, I can do so many things somewhat averagely, but not a single one extremely well. In other words, I see how people succeed in something specific when in my case, I don’t have anything to show for my abilities. It’s weird, but I wouldn’t give it up. And I’ve taken the first step to change it. I’ve chosen my career, Product Design. It embodies many of the abilities I mentioned above. It will allow me to make a positive change in people’s lives. And hopefully land my dream job, work at Apple. So, yes. Being autistic is extraordinary. Knowing so many things has helped me, and I’m sure it will help me a lot. It, however, comes with difficulties that I must at least ameliorate. Even though it’s hard for me to talk to people, I need to do it. The first part of the song from the show reminds me of how sad it can be to be different and not fit in. The middle part reminds me of the discovery of your strengths. The ending is to me the amazing it all really is. Our world is different, full of amazement and discovery, and hopefully one day, someone will want to take a peek and be part of it with me.

Regret

Regret

Well, it didn’t go well. I made a letter with what I wrote in the last post. I sent it to her, but she didn’t see it. So I erased the messages and waited. Yesterday I went down to walk the dog, and I sent her the letter from there. It definitely wasn’t the best moment, but I needed to tell her. When I went back, my mum was upset, she told me to go to her room. And so I did. She told me what I thought would happen. She said that I was just looking for whatever as an excuse, that I thought about it because someone had pushed the idea into me. She said something about winning the lottery with me, I think she referred to my gender dysphoria and now autism. I started crying and told her I didn’t want to talk anymore. I went to my room and kept crying. Today in the morning she seemed to have calmed down, but she was still mad. Later in the car, she started talking to me by saying that she didn’t want me serious all the time because of what happened last night. She then started saying that she didn’t think it was right for me to self-diagnose as autistic. I only said in the letter that I had taken some screening tests. But I do consider myself autistic, suspected, I mean, exactly that, self-diagnosed. I still need a formal assessment, one that I do want, but that many autistic people decide not to get, and live just like that, self-diagnosed because they can improve their lives simply by knowing they might be autistic. But anyway, my mom started talking about her also not being able to talk to people. She then went on for five minutes almost shouting about someone lower rank that her getting a salary increase, because he had friends and talked to people more. I told her I didn’t want to talk anymore, but she didn’t want to. We had an argument. I ended up getting out of the car before reaching school as she shouted at me the usual threat of: things are gonna change from now on (negatively.) And well, now I don’t know what to do. We need to talk, but it just doesn’t work. She either gets mad or I don’t feel comfortable. Let's see what happens…

Tell Mom

Tell Mom

“Okay, so, I played yesterday’s movie because I feel that I’m different, and I wanted to see your reaction. I feel I might be autistic. Autism is a spectrum of traits that vary per person, not just varying degrees of ability. I have answered many screening tests, and the results suggest to seek help from a doctor. I am very thankful that what I may have is something called high-functioning autism, not as intense like the movie. This might be the reason why I don’t have any friends. Why I don’t want to talk to anyone. Why whenever I go to school or outside I get nervous. And why I’m shy, even around you. But it is also why I get interested, and like learning so many things, like science, languages, robotics, art, and music. Why I am good with orientation and attention to detail. Why I hear and smell things others can’t, like the gas smell, and distant noises. Why I can come up with weird, but good solutions for problems. I didn’t want to believe the results at first, because I thought I could force myself to talk to people and stop being so shy. But I can’t. I feel my heartbeat race very fast when I’m answering a question at school, the only reason why I talk there. But the more tests I answered, I became more convinced that there is indeed something wrong with me. Not very intense. But different from the rest. Now that I know why I’m different, I can do things to help myself and get help from a professional. Can we talk a little more about this? It might be a little hard for me though.”

Autism

Autism

I think this is going to be a long one. Okay, so, a few weeks ago I watched a video by one of my favorite science creators, Kyle Hill. In it, he said he's autistic, he explained his pre-diagnosis situation. I started counting with my fingers the similar traits I spotted in me. I eventually ran out of fingers. I counted a total of twelve things, like social isolation, anxiety, noise sensitivity, obsession with a certain topic (hence, why I watch him,) and fascination with dates and facts. Up until watching that video, I had a wrong perception of autism. I thought it was a very limiting disability. But I had known Kyle for some time, and I could see that this clearly wasn’t the case. I let the video finish, and that was it. But now those 12 traits were clearly in my mind, and with a possible explanation as to why I have them. I went online looking for screening tests. I answered one, after another, and another. When seeing the results, many returned a high possibility of ASD.Aspie: Broader autism cluster and neurotypical traits. AQ: 43 | Threshold: 26 | Max: 50 ASSQ: 49 | Threshold: 13 | Max: 54 RBQ-2A: 42 | Threshold: 26 | Max: 60 EQ: 23 | Threshold: <30 | Min: 0 AQ-10: 8 | Threshold: 6 | Max: 10 CAT-Q: Total: 129 | Threshold: 100 | Autism Average: 126 Compensation: 46 | Average: 42 Masking: 36 | Average: 38 Assimilation: 47 | Average: 45RAADS-R: Total: 170 | Threshold: 65 | Suspected Autistic Females Average: 145 Language: 16 | Threshold: 4 | Average: 11 Social Relatedness: 76 | Threshold: 31 | Average: 67 Sensory/Motor: 46 | Threshold: 16 | Average: 39 Circumscribed Interests: 32 | Threshold: 15 | Average: 28LSAS: 109 - Severe social anxiety | >95Yeah. I know this is not an actual assessment, but well, there it is. I think that if I wasn’t autistic, I would not be where I am right now. It has given me those superpowers that allow me to get interested in many particular things. So I think it’s made me always eager to learn. It allows me to focus on something that I really want, or need to do. It allows me to perceive tiny noises, patterns, and details, that no one seems to care about. However, it also means that I struggle a lot in social situations, I isolate myself, and I’d rather not meet, or talk to anyone if I had the chance. I currently don’t have any friends, and even though I feel impulses to come up to someone or help them with something, I never do. My mom and family frequently tell me that I don’t express much care for them, even when I feel I do. I am still discovering traits now that I know that my world is indeed different from everyone else’s. But being autistic has certainly helped me, and I wouldn’t want to be any different. Now I know why I act so awkwardly, and so I feel I can take action to help ameliorate it. I’ve also learned about masking. I do try to mimic what other people do, from how they dress to how they walk, and things they say. But I feel it just makes me look clumsier. I learned of the negative effects masking can cause. So I’m trying to just be me, like gender-transition-apart me. I notice that my heartbeat is not as fast, and I feel happier. I don’t quite know how to tell my mom though. I know she has that wrong perception of autism. And I’m afraid she will not take me seriously. This feels really similar to when I came out to her as trans. I’ve thought about paying for a diagnostic assessment by myself and then tell her when I have the results. Also to know if I’m indeed autistic, or if I have other conditions. But I really need to tell her. Yesterday she got mad at me and shouted “how hard can it be to wash the dishes!” I just stayed quiet and didn’t talk to her until later. I wanted to tell her that it may not be difficult for her, but for me it is! I, for some reason, need to organize all the dishes in the sink before starting, and I scrub each a lot (she relentlessly doesn’t want to use the dishwasher.) Then I feel the urge to line them up on the drying mat. Pans on the back, glasses to the left, plates to the right, cutlery at the bottom. Then I dry them by hand and the same, I order them on the counter to later put them away. I take over an hour doing it every day. It’s exhausting, takes so long, and I don’t feel like doing anything after. It’s so weird, but I cannot avoid it, my brain just works that way. I want her to understand why I behave that way. I want to have a relationship with my mum that’s not based on weird noises that I make, and short phrases of something serious I feel like sharing, and not spill my guts out explaining the YouTube video I watched the night before. But I’m thinking it will be difficult. And well, it’s hard for me to imagine what will come in the long term, I guess work towards demonstrating my worth. I certainly have to put a lot of effort into that, but it is reassuring that I’m actually succeeding. A couple minutes ago, I handed in my last English assignment, my teacher told me I was the first to finish every assignment for the first and second semesters, in a class size of 500. I am very proud of that!