i have autism and ADD lol, bimboland is a hyperfixation rn

BigFatTitties wrote:

i have autism and ADD lol, bimboland is a hyperfixation rn

thats so valid... getting hyperfixated/hyperfocused on stuff is both a blessing and a curse isn't it

hope it's okay to post this in here but my autism assessment is on saturday and i am scared. 

i only somewhat recently made the realization i may be autistic, even though i've displayed signs since childhood and other kids picked up on it as well (got bullied). had a psychiatrist tell me when i was a teenager "hey, it sounds like you might be on the spectrum" but it never went any further than that and i never thought about it much. i felt it would be too late for a diagnosis because i'm doing fine in college and i currently have a job that allows me to take breaks when i feel overwhelmed and i don't have to talk to people at all. but it might not be that way forever and i might need accommodations in the future so i decided to pursue getting a formal diagnosis.

but i feel like it might be a waste of time and money. i hope this isn't offensive to say but i feel like at this point in my life i'm not externally "autistic enough" to be diagnosed especially when most of the information about autism pertains to autism in men and there are still people who believe in the "extreme male brain theory" in the year 2020. i'm able to mask fairly well and i don't have a lot of classic signs because i've suppressed them due to bullying in my youth. like if i spend $2000 on an autism evaluation and don't get diagnosed because i'm too good at pretending to be not autistic idk wtf i'm going to do.

has anyone else ever felt this way? and if you've gone through the process of formal diagnosis as an adult, what was it like?

cowgirl wrote:

hope it's okay to post this in here but my autism assessment is on saturday and i am scared. 

i only somewhat recently made the realization i may be autistic, even though i've displayed signs since childhood and other kids picked up on it as well (got bullied). had a psychiatrist tell me when i was a teenager "hey, it sounds like you might be on the spectrum" but it never went any further than that and i never thought about it much. i felt it would be too late for a diagnosis because i'm doing fine in college and i currently have a job that allows me to take breaks when i feel overwhelmed and i don't have to talk to people at all. but it might not be that way forever and i might need accommodations in the future so i decided to pursue getting a formal diagnosis.

but i feel like it might be a waste of time and money. i hope this isn't offensive to say but i feel like at this point in my life i'm not externally "autistic enough" to be diagnosed especially when most of the information about autism pertains to autism in men and there are still people who believe in the "extreme male brain theory" in the year 2020. i'm able to mask fairly well and i don't have a lot of classic signs because i've suppressed them due to bullying in my youth. like if i spend $2000 on an autism evaluation and don't get diagnosed because i'm too good at pretending to be not autistic idk wtf i'm going to do.

has anyone else ever felt this way? and if you've gone through the process of formal diagnosis as an adult, what was it like?

Hey cowgirl, its me, ur cowbrother.......

I don't like talking about this on here, but I want to help. 

I was diagnosed in my later teens, just after finishing high school. I was good at masking, in the end I actually just barely passed as autistic on the tests they gave me because I'd been able to develop skills out of survival. By that point there was very little support I could access, and not a lot I could even use because I'd figured out my own coping skills. 
When I was in high school I got pulled aside sometimes too, by teachers / counsellors about the possibility of me being autistic. But by the time I was tested, I'd learned how to act well enough that I mostly just read as awkward,  and I was super scared I wouldn't get diagnosed and I'd either be an undiagnosed autistic person, or someone whose issues were his own fault.

I'm pretty sure we live in different countries, but the test I was given was done in several stages and it was very thorough. I still have some of the documents they gave me, write-ups of how they analysed my behaviour and body language and speaking patterns. They've gotten it down to a science, some services. I wasn't brushed off for being able to act mostly neurotypical, I was taken seriously as anyone else. And maybe this is a little sad but even at my best I'm-being-normal, I was still clearly read as autistic.
As an adult, there are not so many services to access, but that does not make the diagnosis useless. Being diagnosed can close some doors, but open a lot more. Even in a literal sense, if you need your employer or college to give you somewhere quiet to go. Specialist support, money to support you to live if it affects your work, finding other autistic people and coping together. One of the bigger things for me as well was the confirmation that I do have a disorder that affects me in many ways, and that many things I really have struggled with, or stupid shit I did as a kid because I didn't know better, aren't my fault. None of it was because I was stupid or neglected or causing trouble for myself, and I know a lot of other autistic people faced the same revelation.

I do want to point out that if you get diagnosed or not, the autistic community as a whole is usually very open to self-diagnosed autistic people, or even people who share some symptoms but not others. Even if you can't get a professional diagnosis, there is a whole world of people like you out here who can offer you better support and coping skills than many professional support workers.

Hope this helps.
Yeehaw.

cowgirl wrote:

hope it's okay to post this in here but my autism assessment is on saturday and i am scared. 

i only somewhat recently made the realization i may be autistic, even though i've displayed signs since childhood and other kids picked up on it as well (got bullied). had a psychiatrist tell me when i was a teenager "hey, it sounds like you might be on the spectrum" but it never went any further than that and i never thought about it much. i felt it would be too late for a diagnosis because i'm doing fine in college and i currently have a job that allows me to take breaks when i feel overwhelmed and i don't have to talk to people at all. but it might not be that way forever and i might need accommodations in the future so i decided to pursue getting a formal diagnosis.

but i feel like it might be a waste of time and money. i hope this isn't offensive to say but i feel like at this point in my life i'm not externally "autistic enough" to be diagnosed especially when most of the information about autism pertains to autism in men and there are still people who believe in the "extreme male brain theory" in the year 2020. i'm able to mask fairly well and i don't have a lot of classic signs because i've suppressed them due to bullying in my youth. like if i spend $2000 on an autism evaluation and don't get diagnosed because i'm too good at pretending to be not autistic idk wtf i'm going to do.

has anyone else ever felt this way? and if you've gone through the process of formal diagnosis as an adult, what was it like?

cowgirl i know how that feels. i'm self-diagnosed autistic even though i fit most, if not all criteria of it, and was bullied as a kid because of it. i WAS taken to be assessed as a child but i was given the ADD label (which i also fit perfectly to be fair) instead of a diagnosis, and nowadays i genuinely believe that's because whoever the psychiatrist was believed only "men" (im transmasc <3) were able to be autistic. the only validation i've ever gotten was from my mom saying she "thinks i'm a bit on the spectrum". growing up without the formal diagnosis is hard but we're still standing! and you're never "not autistic enough" for a diagnosis. i feel that way sometimes too, but that's just in your head. since we're all good at masking bc of childhood bullying usually you might be fooling yourself into thinking the symptoms aren't there if that makes sense? that's what i do at least. since i don't have the diagnosis from a professional i can't help you with that but the community is extremely accepting from what i've seen, prof diagnosis or not!

i wish you luck on your assessment and hope the paragraph i typed makes sense LOL

cowboy wrote:

Hey cowgirl, its me, ur cowbrother.......

I don't like talking about this on here, but I want to help. 

I was diagnosed in my later teens, just after finishing high school. I was good at masking, in the end I actually just barely passed as autistic on the tests they gave me because I'd been able to develop skills out of survival. By that point there was very little support I could access, and not a lot I could even use because I'd figured out my own coping skills. 
When I was in high school I got pulled aside sometimes too, by teachers / counsellors about the possibility of me being autistic. But by the time I was tested, I'd learned how to act well enough that I mostly just read as awkward,  and I was super scared I wouldn't get diagnosed and I'd either be an undiagnosed autistic person, or someone whose issues were his own fault.

I'm pretty sure we live in different countries, but the test I was given was done in several stages and it was very thorough. I still have some of the documents they gave me, write-ups of how they analysed my behaviour and body language and speaking patterns. They've gotten it down to a science, some services. I wasn't brushed off for being able to act mostly neurotypical, I was taken seriously as anyone else. And maybe this is a little sad but even at my best I'm-being-normal, I was still clearly read as autistic.
As an adult, there are not so many services to access, but that does not make the diagnosis useless. Being diagnosed can close some doors, but open a lot more. Even in a literal sense, if you need your employer or college to give you somewhere quiet to go. Specialist support, money to support you to live if it affects your work, finding other autistic people and coping together. One of the bigger things for me as well was the confirmation that I do have a disorder that affects me in many ways, and that many things I really have struggled with, or stupid shit I did as a kid because I didn't know better, aren't my fault. None of it was because I was stupid or neglected or causing trouble for myself, and I know a lot of other autistic people faced the same revelation.

I do want to point out that if you get diagnosed or not, the autistic community as a whole is usually very open to self-diagnosed autistic people, or even people who share some symptoms but not others. Even if you can't get a professional diagnosis, there is a whole world of people like you out here who can offer you better support and coping skills than many professional support workers.

Hope this helps.
Yeehaw.

thank you so much for this thoughtful response cowboy. i'm happy i'm not alone in my fears but sorry to hear you experienced them as well. in my case, as a resident in an american red state, the evaluation is going to occur all at once in a 4 hour session which is quite daunting for me. i didn't realize they'd be looking at my physical mannerisms and whatnot, i thought they'd just ask me things. i guess it's good that it should be very comprehensive. your experience has given me hope of being taken seriously.

i see what you mean about a diagnosis being a confirmation and now that i think about it, that probably will be more helpful to me than accommodations in the workplace. i think it would be nice for me to have a solid, formal explanation for some of my behaviors and it would eliminate a lot of shame i carry. i'm happy for you that you were able to have this confirmation and know now that you weren't at fault for things.

thank you for pointing that out, it does help a lot. even if i don't get diagnosed by a professional, i hadn't considered that there is still a huge accepting community out there that i could reach out to. and maybe my own experiences could help someone else, too.

you helped alleviate a lot of my fears and there are literally tears in my eyes right now lol. thank you so so much.

kujojotaro wrote:

cowgirl i know how that feels. i'm self-diagnosed autistic even though i fit most, if not all criteria of it, and was bullied as a kid because of it. i WAS taken to be assessed as a child but i was given the ADD label (which i also fit perfectly to be fair) instead of a diagnosis, and nowadays i genuinely believe that's because whoever the psychiatrist was believed only "men" (im transmasc <3) were able to be autistic. the only validation i've ever gotten was from my mom saying she "thinks i'm a bit on the spectrum". growing up without the formal diagnosis is hard but we're still standing! and you're never "not autistic enough" for a diagnosis. i feel that way sometimes too, but that's just in your head. since we're all good at masking bc of childhood bullying usually you might be fooling yourself into thinking the symptoms aren't there if that makes sense? that's what i do at least. since i don't have the diagnosis from a professional i can't help you with that but the community is extremely accepting from what i've seen, prof diagnosis or not!

i wish you luck on your assessment and hope the paragraph i typed makes sense LOL

thank you for responding to me. i'm sorry you had to deal with that psychiatrist and hope that if you ever decide to pursue being reassessed that you are respected and validated. and yeah it seems like we're in the same boat, i definitely do kind of fool myself about my symptoms. the mind is a strange thing and sometimes i have to remind myself that i know myself the best and my version of reality is valid sklaskslkjjnghjbghr but i forget all the time! it's good to hear from another person that there's a community out there that will accept me regardless of the results of my evaluation.
 
i'm still crying because i'm in awe of the kindness of people here lmfao. thank you for the well wishes and your post made total sense! <3

Hi, autistic/likely ADHD here. I was lucky enough to have family who was autistic who recognized what was going on with me, so they were able to help... although the latter ADHD took, uh, a lot longer to realize, haha.

Cowgirl, I do wanna support what other people are saying about analysis being holistic. I got formally diagnosed in college, and even though I did well on the tests of my functioning and intelligence, they noted my lack of eye contact, my trailing off and losing thread of thought, my Terrible Handwriting and motor control, etc, and diagnosed me regardless. Any good test will catch everything.

And to be blunt - even if they don't qualify you as being formally autistic enough, there's not really a medication treatment for autism or anything, just coping methods and accommodations. If the stuff that helps autistic people navigate their life helps you, then use it! You're not taking resources away from neurodivergent people by going "hey this advice for dealing with executive function stuff/sensory overload/communication difficulties/whatever helps me".

I wish you all the best.

hello, hopefully it's okay to post in a thread that hasn't been active in a while, but i wanted to continue my post from last month and say that i was formally diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder yesterday. it really was such a relief to finally know for sure and i feel like my world has opened up a bit.

my doc said something interesting though. i'd mentioned to her during my assessment that i feel like i can't control my brain and have thought patterns where i get fixated on things (sometimes a good thing but sometimes i fixate on something negative) and she mentioned this may have something to do with the fact that many with autism have an excess of synapses. while most people have brains that prune synapses and unneeded mental connections, those with autism don't do this at a normal rate.

the way i see it, it's like the brain of someone without autism has neural pathways organized like a well-planned recently built suburban neighborhood. a person's train of thought which i visualize as a car has an easier time navigating this landscape. it's the kind of place where there are multiple routes to get to home depot if that makes sense.
i view the brain of someone with autism like a cluttered downtown area. the streets are all built around one point and almost lay on top of each other as the city has grown over the years. there's lots of one-ways and dead ends so it's easy to get lost there. the abundance of one-way streets means there's often just one route to get somewhere and a wrong turn can turn a short drive into a very long one. so when i'm fixated on something, it's like i've gotten lost at a dead end in a neural city street. 

apparently there is a drug that can restore normal synaptic pruning but i like my downtown brain, nothing wrong with a suburban brain either. my hope is that with this diagnosis i'll be able to get help so that i can better drive the car that is my train of thought. just thought i'd share because maybe someone else can relate to the analogy. 

another interesting thing and i suppose a question as well. i wonder if the excess of synapses may have something to do with migraines. i get migraines with aura and apparently during the aura period my synapses are going absolutely hog wild so perhaps these things are connected. so does anyone else here with autism experience migraines?

cowgirl wrote:

hello, hopefully it's okay to post in a thread that hasn't been active in a while, but i wanted to continue my post from last month and say that i was formally diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder yesterday. it really was such a relief to finally know for sure and i feel like my world has opened up a bit.

my doc said something interesting though. i'd mentioned to her during my assessment that i feel like i can't control my brain and have thought patterns where i get fixated on things (sometimes a good thing but sometimes i fixate on something negative) and she mentioned this may have something to do with the fact that many with autism have an excess of synapses. while most people have brains that prune synapses and unneeded mental connections, those with autism don't do this at a normal rate.

the way i see it, it's like the brain of someone without autism has neural pathways organized like a well-planned recently built suburban neighborhood. a person's train of thought which i visualize as a car has an easier time navigating this landscape. it's the kind of place where there are multiple routes to get to home depot if that makes sense.
i view the brain of someone with autism like a cluttered downtown area. the streets are all built around one point and almost lay on top of each other as the city has grown over the years. there's lots of one-ways and dead ends so it's easy to get lost there. the abundance of one-way streets means there's often just one route to get somewhere and a wrong turn can turn a short drive into a very long one. so when i'm fixated on something, it's like i've gotten lost at a dead end in a neural city street. 

apparently there is a drug that can restore normal synaptic pruning but i like my downtown brain, nothing wrong with a suburban brain either. my hope is that with this diagnosis i'll be able to get help so that i can better drive the car that is my train of thought. just thought i'd share because maybe someone else can relate to the analogy. 

another interesting thing and i suppose a question as well. i wonder if the excess of synapses may have something to do with migraines. i get migraines with aura and apparently during the aura period my synapses are going absolutely hog wild so perhaps these things are connected. so does anyone else here with autism experience migraines?

congrats! i hope this diagnosis will open up a new chapter of introspection for you. and that's a great analogy, i think it's very relatable. i also relate to you not wanting to get rid of it, because i think it can lead to lots of interesting and creative solutions to things that would otherwise be solved in a boring way. harnessing the way your brain and synapses work is just a process of knowing your neurology and adapting your problem solving techniques to it, instead of the other way around like autistic people are usually encouraged to. someone who's familiar with a downtown area and knows all the shortcuts will have an easier time navigating it than someone who strictly follows an outdated map :]