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Other Autist

alt

Confident
It just dawned on me (after 40 hours straight of studying autism), that I’m autistic. Not even a «mild case», but a full on autist with an IQ of +/-180, who masks so well I pass as social and normal.

HOW the heck did I not know that before I was in my late 40ies??? I guess because I never looked in that direction, why would I?

But how on earth did the therapist not notice after years of trauma treatment, where I blatantly described my traits in detail??

I don’t get it! My GP thinks I’m bipolar since I have so weird symptoms and don’t make eye contact (he thinks i’m lying), my neurologist thinks I have cronic fatigue and migraines, since my brain is always so foggy, my dietician thinks I have an eating disorder of kinds, since I have non-logical food sensitivities, my mother told me she thought I was a psychopath as a kid, since my face never showed emotions, my therapist thinks I have childhood trauma since I don’t process emotions well, and since I «with my IQ isn’t already the President). And all along, I told them they were all wrong, and that they don’t treat my symptoms seriously. I got called hypochondriac by the doctor scanning my brain…

My therapist even has told me to try and not answer her questions «like an autist».

My friend is autistic and told me I am too, as she «cannot talk with non-autistic people», so I finally tried to learn what autism is. MY GOD!

Autism in women with high IQ:
Difficulty processing emotions,
difficulty with eye contact,
prone to food sensitivities
brain fog
successful masking (to the point of not showing symptoms as adults)
prone to ptsd due to sensitivities
prone to burn outs due to masking
face not showing emotions as children (before learning masking)
often misdiagnosed by health care providers (particularly mental disorders)
unusual interests
and so much more

tick, tick, tick, …

HOW THE HE.. did I not know? And what’s wrong with the health care system?

PS. I need advice. Should I even tell anyone? I’ve been mocked for «being autistic» a lot….

And I need a hug.
 
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personally, i'd get a second opinion before i started applying for disability benefits. maybe from a human doctor instead of doctor google. you might want to verify that the doctor who gives the second opinion has studied for more than one 40 hour marathon.

more than one pro in my alphabet soup thinks i am "high functioning autistic" and wants me to undergo the testing. i don't see the point. the treatment for autism isn't much different from the treatment for bipolar and ptsd. my psych alphabet soup already has enough noodles, thank you kindly.
 
personally, i'd get a second opinion before i started applying for disability benefits. maybe from a human doctor instead of doctor google. you might want to verify that the doctor who gives the second opinion has studied for more than one 40 hour marathon.

more than one pro in my alphabet soup thinks i am "high functioning autistic" and wants me to undergo the testing. i don't see the point. the treatment for autism isn't much different from the treatment for bipolar and ptsd. my psych alphabet soup already has enough noodles, thank you kindly.
Haha. I know when I know. It just makes sense. Very much sense. That said, I generally agree with your advice on getting professionally diagnosed if you want to tell others. I don’t, I think. Also, I work full time in a leadership position and love working and earn well, so no need for disability benefits. As of today, anyway. 😊

My treatment will be to unmask. I am masking hardcore. Maybe I’ll get a (paid by myself) therapist to help me, maybe not. I spend WAY too much band with on masking., so it would help me massively to get my foggy brain cleared up, I believe. It’s just stress, probably? 😊

I no longer get therapy for ptsd, btw, though I’m not back to my pre-ptsd self, I live with it., and find little help in therapy when it comes to my (diagnosed) ptsd, even if beneficial in other ways.

I KNOW I’m autistic. It so blatantly clear atm, I find it hilarious I never got it. But it makes so much sense, you have no idea how great it feels to get it. Everything fell in place, sort of.

If you are indeed autistic, you might want to try talking with a group of autists, and see if you feel better with them than with others… That’s what made me wonder. And instead of feeling like I’m MORE disordered than before, I actually feel relief.
 
And I'll extend that to say a second opinion by someone who is an expert on autism. You may tick every published symptom and still not have it. Many conditions--physical and psychological--share symptoms/signs. And narrowing it down to one can be hard.
I don’t necessarily tick all the symptoms. I fit cause I know. I’m sure any autist here would get it. It’s as clear as knowing if someone culturally is the same as you. It just is.

Edit: I’ll update if I ever decide to go get a diagnosis. 😊
 
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It’s as clear as knowing if someone culturally is the same as you. It just is.
Actually - it’s nothing like that at all. I don’t doubt that it feels great to finally have ‘an answer’ or a community of sorts that you feel like you fit in with. It’s more like saying “You don’t need a diagnosis to just know you’re the same as someone with a ruptured ACL”. You very much need a diagnosis - because the overlap with other conditions is huge.

The fact that you’ve managed to persuade yourself so convincingly is concerning. It’s definitely going to hamper actual diagnosis and treatment. But if you have a pre-existing Bipolar diagnosis? It’s time to get back to your doc to get your meds sorted out.
 
Actually - it’s nothing like that at all. I don’t doubt that it feels great to finally have ‘an answer’ or a community of sorts that you feel like you fit in with. It’s more like saying “You don’t need a diagnosis to just know you’re the same as someone with a ruptured ACL”. You very much need a diagnosis - because the overlap with other conditions is huge.

The fact that you’ve managed to persuade yourself so convincingly is concerning. It’s definitely going to hamper actual diagnosis and treatment. But if you have a pre-existing Bipolar diagnosis? It’s time to get back to your doc to get your meds sorted out.
ouf. i have had an autistic boyfriend since 2020, and it isn't like I have convinced myself so easily. The autists I know have told me I am an autist for years before I even considered it. I have been called autistic by people since the 1970s. Only now have I realized they were correct. And your negativity and slurs just make me feel sorry for you. You must have a bad day.

I do not have a bipolar diagnosis, no, and I do not have bipolar disorder. I was diagnosed by no less than 3 therapists, who screened me from top to bottom for MONTHS before they individually concluded I have NO OTHER diagnosis than ptsd, despite my GPs thoughts that I looked a bit "off". PTSD is the only diagnosis I have.

I am on no meds, and have never been, nor for ptsd, nor for anything, not even for depression, as I've never been depressed. (nor have I ever been manic). I don't self-medicate either, except for smoking for 2 years after the PTSD happening. I'm not a very emotional person, and for a PTSD sufferer, I'm really mentally stable.

Please be a bit less of an asshole until you know people??
 
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There was no negativity, and no slurs. Support that you don’t like doesn’t make me an asshole. Get over yourself.
I explicitly wrote in my opening post that I do NOT have bipolar disorder. To tell me to get my «meds sorted» after I wrote that, is a slur bordering abuse, as far as I can tell.

Maybe I misunderstood the intent? If so I apologize, but to me that looked like an asshole talking. I know bullies, and you look like one. This is the internet though, so tone of voice is hard to hear, and I may have misinterpreted your tone, though I don’t think so. The «Get over yourself» comment still indicates bully. You still seem negative.

Do better.
 
But how on earth did the therapist not notice after years of trauma treatment, where I blatantly described my traits in detail??
- Because there is so much crossover between disorders that it’s often impossible to tell without a thorough DDX / differential diagnosis including full medical & neurological work up?

- Because your therapist may not be a qualified diagnostician?

- Because, giftedness-spectrum is a well recognized thing (gifted, highly gifted, profoundly gifted) even if it’s not (yet?) classified as a disorder, it still comes along with symptoms typical of autism… yet with far less crossover than many other disorders… and vastly different treatments than which work with autism? (Asynchronous development, for example, is an extraordinarily malleable/treatable condition in people who are gifted; but the same effects/symptoms when due to autism, instead of asynchronous development, are bedrock/not malleable in the least).

- Because comorbid conditions present very differently than disorders do all by themselves?

I KNOW I’m autistic. It so blatantly clear atm, I find it hilarious I never got it. But it makes so much sense, you have no idea how great it feels to get it. Everything fell in place, sort of.
My kid qualified for a special school when he was little, that runs K-8 and then feeds into ALL the top prep schools in the nation (tippy top, like 6 of them, as well as the several hundred which feed into the Ivy leagues), which (those 6) feed directly into the best universities in the world… often after only 1 or 2 years (IE starting MIT or Ox-Bridge, etc. at 14 or 16), although some of the kids in K-8 skipped prep school and moved straight to university at 12 or so.

Super nifty little school.

They kept the kids grouped by age, and the work itself was individualized. So everyone in the same 2nd grade class (7/8yos) would be working on math, or literature, or whatever… but some kids would be doing addition/subtraction/basic maths, & others would be doing applied mathematics; some kids would be reading at grade level in their primary language, whilst others were reading Proust in Russian & French and writing comparative analysis.

In that school virtually every kid had/has hallmark high IQ / Gifteness issues, and roughly 2/3s were “twice exceptional” (both gifted and having another disorder on board). Only about 10% of that 2/3s were autism spectrum. Apx 10% were ADHD. Apx 30% had specific learning disabilities. More than half had mood disorders. I could go on, but it’s a fairly looooong list.

The major point being, is that brains that process and store information differently than normal? (In this case in the gifted range), also often process and store information differently than normal (IE psychological & neurological conditions & disorders). 😉

One might think this was a very uptight ‘brainiac’ sit at one’s desk socially awkward building… but it wasn’t. The kids were craaaaaaaazy social… running, skipping, rolling, cartwheeling, racing -both slow & fast races-, hopping, catwalk strutting, ghosting silently, tripping/falling… to/from classes (walking & standing in lines, etc. were dis-encouraged although allowed; it split roughly down the center how many kids were physically gifted / athletically inclined & this was pure fun -vs- how many had various movement or visual-spatial disorders, and this was part of their occupational therapy in a supportive environment, to learn to mastery their bodies in 3 dimensional space. Classroom spaces meanwhile (as the kids changed buildings every class period) ran the rainbow from very traditional desks in rows with chairs, to standing tables, yoga balls, crash spaces, laboratories, outdoors… so the kids could learn to learn in a variety of conditions and environments. ET CETERA. These few things just the itsy bitsy tip of an enourmous iceberg.

^^^
Why the hell am I talking about this?
^^^

It can be transcendental “seeing” yourself for the first time, in a group of peers.

Especially if one has spent a lifetime sticking out like a sore thumb, or a Lilly amongst Roses (or the cat weaving their way between them, or the bird staring down from above).

One of the things this school did for ME was to obliterate my preconceptions of what XYZ “looked like”. Both the disorders and conditions I was extremely familiar with, the ones I was conversant with, and the ones I was not, or completely new to outside of academia.

…Because no one in this school was neurotypical, neurodivergent was NORMAL…

It was a mind blowing experience of seeing 200 kids who shared symptoms with both shared and radically different causes and best treatments. This school formed one of the pillars of why I feel so strongly about differential Dx’s.

((One of the others is almost a complete reversal, having met so many people later in their lives who had wasted years/decades attempting to treat the wrong thing. Sometimes only as effective as attempting to jam a square peg in a round hole, or walk through walls; other times so detrimental as to ruin lives in jails/institutions & madness/death.))

^^^
So why the hell I’m talking about any of this? My own bias. Up front.

You may well be on the spectrum. I couldn’t even begin to guess (although it is extremely odd for someone on the spectrum to take a gut feeling of recognition over logical and methodical differential testing and analysis with repeatable results).
 
This seems like you are celebrating you being right and everyoneelse wrong. We have all achieved this. It feels tremendous.

Sometimes we seek this feeling again. Sometimes we try hard. Sometimes we think we have done it all on our own and it leads to way worse feelings of failure.

I am by mo means trying to say you are right/wrong. I am fairly confident you operating in a dangerous zone emotionally.

Take everything you know to a pro. Please.

We will rejoice with you.)
 
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