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I am looking forward to being able to participate in this forum sometimes although I might not post very frequently.

I feel like if autism is a spectrum I'm probably on what would be the mild end of it. However to say "mild" is to minimize my experience. I've gone through quite a bit of hell in elementary school and Jr. High before I finally left school and went into a home schooling situation through high school.

I took some college classes and got a couple of certificates and I'm 37 now.

At various jobs I've had communicating with customers and sometimes other employees has been hellish too.

When I was in elementary school the school counselors called me borderline autistic. They said that I met several of the traits but not every single one of them. Part of this could be that I'm female and would present differently than a typical male person with autism, but another part of it could be that I wasn't on the more severe end of the spectrum and I didn't have the kind of severe difficulties that a lot of people have, except when it came to socializing and sometimes asking inappropriate questions.

My voice now sounds very neurotypical most of the time although I do have moments now and then where it doesn't. When I was a child it sounded a little more like a typical Aspie voice more often but it seems to have changed over time to be more and more neurotypical sounding.

I first started working around 1999 at a grocery store and I was continually reprimanded by my bosses to "smile" at customers. I didn't know how. I didn't know how to make my face do that if I wasn't genuinely smiling from an internal emotion. I went through a period of time when I would just bare my teeth at people (and look terrifying to others while doing so) because I was trying so hard to follow my boss's orders.

I finally made a breakthrough when I was in a meeting getting chewed out again for not smiling. I was near tears with frustration about it and I tried to explain to them that I didn't know how. They didn't get this at all. They made some kind of joke which made me laugh and they pointed to me and said "Look, you do know how to smile, you're doing it now!"

So I kind of self-analyzed how that felt and I started out pretending to laugh when customers come up shifting the "ha" to a "Hi" and it was still really awkward at first but eventually I think some new neural pathways were made or something like that because I believe I can do it the same as NT people do now.

I also dealt with face blindness. It's not as bad as some people's because I do usually recognize friends and family but if there are two customers in a section that I don't know well and I'm helping one of them and have to step away to get something for them sometimes I don't know which one to go back to because I can't tell them apart. Or if I'm introduced to two people with similar appearance I may not be able to tell which one is which.

I also have trouble remembering people's names if I don't work with them or talk to them on a regular basis.

Sometimes my boss has told me for example to "Go tell Bob that I need him" and I've had to ask for a physical description of "Bob" and my boss has responded with shock that I had no idea who Bob was.

I would like to get some kind of diagnosis (probably on the autism spectrum) to explain the times when I do still have problems but I've made so many adaptations to play normal like the being able to smile thing that I think it would be very difficult to get one now.

Welcome to the forums! I'm new here too but have found it to be a really great place. It is still a little strange to me to be able to communicate with people that actually make sense

I had the same problems with smiling. The laugh-to-smile idea is brilliant! I wish I'd thought of that. I used to just practice in front of a mirror a lot. Eventually I came up with a lips closed smile that seems passable.

I was just diagnosed last Monday, and trust me, I have a ton of adaptive behaviors. The tests don't really focus on that surface stuff-it says in my diagnosis that I was well-groomed, generally made appropriate eye contact, lots of things that I've learned and practiced at over the years. But there are other characteristics that are not so easily faked-how I describe a picture, my ability to understand a question, that sort of thing.

If you have the resources and the opportunity, getting the evaluation, whatever the results are, may be very helpful to you. It will be a detailed examination of your mind, and might open you up to some things you would never have thought of on your own.

Thanks for the reply.

I'm not sure how to get a diagnosis to be honest but I feel like I need some kind of explanation because sometimes whatever this is has gotten me in trouble at work, etc. and I wish I had some kind of DX I could show on paper so I could get some accommodations sometimes or at least a little bit of understand on stuff like "No, I don't know that's a regular customer, they're just one of hundreds that come in every day whose faces all blend together" or "No, I don't know who Bob is two departments over" or "No, I'd really rather not attend the potluck just to have small talk on subjects that don't interest me with people I don't particularly care for."

I think what I'm most afraid of is that I'll have whatever this is but they will say I'm completely normal (because most of the time I seem so, I don't even sound autistic). Then I will just have to keep being misunderstood. I guess I would anyway.

I identify with what people say on here about feeling like they're from another planet though. I know I'm not a neurotypical human. If I were people wouldn't treat me like I was different.

Welcome

This is where I started:

http://www.autism-society.org/about-the ... -referral/

They directed me to the South Carolina Autism Society, who referred me to a a local therapist and a psychologist. I just sent an email to the address on that page.

Hey Wendy welcome.

Welcome, fellow Houstonian!

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Welcome to WrongPlanet! It's nice to meet you