New here, hello!

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Secretalien
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

Joined: 10 Sep 2016
Age: 40
Gender: Female
Posts: 53

10 Sep 2016, 9:52 am

Hi, everybody, I'm new around here......

I'm in my 30s and have had a string of different diagnoses over the years, and it was recently suggested that I may be on the Austism spectrum, for a number of reasons (serious difficulty in connecting with others, can't generally intuit others' feelings/perspective or tell what I'm "supposed" to say in a conversation, have sensory issues, muted expressions, etc - plus my much younger brother was diagnosed a number of years ago).

Rewinding to my childhood, when I was in Pre-K, my mom took me to a specialist because I kept rocking back and forth, hitting my head on the wall, etc, had sensory and executive function type issues and generally acted "young" for my age. They diagnosed me with ADHD and gave me a Rx for ritalin (which in retrospect seems pretty, like :?: :?: :?: , really?). Over the next 15 years, I also got diagnosed with social anxiety, depression, and eventually bipolar disorder type II.

So I did some research and came across an article by a woman who was diagnosed as an adult and it was... really startling. It was like this woman had written an article about my life, our experiences and feelings were so similar. I found a bunch of very similar articles, blog posts etc about adult diagnosed women, as well as more official/medical kind of articles about the effects of ASD in girls that also really fit my experiences.

Between all that, I'm pretty sure that the suggestion was right.

I'm not sure, though, whether it's worth pursuing an official diagnosis at this point in my life? I know what kind of things and places are problems for me, sensory-wise, and I've been working with a therapist on and off for the last couple years to work on my social skills and communication. Hopefully being on here will help me too.