Hi everyone,
I hope you are all doing well, and are safe. This is my first post here, and probably the first forum I've ever joined!
I know that this is no substitute to an actual diagnosis, but I was hoping I could share this with you guys and get an opinion! I'm sorry for the long post.
[CW for non-explicit self-harm. If there's somewhere else I should move this, tags I should make, etc or take it down please tell me!]
A couple months ago I saw a comic about a woman's experience with autism and found that I strangely related to it, especially when I think back to middleschool/early highschool. I remember crying and begging my mum not to make me go to a meetup with people I was in an afterschool theatre group with. They were all very nice to me, and I had a lot of fun talking to them, but the idea of having doing nothing but socialising with them for a couple hours absolutely terrified me.
Whenever I spoke to someone and I said something I could tell was the wrong thing, I sometimes became so overwhelmed I went to the bathroom and cried, and eventually took up self harm to deal with basic social mistakes (or academic mistakes) I made during day-to-day. This also led to some self-esteem issues. Thankfully, my self esteem is much higher now and I very rarely self harm.
I have also become much better at socialising, but after a lot of interactions I reflect and think how that could have gone better, or how I need to approach the next conversation, or section of conversation with this person.
There's a very good chance I had/have a mild to moderate amount of anxiety. I'm constantly worrying about uni work and other responsibilities 24/7, and it was worse in high school, where I'd have meltdowns before submitting work, which were quite embarrassing. Even today I had to present to my uni class what I'd worked on so far for my essay and immediately afterwards I started crying.
Thinking back to early childhood, I remember I was obsessed with squids (and other cephalopods) and other marine life. I had heaps of marine themed plushies I put on my bed every morning and every morning they had to be in the exact same place. Similarly, there was this magazine about cats that was about a different breed every issue, and each copy came with a small cat! I would line these up in order of the magazine issues every time I tidied my room. In fourth grade I also had a massive Skyrim phase, which pretty much dictated my life for a while. I also had two Star Wars phases were I'd learn as much as I could about every character possible. When I loved Skyrim and Star Wars I had a massive 'I'm not like other girls' phase that went along with it, where I went from 'my dream is to become a mermaid fairy (a real wish I had)' to 'i hate pink and dresses and other girly things'. Despite this, I had almost entirely female friends, because I struggled to communicate with guys, even though I really wanted to be friends with them because they had similar interests.
I was very bossy when I was very young, but I'd sometimes leave my friends to go play by myself.
I've done some research, and I fit into a lot of things I've read online. I'm always doing something like bouncing my leg, biting my lip or a pencil, or rubbing fabrics with a texture that I really like, and even more so when I'm feeling stressed, which is majority of the time, even if it's just in the background. I ramble about art, my favourite singer, anime or any video games I like at the time to a ridiculous extent, that when I think about that conversation afterward I find myself embarrassed.
I've noticed my social skills have dramatically improved since early high school, and I believe that came from the confidence acting gave me in communicating, but I also noticed when I'm tired I can barely talk to people properly at all, unless its about something I'm interested in.I am very disorganised, and am always behind on assessments no matter how much I enjoy them. I just can't focus on them! I've tried so many methods. They usually work for a little bit, but then they don't. When I was younger, this was fine because I could do my assessments the night before for an easy A but it severely impacted me in highschool, and is impacting me in uni. In my final year, my grades were the worst they'd been since Grade 5.
Thank you for reading this, if you did. Even if no one does, I think it was good for me to type out. I'm still concerned I'm just an introverted slightly awkward teen perhaps with mild anxiety who's trying to feel special and unique, so I would really like the brutal honesty if that's what this is.
20 Apr 2020, 5:50 am
Definitely get a diagnosis.
