driving self crazy thinking about whether I'm on spectrum

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I went through the exact same thing as poster. I went to my first assessment appointment on Saturday, I won't be able to let it rest until I know.

Hi, I'm new here so feel free to direct me to the right place if this conversation has been had before/is being had elsewhere. I've struggled with anxiety around social encounters all my life, among other things. I've briefly wondered in the past if I might be somewhere on the autism spectrum, but dismissed it. Three weeks ago a counselor I'm seeing said she thinks from the way I talk and some of my behaviors/issues, I might be on the spectrum, probably pretty close to the edge of being diagnosable.

In some ways it feels really attractive to imagine finally having a label for what's going on with me, and it feels like a useful way to maybe be able to let go of trying to fix all my social quirks/discomfort/stimming habits, etc., and just accept that maybe there'll always be a certain level at which some things will just be harder for me, and that's OK. (Of course that may be true whether or not ASD is the cause, but it feels different somehow.)

But, I'm getting REALLY caught up in trying to figure out if this is "true", like is it really being on the spectrum that explains some of my difficulties/traits, or is it better explained by anxiety alone, or something else altogether. So I find myself going over and over and over everything I do and everything I ever have done and everything I've ever felt, asking myself whether it "fits" with being on the spectrum or not. I've been reading lots of articles about women on the spectrum and getting fixated on the ways they do or don't sound like me. A lot of things seem to fit and some don't of course, and some of the behaviors that do fit only happen at some times, so I have never-ending opportunities to reanalyze. And now instead of just being my normal anxious/lost/frustrated in social situations, there's an additional layer of me analyzing what I'm doing to see how "autistic" I think it is.

I'm considering whether to seek a diagnosis, but of course diagnoses are not everything. I know that I might be on the spectrum and not be diagnosable or not be on the spectrum but be misdiagnosed. So I'm trying not to fixate on that (though it's hard for me not to want the label).

But in the meantime all this analyzing in circles is not feeling very good for me, and I get frustrated with myself for not being able to stop. I've already been struggling at work recently, and this is making it harder than ever to concentrate. I'm trying to practice self-forgiveness, and remind myself that it's natural to want answers, and that getting stuck in certain thoughts and seeing things as black and white may actually be part of what's going on if I am on the spectrum. But it's just been feeling very hard to get out of going in circles.

So I guess I'm wondering if anyone else has gone through something similar, getting fixated on whether they're on the spectrum or not, or fixated on how being on the spectrum affects them. And if so, how did/do you move through it or is it something you still struggle with?

Thanks for bearing with me through this long post and thanks in advance for any thoughts.