I think I may be autistic

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I'm a 24 year old woman, and I've been questioning whether I'm autistic or not. This started a year ago when an autistic friend had assumed that I was autistic. It was a surprise, for sure, but I started looking things up afterwards.

When I look back at my childhood, there are some red flags. I didn't talk until I was 3 years old, and when I was a toddler, I didnt respond to verbal cues and my extended family thought I was deaf. I had an obsession with a phonics toy when I was 2 years old and began reading before I was able to speak.

I had a few special interests when I was in school, ranging from space, weather, geography and climate. I was also obsessed with numbers. My friendships with other girls suffered because I would always insert my special interests into whatever we were doing. Turns out, they didn't like when I pretended there was a tornado when we were playing house lol

I was very prone to bullying and being taken advantage of. A lot of kids would play tricks on me and I wouldnt realize it until quite a bit later. I really didn't understand anyone and I preferred to talk to adults about my interests. I ended up being a loner by fourth grade, and that continued throughout the rest of my time in school. I was also prone to meltdowns. I also wouldnt make eye contact with others until I was a teenager.

Fast forward to today, my eye contact is described by others as normal, natural, and slightly better than average. Although, I often dont know how to act in social situations, and I'll end up isolating or taking to people I know in quiet areas at parties. I still get taken advantage of, mainly by men, because I'm naive about their intentions. I'm a bit of a social chameleon, in that I adapt everything I do and even who I appear to be in order to relate to people. This goes to the point where I've picked up mannerisms, voices and accents from people quite quickly. I'll even sometimes be watching a show from a different country, and pick up the accent of that country for the rest of the day without realizing it, until maybe a friend asks why I sound like I'm from New Zealand or something. Most of my friends aren't neurotypical, and I can interact fine with them, but when I interact with neurotypicals, I just can't do it. I come off really strange to my family because I never know what to say or do when they talk to me.
I tend to make inappropriate jokes more often than I should, and I don't realize I've gone too far until a friend tells me. It's not super common, but it happens more often with me than with others.
Also, if someone is flirting with me or is attracted to me, I probably won't be able to tell unless they're overt and creepy about it, at which case I walk away

I have many sensory issues, as well. I can't stand cold sauces or savoury foods such as pizza. Loud noises freak me out and overload me, and I can't walk beside a busy street without getting overloaded. If there's background noise or somebody is talking to me, I can't focus on anything else. Typing this, my friend said a few things to me which threw me completely off. I'm also extra sensitive to temperatures and pain. There are times, too, where I'll be somewhere loud and full of people where I'll freeze up and even lose my ability to speak. I'll be unable to speak for an hour or longer.

Changes in plans, abruptly having to stop something I'm doing, sudden changes in subject in conversations where I haven't finished my point, and being given multiple verbal instructions are all overwhelming to me and can cause me to either freeze up, break down or lose my ability to speak. When I can't speak, I'll try to get a single word out and at the most, I can only manage unintelligible babbles. This has made it impossible to hold a job, because all the demands of employment cause me to melt down, due to all the changes and the fast pace of things.

I have a few special interests that basically make up the only things I never have the energy to focus on. I love languages, etymology, worldbuilding, creating demographic and climate data, and history. Numbers still play a big role in my interests and activities, and can be really relaxing to me, oddly.

I also found out that my constant fidgeting is actually stimming. Tapping my foot, twirling my hair, fidgeting with small objects, rocking, and even hair pulling are all things I do most of the time. If I'm awake, I'm always stimming one way or another. If I'm anxious, sad or depressed, I stim a lot more overtly, mainly by rocking or moving my hands around. I never really noticed that others don't do this.

I can't believe I'm asking this, but does it sound like I'm autistic? I'm genuinely confused and I'm too afraid to hastily talk to a clinician about it, unless I'm sure, because it's hard to get a diagnosis as an adult woman.

It's possible , I definitely see what appears to be a few autistic traits.

You should stick around and join in some discussions and see what clicks for you , it took me about a month ( this is not my first account ) of asking specific questions to realise I'm autistic.

Welcome to Wrong Planet and hopefully a journey of enlightenment

Here is a link to the Aspie quiz , I found it quite useful for a few things.

https://rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php

Some members like to post the results in their signature

You sound more self aware about your traits than I was, and you possibly have stronger ones, although maybe I did at your age too - I am late 40s now. Have you taken the online AQ, RDOS? The online systemization quizzes and such didn't "work" for me b/c I found them to be male biased. I am the AS type who's (overly) warm, (overly) expressive and my theoretical EQ is super high (I see and understand 95%). So I don't fit the AS stereotype those ways. I do fit in that my practical EQ is near 5%: if stressed: Does not compute. Perhaps it's similar for you.

What worked best for me was reading memoirs (books) by AS women, and some online lists, and then I requested an assessing clinician experienced with adult women. As is typical for a person of my type, I "failed" the ADOS (supposed to detect AS, but at least one study indicates if fails for 30% of women - likely 100% of my type), but my clinician saw past that. Numbers are comforting to me also.

I am still in disbelief that I was diagnosed "mild to moderate" AS. I feel normal for me and don't understand why my way of being would be a minority thing. But reading all my childhood letters I see that from the start peers labelled me as "strange" (and "amazing"). Initially my care providers denied I was AS, but I am unmasking now (for myself and trusted others) and -if the others are progressive- they can see it. For me, my diagnosis is sad (where was and is the kindness?) and freeing (now it makes so much sense!).

Good luck for your self exploration and on your Life Journey.

Yep, you are more self aware and/or have stronger traits. My first AQ score was 26, then I put aside some of my delusion (and took questions less literally) and now get 34-37 regularly.

I think it's pretty safe to say:

Welcome to Your/Our World!
~from a Person Similar To You (in this way)

It's amazing at all the different personalities and temperaments in the AS community (as many as in the world in general), but the underlying Similarities.

Also, whenever I take an asperger's/ autism test online, I have stronger symptoms than they cover in any of the tests, such as my loss in verbal abilities at times. I'm even unable to hold a job because of my symptoms. Would my symptoms be considered stronger than would be labelled as asperger's? (I wouldnt use that label anyway for personal reasons)

Just thought I'd add that some members here are happy with self diagnosis , they do enough research to be confident with their decision. And some members don't want an official diagnosis on their record for certain reasons.

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

Under stress, the human brain begins to collapse inward from the social brain in control, to the fight or flight brain in control, and finally to the core brain. This last state is called tonic immobility. One of the things that Bessel van der Kolk showed when he first started to do trauma research with functional MRIs is that when people are in the trauma state, they actually shut down the frontal parts of their brain and particularly the area on the left cortex called Broca's area, which is responsible for speech. When the person is in the traumatic state, those brain regions are literally shut down; they're taken offline.  Some Aspies report that during a meltdown, they have difficulty processing speech. It is like hearing white noise. Others indicate they lose their ability to think in words. Rather they revert back to thinking in terms of pictures and video clips and when they try and communicate, their words come out as gibberish. Others indicate they lose their ability to process all sensory inputs. Sometimes during a panic attack, the whole body goes limp and the person will collapse on the floor.