What is autism like?

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I think I have autism but I'm not sure. Can anyone tell me what it feels like?

Form me it's like this: society doesn't make any sense. People seem irrational and instinct driven, like animals. They don't care about knowledge and facts but they seem happy and often successful. Also everybody seems to get allong with each other flawlessly except with you.

Everything is "too".

Too loud, too bright, too tight, too itchy, too anxious, too tired, too engrossed, too scattered, too particular ...

The only thing I've never experienced is boredom.

for me its bliss but most people with autism dont like having autism

I like autism in myself and other people. To the point I'd prefer to live in a society full of autistics. But I don't like the problems I have, caused by a combination of autism and other issues.

It's both good and bad. It's great, actually phenomenal, when I get to experience life without being neurologically assaulted and socially abused. It's horrific when I have to deal with how people often treat me because I am Autistic.

life was hell and extremely painful in so many ways until I began to suspect my autism at age 65, professionally diagnosed at age 68 and sorting the past before diagnosis from this new perspective has made all the answers to a life time of "whys" fall into place.

Now I understand how autism had so much to do with each painful experience and understand "nobody knew", and I have been able to finally understand myself, begin to understand others. What a relief!

Having diagnosis at such a late stage in my life means I'll be doing "emotional homework" for the rest of my life.

It has been such a relief to find out I was not completely to blame for "everything" and that there are others out there (here!) who actually understand. There are others who have insights and ideas to help me find new ways to do the hardest things in my life, and who share some of the same struggles and hardships. Somebody early on said "you are not alone" and I cried.

Mostly that I don't know what it is like to not to be one.

I know what it is like to be a reliably functioning autistic, I also know what it is like to be an unreliable dysfunctional autistic.

Most of my complaints are more to do with emotional liability, executive function, communication and language issues.

Than with how people treated me, how chaotic and overstimulating the environment is, anything involving professional help due to my own circumstances, or how I feel around people and relationships, with how different my world, processes and perceptions are from theirs.

The most concrete thing I can tell is that I'm still playing catch up at 27.
I'm not a developmentally balanced 27 year old woman. And I'm turning 28 soon.

I simply accept the fact that I'm not an NT or this so called 'normal person'.
Fitting in just doesn't mean much to me.

I can blend and pass, I also don't mask or script my way in and out.
I'm one of those very privileged autistics who can pass enough to be taken seriously, and get away with choosing to act 'weirder' than what is normally acceptable.
Because of this, there are rules that I'm exempted from. I came from a different culture from the west.

And I have issues and other things to my life outside autism.

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Being Autistic itself isn't so bad.

It's having to live with/deal with/interact with neurotypicals that's the problem.

(Don't be coy. Deep, deep down, most of you know what I'm saying is true.)

My Autism has been like being stranded on the Wrong Planet...and not knowing it.

Older folk might understand me when I say it has been like living in the Twilight Zone. It seems like the real world but there is a subtle, inexplicable undercurrent of strangeness and unpleasantness.

<=>- People seemed to think I was different and I didn't know why.
<=>- People seemed to treat me differently and I didn't know why.
<=>- People seemed to behave meanly and strangely and I didn't know why.

When I was very young I only barely noticed that things seemed strange. As I grew older I became suspicious that there might be something wrong with me. But then, as my credentials grew, I increasingly believed that I was not the problem...it was the World that was messed up.

I hope you have found these:
<=>- Autism-Spectrum Quotient Test (AQ)
<=>- Aspie Quiz ^{Registering is optional!}

When my bride and I became increasingly convinced I might be on the Autism Spectrum it was the AQ test that convinced me it wasn't just our imagination, that it was a real possibility worth pursuing.

P.S. In my case I wanted a formal diagnosis. That was a personal preference.

It's like being some other sort of animal, awkwardly pretending to be human.