Adventures of a Shockingly Average 30-Something

Circling back, now that I’ve had a couple of days. I’m not surprised in the slightest that I was diagnosed as autistic. It’s something I’ve thought and wondered about for so long that I would have been MORE surprised to find out that I wasn’t. I’m honestly so glad that I decided to pursue doing this because I needed to know, just for myself. I’m considering doing at least one, maybe a few, therapy sessions with the same company I went through for the assessment (honestly I don’t know if “assessment” or “evaluation” is the right word so whichever is right, just assume that’s what it should say). There’s so much I don’t know about therapy that holds me back from doing it - what will the therapist be like? What questions will they ask? What will the topic(s) of conversation be? Are they going to be mad at me? (There would be no reason for them to be mad at me and the logical part of my brains KNOWS that, but the anxious part of my brain is constantly worried at all times that everyone is ...

 Update: I am autistic. And maybe I’ll type more later, but right now. I’m just feeling a lot of feelings. So I’ll circle back another day.

I can’t stop thinking about my upcoming appointment with the psychologist on Wednesday. I’m trying so hard to be “normal” and I’m stressed about everything (Christmas is next week(!!!!!!) and we still need to ship everything and life is hectic because of that) but really I can’t focus on anything because all apparently all my brain can think about is that appointment. In less than 48 hours, I’ll have an answer. And it’s like, whichever way it goes is… I’ll have feelings about. Because if she says that I AM autistic, then what I’ve thought and suspected and wondered about for half my life was right. I’ll get that validation that I crave. I’ll know that I wasn’t just a weird little kid who didn’t fit in and who struggled with making friends and who the world was just too much for. I’ll know that I wasn’t just “over dramatic.” I’ll know the why for all of it. Like I wasn’t weird, I was just autistic. If I am. But also, I’ll be so sad for my childhood self who thought that SHE was too much...

For nearly half my life, roughly 16 years now, I’ve wondered if (and suspected that maybe) I could be autistic. I was 17, just about 18, when I started my first semester of college and one of the classes I took that first semester was a communications class. A classmate did a presentation about autism and I, at 17, didn’t know anything beyond my own stereotyped thoughts about autism. I sat there listening to my classmate’s presentation and everything she was saying was hitting me as…me. The entire presentation I just kept thinking “this is me. How is this me? This is me.” I left class that day back in 2009 wondering if it was possible that I might, just maybe, be “a little bit” autistic. But at the same time, despite starting to wonder if maybe…, I kept thinking of reasons why I just couldn’t be autistic. I had friends. I did well in school - I mean, I was in college!  I hated looking people in the eyes - it made me uncomfortable and anxious - but I still could do it. Maybe I could...