To be, or not to be autistic

At the time of writing, it's 10:39 AM.

At 11:45 AM, I will have an appointment with a colleague of my therapist.

In a little bit over an hour, I will finally have the therapy session that will answer the question I've had for all 29 years of my life.

Why am I the way I am?

Let's rewind a bit.

On the 15th of September 2020, a little less than one month before my 29th birthday, I was diagnosed with ADHD combined type.

At first, I felt a sense of relief. After all, before my appointment I had hyperfocused on ADHD. I had spent hours reading and screaming profanities whenever I recognized myself in a piece written by an ADHD person. My mouth had dropped open many, many times at realizing that these 'traits and quirks' I thought were just 'Carolesque things,' turned out to be common among a group of people I previously thought only consisted of hyperactive little boys.

The psychiatrist on my diagnosis day gave me a Ritalin. I had to take it and come back to the clinic in 1 and a half hour for another test, to see if the medication worked.

I went outside for a bit and bought myself a soft serve. I remember how I sat down on a bench and looked at how brightly the sun shone, despite summer was leaving and autumn had sneaked in.

I also remember how I started to cry while holding a melting soft serve ice cream in my trembling hands. Even as I tried to eat it, I couldn't taste its sweetness or cold.

All I could taste at that very moment was regret.

Regret at how my life could have been different if my family had been supportive and had let me go to a psychologist at age 15, when I was harming myself and begging them for help.

Regret at how I might have finished studies, projects and pasisons if I had gotten help earlier.

Regret at how I should have pushed harder for a test when I kept on tellling my first psychologist that I thought I was autistic or something else that made me feel like an alien, a Ditto for the majority of my life.

Regret at how certain friendships, relationships, and jobs might have worked out if I hadn't ruined it with my emotional outbursts.

But most of all, I regretted not calling Child Protection Services when the abuse at home only got worse after I had made myself vulnerable to my abusers I had to call family. How instead of doing some reflective thinking on their actions and being more kind towards me after finding out I had been carving the words they used against me onto my arm, the frequent name-calling of 'fat, dumb, and ugly' only got worse. I vividly remember how the morning after I had been humiliated and called crazy by my whole family, my brother said during breakfast 'Don't you dare call Child Protection Services or something like that. I don't wanna end up in a foster home because of how crazy you are. It will only be worse for everyone. And don't you dare tell anyone at school what you have been doing. I don't want people to think I'm crazy and cut myself too. You hear me? Don't you dare cause any trouble for me, I will make you regret it.'

I had splashed water onto my face before entering the clinic. I told myself that finally getting diagnosed was a good thing. I still think it is. But finally getting a diagnosis is hard sometimes when you have been struggling for so long. Being positive and thinking of all the pros of a diagnosis is hard when you're so used to being critisized for everything that you are.

I entered the waiting room with a smile. I retook the test. The psychiatrist told me the results clearly showed that the medication improved my focus. He then asked if I would be interested in starting cognitive behavorial therapy in a month, when I have gotten used to the medication for a bit.

I know the whole point of getting a diagnosis is to get the right treatment and looking for ways to improve my future, but my mind was still stuck in the past.

The things that could have been.

The things that never were.

The things that were so colorful in the daydreams I could escape to.

So I simply nodded. He asked me how I felt.

'I mean, I would have been surprised if I didn't have ADHD. You know? I would have thought: 'Oh, so I guess I'm just strange for no reason?' So in a way, I'm glad. Really relieved. But I also wish I had known it earlier.'

By the time I had gotten to my last sentence I was crying. I was not planning to. I was supposed to be happy. I was happy to finally know why I am the way I am. To finally get the right support instead of being told repeatedly by my previous therapist to 'go on walks and take multivitamins' whenever I suddenly got depressed for no reason.

The crying didn't stop.

I cried when I got home.

I cried when I looked around my room and realized why it's always such a mess. How I coud live in this mess, yet be embarassed if anyone saw the way I lived.

I cried when I tried to distract myself my looking up ADHD tips, only to come across articles about how to raise ADHD children and to read sentences like 'the most important factor for a positive outcome in ADHD children is having supportive parents.'

I cried upon realizing why I was so bad at keeping friends and texting them regularly. Why I could go for months of juggling many social events and activities and then suddenly collapsing, giving up on everything for months or even years before starting the whole cycle all over again.

Things got better when I started attending ADHD meetings. Finally, I met other aliens like me!

But some things didn't click. How I observed, theorized about and tried out things to test social norms, especially when it comes to racial bias. How I used to practice facial expressions in the mirror as a kid because my sister said I was rude for not being 'interested enough' in the stories she told me.

The mod of the ADHD meeting suggested I could be ADHD, but I kinda dismissed it. After all, I have been told so many times by my previous therapist I couldn't be because I'm too social.

But then I read about autism in women, how it presents itself differently in women.

So here I am.

I had told myself to only write for 15 minutes because I didn't want to pre-occupy myself with these memories for an hour before the session even starts, but I don't want to stop writing either. I want to write down my thoughts before I get diagnosed with something I have known for pretty much my whole life, but never got taken seriously whenever I expressed them.

Sorry for the rushed ending, but my apppointment starts now.

I know I will take an autism diagnosis better than my ADHD diagnosis.