So after nearly 22 years of life on this planet, Iāve come to the conclusion that I am high functioning autistic. I believe I fell through the cracks of an early diagnosis for the following reasons:
1.) I am Female (I learned how to mask myself very early on)
2.) I have a gifted IQ (above 130) and was classified as such in 4th grade so no one considered that I could be both ASD and intellectually gifted.
I am in the beginning stages of unmasking and am currently seeking an official diagnosis. Right now, Iām trying to write down everything I know about my neurodivergent experience so hereās a list of things Iāve experienced and believe to be relevant. If you can relate or you understand please comment and share! Iām new to this community and it feels so good to finally meet people who understand and can relate. Ok, Here we go.
āSo the general population doesnāt memorize scripts to movies or watch the same one every day for a year?ā
āPeople think itās weird that I prefer to have subtitles on when I watch stuff, even though I donāt have damaged hearingā
āI watch movies with subtitles because I wonāt understand whatās said if I donāt read it. I have no hearing issues.ā
āI cannot hear/understand someone if I have one ear bud in and one out. Too much sensory input at once.ā
āI thought I had a hearing deficit because I literally could not understand people at church or parties or other places with a lot of background noise, and I was so confused when they told me my hearing was normal.ā
āI love star wars. Not just love but I could tell you what planet each character is from and what kind of ship they use, what model droid that one is and I will gladly talk about it all day if you let me. Everyone now gets me Star Wars stuff for my birthday and holidaysā
āEye contact is so uncomfortable for me that sometimes it āburnsā to maintain it, but then I overcompensate and stare too intensely. Over the years, being female, Iāve forced myself to make eye contact for a certain number of seconds and then look away a certain number of seconds but Iām concentrating so hard on that, that I donāt remember anything that was said to me.ā
āGiving me verbal directions is a special kind of hell. I need it written down.ā
āI can memorize pictures of things and exactly where every kid sat in my 10th grade US history class as well as my 9th grade geometry class.ā
āI never fit in anywhere, in my childhood, most of my adolescence, except the swim team and my new church.ā
āTeam sports are the worst. I canāt communicate fast enough, Iām bad with hand eye coordination and keeping track of a ball. I excelled in individual sports and fell in love with swimming.ā
āI often found it much easier to make friends with older kids because I could have intelligent conversations with them and their good social skills could make up for my lack of social skills.ā
āBut, I had a few friends that were considerably younger who I could still play imaginatively with dolls when I was 13 and one particular friend was 9. I had a lot of trouble getting a long with her sister who was the same age as me.ā
āIt physically pains me to hear someone mispronounce a word, spell something wrong, or make a grammatical mistake. I corrected my cousin A LOT when we were kids, she frequently got mad and I couldnāt understand why. My grandma would tell me to stop because correcting people is rude.ā
āOne of my special interests as a kid was dolphins. I was 5-6 years old and I remember being so excited when my mom let me check out like 10 books from the library and I read them quickly and multiple times.ā
āI corrected a teacher one time about dolphins. She said dolphins werenāt whales and I knew FOR A FACT that ādolphins were a type of small whaleā because I read it in one of my books. She laughed at me and so did the rest of the class and I felt stupid even though I was right. This led to me suppressing my knowledge and real self and ultimately more masking.ā
āAs per that last one, my memory is impeccable.ā
āI had another special interest in dogs when I got a bit older. My mom bought me a book with every kind of breed of dog, where they came from, their temperament, their size, everything. I can still, to this day, tell you the breed of dog just by looking at it.ā
āI always wanted a best friend but never had one. I had groups of friends but never someone who would call me their best friend. When I got a boyfriend in high school, I was so excited because he called me his best friend and he was mine and I finally had that feeling reciprocated. He also had a gifted IQ and dyslexia, ADHD and a few other things so we understood each other quite well.ā
āI canāt tell if someone is flirting with me because I canāt read between the lines. I also donāt know how to flirt because if I like a guy too much I get soooo nervous and I stumble over my words and itās a disaster.ā
āWhen I liked this guy (last year, 2019) I would freeze up so bad when I talked to him that I rehearsed every conversation I wanted to have with him so I wouldnāt mess it up. I would write topics in the notes section of my phone before hanging out with him so Iād remember what to ask him. It made for very awkward and forced conversations and probably drove him away.ā
āSarcasm and jokes almost always go over my head. The boyfriend I had in high school was very funny and outgoing but used a lot of sarcasm and it always caused disagreements because I took him seriously when he was being sarcastic.ā
āI talk slowly and very monotone.ā
āI have no difficulty reading in my head and can read/comprehend it well, but reading aloud is difficult and I often stumble over words and mess up.ā
āI need directions repeated multiple times before I understand.ā
āI went to the beach to hang out with some church friends yesterday. They all play spike ball and are so confused as to why I sit there and donāt play. Iāve tried playing spike ball but it involves way too much hand eye coordination and Iām so bad at it that itās embarrassing. So I donāt play.ā
āThat same night, a group of them said āletās play uno!ā And I was so happy to play something familiar that didnāt involve a lot of coordination. Then they said āweāre playing SPICY uno, right?ā And immediately my heart sank because I knew they were playing a different way that I wasnāt familiar with. Again, receiving verbal directions was hell and I didnāt understand it. I was so bad at it and wasnāt getting it, and in the middle of the game I had the urge to cry. I wanted to cry because I couldnāt even get this right. I suppressed the urge, of course, so they wouldnāt think I was even more weird than the already suspected. Another group of people that I wouldnāt fit in with.ā
āMaking friends has always been so difficult. Once I make a good friend I hang on to them for as long as possible even if theyāre not very nice because Iām scared Iāll have to make a new one if I lose them. And we all know how hard making new friends is for me.ā
āIām a perfectionist. Especially with my art projects. When I took a painting class I realized I do it the wrong way. Youāre supposed to paint layer by layer over the entire canvas and focus on small details at the very end. I work on one small area at a time and do small details too soon. I often spend way too much time on small details before I realize that the larger shape of the object isnāt proportionate and then itās too late.ā
āI wonāt even attempt tasks if I know I canāt do them perfectly.ā
āI have perfect pitch. I donāt know if that has anything to do with autism or that I just started music lessons when I was young. I can tune instruments perfectly without a tuner or reference note and I never understood why my orchestra teacher had me play the A key on the piano over and over again while she walked around and tuned everyoneās instruments when I could do it without any reference. I can hear it in my head.ā
āWhen my parents got me a keyboard at age 7-8, they were impressed because I could sit down, without listening to any song and find the notes of a song I liked by ear. I still do that today but my piano is very out of tune and it bothers me.ā
āAutistic boys tend to isolate and not care about concealing their stims or weird behavior but girls donāt. I am a ālonerā and always have been but I want so badly to belong and have friends and socialize, but Iāve always been so bad at it that I strike out every time. I often drink at social gatherings because it helps me loosen up and talk more freely. I guess it helps me lose the mask for a while.ā
āI HATE people touching me. Iāve always hated it and still hate it to this day unless itās someone Iām super comfortable with. Iāve been told I have the ādead fish hand shakeā and Iām an awkward hugger. My friend picked me up from behind and carried me for a few seconds because we were all goofing off and having fun but afterwards I was so mad at him I got really quiet and didnāt talk for a while. I told him later on the ride home that if he did that again I would slap him. ā
āEveryone thinks itās weird that I donāt like touching people, and some of my friends who also donāt like touching people were abused and I always thought, āthere had to be a reason, maybe I was abused as a kid and repressed it.ā Itās been so long and Iāve finally realized that maybe itās just because I have Aspergers or ASD. ā
āWhen I make sarcastic remarks or jokes I often have to clarify because I say them in such a monotone way that people think Iām serious.ā
āIāve always joked that Iām just really clumsy and uncoordinated, and chalked it up to being tall and lanky. Thatās why swimming was the perfect sport for me. Little to no risk of injury and not much hand eye coordination needed to be good at it. Just hours of practice, technique and endurance.ā
āI also injure myself quite a lot because Iām āa klutz.āā
āStims: I scratch my head and then smell my fingers and I will do this for hours if I am able (I know that one is weird so I only do it at home) popping my knuckles a ridiculous amount of times when I feel uncomfortable and donāt know what to do with my hands. I twirl my hair constantly (that one is pretty socially acceptable so I do it in class nonstop). I tap my foot or bounce my leg, I make weird facial expressions and forget to hide those. People notice but they often think itās funny because Iāll make a face if someone says something dumb and make an expression that people seem to relate to. I scrunch my nose if Iām uncomfortable or just whenever.ā
Special interests: Star Wars, Disney (I know every word to every Disney song and I watch animated Disney movies over and over again, like literally every night) dolphins, the ocean, dogs, theology/the Bible.
āWith my art work, and other things, I will get so focused on a painting that I will work non stop for 8-9 hours (all day basically) and not eat because Iām so focused that I forget to eat.ā
āI think I slur my words a lot and sometimes my friends will laugh and be like ādid you just say ____.?!?!āAnd Iāll clarify and they will continue laughing and say āoh it sounded like you said this.ā I hate when that happens.ā
āLoud noises really bother me. I jump if I hear an unexpected loud noise and I hate people yelling, even if itās not directed at me, it makes me want to cry. ā
āI loved the color blue so much as a kid (I still do) but my entire wardrobe was basically different shades of blue t-shirts. I also only ever wore baggy t-shirts and baggy cargo shorts (I kinda dressed like a boy) because it was comfortable and I didnāt like getting comments if I looked ācute todayā. I hated the attention. I also never ever wore my hair down to school. It always had to be up in a tight pony tail. I still donāt like my hair being in my face to this day and wear it up almost every day.ā
āThe other day, I was hanging out with a friend and she was trying to tell a story but I kept getting distracted and interrupting her. She said, āEmily, you kind of interrupt people a lot.ā At first I was hurt, but then I realized itās not entirely my fault and itās an autistic thing.ā
āI mask so much that I have rehearsed responses to social interactions and will often get so nervous or start speaking from the script before I realize Iāve said the wrong response. Of course Iāll think about it all day after that and think of āwell great, so and so thinks Iām weird now.āā
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