AIBU To think I might have traits of autism ? Or am I just obsessive ?
Now , I’ll start this off by saying I don’t actually think I’m autistic . I’m not going to go and get assessed or anything - I manage just fine day to day !
But my child is autistic and as she’s growing into a young adult im seeing things in her that resonate with me - this could be heat learned behaviour from me , obviously. There is a lot of autism in my family.
- i have always had massive anxiety - mine is mainly health - I obsess about cancer and I’m always convinced I have symptoms of some form and I need to tell people this and I’m always trying to seek reassurance but if they say what I don’t want to hear - eg go to a doctor - I’ll cut the conversation off and then need to convince them that I’m ok now and no longer anxious . My daughter is the same. Hers isn’t really about health but she does the same , she will seek reassurance and if I suggest anything other than what she thinks she needs she cuts the conversation and then is overly desperate to convince me she’s forgotten about it and isn’t anxious .
- I have realised this slowly over the years - I struggle to focus on things that require multiple trains of thought . I have to sit down and try to think and logically make steps . I’m a teacher - I can teach lots of different things , I can multitask but some things I shut down . It sounds silly but recently we were making friendship bands - the TA showed me repeatedly , the children grasped it but I could not . There were too many things at once happening and I just couldn’t ! I cannot parallel park - it’s not that I don’t like doing it , I just can’t . I can’t connect the steps in my head to make sense - I can’t picture it making sense first , so I just can’t. Obviously I manage fine without doing these things but it feels really overwhelming and it feels very loud in my head .
- I hyper focus . I didn’t even realise what this was until my daughter explained it- she was hyper focused on something recently and it was consuming for her ( it was a show - she spent lots of money on merchandise, changed her style etc ) then one day she just said - my hyper fixation is over and that was that . I’m the same - It could be hobbies , a holiday , a career change , a new outfit - if my mind is set , I’ll spend hours researching and I do nothing else in my spare time and think of nothing else . I have had so many business ideas and spent money and then all of a sudden just not been interested . So many hobbies , so many courses . I have about 10 Facebook pages of business I’ve started and then just lost interest in , I’m on so many groups for different hobbies . I’ll get into something and then I’m consumed by it and I’ll spend money I dont have on it and all I’ll do from when I wake up is google it , watch tik toks of it , want to do it in every spare moment and then I’ll fall asleep daydreaming about it and one day it will just stop . I spent loads of money recently on baking supplies , all I did every spare moment was bake and then one day I just didn’t want to anymore . For some reason I’ve now started to want to colour and instead of just buying some pens and a colouring book I have bought crayons and pencils and felts and markers . I’ve gone down rabbit holes to find the specific pencils everyone recommends and the specific books and now all I’m doing is thinking about colouring , watching videos about colouring , sitting and colouring , sending people pictures of my colouring ( it’s a bit weird 🤣 ) - I’m not rich either so I shouldn’t ! I mean I’m not spending hundreds and we can still eat lol but it’s consuming . My husband wanted a date night and I didn’t want to because I wanted to colour and this happens with every hobby I get! It’s sometimes a bit much - like I am tired and I know I’ll go to bed tonight and won’t be able to sleep because I’ll be thinking about it and the first thing I’ll do when I wake, even if it’s 4am , will be watching videos of it until my husband goes to work and then I’ll do it . But I also know that once I kind of have everything , I’ll get bored and it will stop as soon as it started .
I could go on, there’s more - but this thread will be too long for anyone to want to read 🤣