So to start off, let me say that I am far from ignorant about Autism, I have studied it at length and I know it is a condition present from birth / very early childhood and is not something you can outgrow.
Having learned a lot about Autism, including its presentation in girls, I look back on my childhood and see that I had a whole load of traits, including:
- Difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality, especially as a young child
- Long running obsessions as a tween and teen (characters in books and TV shows mainly, to the point where it would interfere with my life and I would secretly pretend I was them…see above)
- Fixations on certain people in real life (usually teachers).
- Social difficulties - being thought of as aloof and stand-offish when actually I was shy and didn’t know how to ‘be’.
- Avoided showering (couldn’t be bothered and didn’t see the point).
- Sensory seeking (chewing stuff all the time, humming all the time, tendency to jiggle/rock in my seat)
- Difficulty with eye contact (shyness and low self esteem)
- Difficulty organising myself and terrible procrastination, until hyperfocus kicked in (after days of tears)
- Black and white thinking about right and wrong / good and bad, and giving myself an extremely hard time because of this.
- Lots of examples of supremely cringy behaviour, because I didn’t understand how I would look to other people.
If I was a teen today, pretty sure I’d get a diagnosis.
But… at nearly 40 years of age … I have grown out of all of it.
Okay, not quite all. I am still a terrible pen chewer and procrastinator (although my hyperfocus superpower seems to have left me). But the rigid fixations and the social awkwardness… gone. Gradually, it has to be said. It took until I was about 26 to truly grow into myself and find my social confidence, and it was around then that I stopped fixating on both real and fictional people, which I think had a lot to do with finally developing some self-esteem. You’ll be pleased to know that I now shower daily.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this, as I imagine a lot of people will think I am trying to invalidate their diagnoses or those of their children… I’m not. But I guess I am wondering whether we can be a bit quick to diagnose ‘low support needs’ / Aspergers type autism, when actually it’s just a case of ‘quirky child’ / ‘immature teen’.
Or, I guess a different takeaway could be one of hope: that as a probably autistic person I have learned to navigate and overcome many of life’s difficulties by middle adulthood.
I suppose my question is whether anyone else can identify with my experience, and if anyone has any interesting thoughts about it.