Could I be undiagnosed autistic?

[GizmoIsSoFluffy]

Just that. I don’t know. Somehow if I was it would be a relief that it explains why I am the way I am:

• Cannot hold conversations with people. Cannot look them in the eye. Can’t get past saying ‘hello’; that is it. Really, really stresses me out the thought of having conversations to the point of panic attacks.
• Don’t like loud noises; put my hands over my ears when things are too loud.
• I twitch when I get too stressed about situations.
• people have never understood me; I just don’t get social rules, never have.
• never had any real friends
• when I do pluck up the courage to do something; I choose something I can do by myself (e.g. swimming)
• good at maths, not so good at English
• Have an IQ of 146
• female, mid 40s
• BUT I DO understand people’s emotions, acutely. I’m all about ensuring others are ok.

What do you think?

No one can tell you online, you need to go to your GP and request a formal diagnostic assessment where they will take a full history and make a decision based on expertise

Google the aq50 and fill that out. It's the screening questionnaire used to screen for asd.

Nobody can answer that.

I would observe that some of those would be the case if you had experienced childhood trauma (which wouldn't necessarily be anything dramatic, could be something like emotional neglect), with the rest being coincidence.

There's something called developmental trauma, which is basically when trauma occurs during the key developmental phase of a child (i.e. when very young) and affects how their brain and nervous system develop.

Developmental trauma mimics autism, but often flies under the radar because people don't share that information when being assessed; whether that's because they don't want to talk about their trauma or they don't realise it's relevant or they don't recognise what happened to them as trauma (e.g. Because they think it's something that only happens in war).