In recent years I've been wondering whether I might be autistic. This is based on the following-
- really struggled with friendships at primary school, basically had none. I just couldn't seem to get the hang of it or understand what I was doing wrong. Was quite badly picked on and used to hide at playtime to avoid having to attempt social interaction, or read a book in the corner and pretend no one else was there.
- By the time I was at secondary school I had worked out how to do what was necessary to form friendships and fitted in much better socially, but it felt (and still feels) as if doing it meant giving quite a fundamental part of myself away.
- Always very high achieving (good memory and academic stuff comes easily) but disorganised and self-sabotaging.
- (Embarrassing bit coming up) In my late teens and early twenties I found another way to cover whatever my social problem was- kissing and sex. Can remember plenty of times when I kissed or slept with a man I didn't especially like because that meant I didn't have to worry about how I was doing socially (I don't mean that I agreed to sex I didn't want- I instigated sex I didn't want to avoid social awkwardness and having to make conversation). Also drinking.
- Now happily married with children and can be myself with my family, no problem, and with a handful of close friends. But in wider social groups I still feel I'm sort of standing outside myself, looking in, if that makes any sense, and copying what other people do in order to fit in ("oh, everybody is looking sad, I'll do that too" etc etc). I have a fairly active social life but always feel at one remove from people (except for a few) and hide it. I love being on my own.
This has all been preying on my mind for a while and I'm not sure whether I'm autistic or maybe am just an introvert trying to pretend not to be one. I'm also not sure whether there's any point or benefit in getting any sort of diagnosis either way- maybe better just to accept that this is my personality with its strengths and weaknesses, just like everyone else's, and not worry about a label. I'd be very grateful for any thoughts people have on this.
I have tried doing online quizzes but they don't really fit me at all- the questions all seem a bit based on stereotypes (eg "do you get obsessed with particular strings of numbers?" No, but I'm an absolute fiend for cryptic crosswords and can see patterns of letters and anagrams everywhere. Is that the same? "Are you always the last one to get the joke?" No, I'm always the first one to get the joke but also to see the humour in things that aren't jokes, and have had to learn to watch my reactions because of this. etc etc.
Thank you for any advice or thoughts you have.