Could I be autistic?

[Figuringoutme]

Hi all,

I appreciate that autism/ASD is something that is bandied around quite a bit these days and I don’t want to be another person to jump on here self-diagnosing based on a tik tok reel. That said, I would like to figure out who I am/ why I am the way I am and this seems to fit many of my quirks. I am open to all opinions and more than willing to answer questions. I’m not really sure what would change even with a formal diagnosis.

ChatGPT analysis:
1. Social cognition and interaction

• Analysing social rules consciously rather than intuitively.
• Rehearsing conversations and reviewing interactions afterward.
• Feeling like a social observer more than a participant.
• Only relaxing and being fully yourself with one trusted person.
• Difficulty maintaining friendships outside structured environments — e.g., losing contact when shared context disappears.
• Preferring group interactions (3+ people) over one-to-one because groups provide conversational prompts.
• Dread of social events and “social hangover” afterward.
• Feeling different growing up despite outward social success.

2. Cognitive empathy and emotional response

• Understanding social cues intellectually, not instinctively.
• Using personal experiences to empathize rather than intuitive emotional mirroring.
• Needing to learn how to respond in unfamiliar situations, e.g., condolences, difficult conversations.

3. Routine, predictability, and distress with change

• Strong need for predictability in daily life; feeling upset or irritated when plans change.
• Mental planning and reliance on structure to navigate the day.

4. Sensory and environmental processing

• Overwhelm in busy or loud environments.
• Needing long periods of quiet or downtime after social events.

5. Interests and focus

• Deep, absorbing interests that can become obsessive to the detriment of others.
• Intense focus and structured thinking, sometimes causing friction with others due to rigidity in preferences.

6. High masking / compensatory strategies

• Learning social rules from observation, practice, and research rather than naturally picking them up.
• Presenting as socially capable externally, despite the internal effort and fatigue.
• Consciously adapting behaviour to avoid standing out or being misunderstood.

Hi OP, are those all descriptions that apply to you? If yes, then from what I know of autistic people (and I know a few, some very well), yes those are consistent with being autistic. Some of them are things that many people struggle with though, like offering condolences. A big part of the consideration of whether you are autistic is about everything together though.

I have to head to bed now but I'll have more of a think.

I would ask one question for you to think about - could these all be explained by other things, so have you eliminated other possible explanations? Eg do you feel like an outsider for other reasons (eg a cultural difference)?

However I do think if you suspect autism and have started researching it then there's a good chance that you are autistic, as you will know yourself well.

Yes, all of those are autism traits. Might be worth looking into cptsd if you have trauma as it presents similarly. As for what changes after a diagnosis, for me I adjusted my life to my disability and stopped doing things like going to loud places, socialising a lot etc. because now I know due to autism I will never be able to handle it.

Those were all the traits of autism that ChatGPT picked up on from the questions I answered. I have always thought I was “different” but not really understood why. No cultural differences and I think from the outsider perspective, I would appear to blend in well but how I feel and how I present are two very different things.

No trauma - I had a lovely childhood, luckily.

I have questioned whether I’m introverted or socially awkward which may explain some of it but I don’t find speaking to people difficult. If there’s a shared interest, I can talk to people but if there’s no “point”’ to the conversation, I fine small talk difficult and I don’t know what to say to people.

This all came about after a recent trip and I was looking into ways to make it easier for me to socialise in these scenarios. I find weekends away difficult and it’s hard for me not to go into complete silence mode after a period of time. It comes across really rude but I cannot help it.

Silence mode is very common for autistics after socialising, they're called shutdowns

Possibly of all those traits apply to you. A couple of the main diagnosis points in my autism assessment was am I / have I been significantly affected in my life by the traits, and also was I affected in childhood. Autism doesn’t just come on later in life so even if you are high masking (I am), there will be traits shown in childhood and often difficulties in school, home life, friendships and mental health. How was your childhood and school life? Is there anything you have had issues with in life as a result of the traits you show?

I cannot think of anything I struggled with as a child but I went to an extremely small school so that may have really helped. I was painfully shy, very well behaved and obsessed with reading.

Whilst I developed friendships in secondary school, I didn’t feel like I fit in and never could vocalise why.

I can’t really pin point anything else that might be relevant. In terms of how it affects my life, I think the main thing would be how difficult it is to maintain friendships, how drained I am when socialising and the recovery period for me seems so long. When I went to uni, I’d make all sorts of excuses to not go on the usual nights out.

The tricky thing about reflecting on things is that I don’t necessarily know what is the norm until it’s obvious in others. I’m only now working out that I clearly find spending time with others far more draining than the average person, for example.