When I was a child someone asked my parents if I was autistic because a lot of my behaviour was seen as odd, it was the 90’s and they associated Autism with the stereotypes of the time so just dismissed it.
I’ve suffered mental illness problems from late childhood, and so any of my “odd” traits I put down to being mentally ill and because of my dysfunctional upbringing.
Since some young people in my family have been diagnosed with ASD, everything has kind of clicked in place for a lot of my family members and they think I’m autistic. Especially as one the kids is basically a clone of what I was like as a child. I understood where everyone was coming from but I didn’t really accept it and I didn’t think it would do any good to seek confirmation. I also didn’t want to put any attention on me so I just downplayed everything.
Over the past weeks though, mainly spurred on about my new job, I’m starting to accept that it might be a possibility. I just feel that I’m so out of place, and it’s exhausting trying act like everyone else where as in my last job people everyone worked as team and my strengths were appreciated that they didn’t care about any of my oddness, but even then I still played a part.
I’ve took the AQ test and got 38 and I’ve took the EQ test and got 16. The EQ test I thought I would have got higher because I always saw myself as quite an empathetic person and people have said I’m such a good listener, but I do know that in some situations I pretend to understand other people’s points of views but really in my head I’m thinking completely opposite of what I’m saying because I know it’s what people expect. For example when someone’s going on about an issue that they have totally brought on themselves and was foreseeable I nod and try to give solutions without insulting them but in my head I’m thinking ‘what did they expect?’ and that the conversation is so boring.
But in some issues like domestic violence I understand that victims don’t act how society expects and wants them to because the amount of gaslighting and mental abuse that happens to them. So when someone criticises a victim, I’m straight on the defence because I know you can’t expect someone who is under attack mentally and/or physically to act logically all the time. But maybe I empathise here because it’s something that has affected me and my family.
I don’t know, I know that an internet test can’t tell me whether I am or I’m not. Like other posters I don’t know whether to explore attempting to get assessed. I hate going to the doctors with any of my mental health stuff so I don’t want to go there and now claim that I think I might autistic, he’s going to roll his eyes and think attention seeker.