What Self-Diagnosing Autism Has Taught Me About Myself

If you read Yesterday's Blog You'd see about my learning through self diagnosis I am on the autism spectrum. So today I'm going to talk about what this teaches me about myself. Ultimately it explains a LOT about my childhood and relationships in the past along with past failures and embarrassments, not all of which I'll go into.

Realizations about Myself

Growing up, I was never so much introverted. I could be shy going into new settings, but then once I was comfortable I'd never shut up. Usually school teachers and Sunday school teachers would try to correct this by publicly mocking me or humiliating me and encouraging other kids to join in. I was greeted at home about this by being told I should learn my lesson and everyone views me as some clown or side show so just stop acting the way I do.

People often told me I goofed off or acted up because I wanted attention. Fact is, I acted the way I did because it was entertaining for ME. I often did things I thought was funny or silly because I got a kick out of it. I usually could care less if anyone else thought it was funny.

Of course as I got older a lot of my humor got more crass and inappropriate. This got me into a lot of trouble in more than one work setting. Once again, I found myself wondering what was wrong with myself and why I lacked such impulse control.

About 5 years ago I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and I don't think that was necessarily a misdiagnosis. I think I have elements of autism and bipolar most likely.

But either way, the autism diagnosis explains a lot of those things from my past and I can forgive myself realizing some of my issues were because  something in me was wired differently, and I had no idea.

Sensory Sensitivities

For me its always been crowds and especially noise. I can go to like a bar or club where music is playing and I'm fine. But If I'm in a loud setting with multiple voices that's chaotic or at home if the TV is playing and people are talking, I get agitated and can't follow anything that is going on.

When I travel in an airport I have to put my headphones on to drown out the outside noise. I sleep with headphones and music on to focuse on sleep and not outside noises. I thought it was related to my bipolar or something, but the autism really explains this sensitivity I never quite understood.

Routine and Structure

My wife has always joked with me about what a creature of habit I am. While I work from home and my schedule isn't super rigid, I have my own set of habits and structure that anything that disrupts them throws me off kilter. When we have to travel and spend the night somewhere, that makes me anxious and throws me all off. I'm usually fine once I get there and get settled, its the process of anticipating the change and packing up to prepare for it where I get anxious.

Strengths I've Come to Appreciate

One thing learning this about myself has taught me is to appreciate my strengths that I previously thought of as quirks or faults. When it comes to things I'm into like art or blogging, I give those things laser sharp focus as I work on them and it becomes one of my primary focuses. The downside is it tends to be all I think about all the time. But I also zero in on it so much my brain shuts down all outside distractions when I'm focused on my tasks.

I also tend to be more determined when it comes to problem solving. This morning I just had a situation. We got paid our money from or work at home jobs into our savings account. I accidentally transferred it to one of our external bank accounts which would take days for us to have access to it. I got really upset with myself in in the past may have hit myself.

Knowing what I know now, I took some deep breaths, took my glasses off and looked at the account. I saw since I had just done it I could cancel the transaction. I was able to cancel it and transfer the money to the correct account. I was kind of shaking and had to regather myself after, but I was happy I was able to hold it together and tell myself it wasn't all my fault for messing it up. A few weeks ago this would have been a complete meltdown.

Mental Health and Self-Acceptance

My whole life has been tempered with various failures, failed friendships and shortcomings. I always since childhood was filled with self loathing, imposter syndrome and feelings like I'm just not worthy of success or anything good. Now at 51 I'm finally learning through this diagnosis that I am, and I've been doing my best my whole life to fit into a world that wasn't made for people like me and I've actually done pretty well for myself.

I look back on my failures and epic blow ups and while still pretty humiliating, I can realize that I'm not that person anymore now that I'm in treatment and have progressed so much. I'm much more self aware of my interactions and trying to manage my diagnosis.

Going forward, this blog and art will play a massive roll in how I process and document things and you're all a part of that journey. If you're questioning your neurodivergence, I encourage you to pursue that and see where it takes you. Embrace Autism has some great resources and some detailed assessments. Its definitely worth taking the time to look into if you even suspect as much. I've felt very at ease since learning this about myself. I feel much freer now and like I discovered something major about myself that had been eluding me for a long time.

Whatever you decide, ultimately give yourself grace first and foremost. I've always been more forgiving of others than myself, but you have to live with yourself, so we should love ourselves more than anyone. Even though a lot in our society, especially for neurodivergent folks, has taught us to hate ourselves, we can buck the system by doing just the opposite. Accept our diagnosis and love who we are and all the quirks we think that make us weird, simply make us more unique and amazing.