It seems that for every fifty posts I compose maybe one gets published. There are some good reasons for this, including that writing can be therapeutic and sometimes putting pen to paper, or in this case, fingers to keyboard, is freedom in itself even though the publish button did not get clicked. There are also some not so good reasons posts end up in the virtual trash can, including the climate we live in, which is also why comments are disabled on most posts. There are also a number of draft posts that are abandoned without finding the trash can and I was recently combing through them and found this. I thought I should finish it up and here we are.

In 2019 I started seeing a therapist for the first time. An event drove me over the edge and I felt that was my best recourse. A few months into my therapy, I related a story to my therapist and he suggested an Autism test. I guess I passed…

But let’s back up shall we. In third grade I saw a speech therapist for several months because I stuttered. Diagnosis: my mouth could not keep up with my brain (uh, think slower was the advice?). This was the first time there was an opportunity for someone to identify there might be something different about me. And there would be other points in my life where health professionals, including those of the mental health order, had the opportunity to push further and perhaps see that I was not the perfectly formed human being I believed I was supposed to be.

But then 2013 rolled around. It was my first physical after my divorce and a new doctor to boot. I filled out the forms the same way I had been filling them out year after year, including checking the boxes for: Do you feel anxious (Yes)? Do you feel stressed (Yes)? Do you get nervous (Yes)? And this new doctor wanted to have a conversation about the boxes I checked. To be honest, up to that point I didn’t think anybody really looked at that stuff. But here we were having a conversation about the boxes I checked and me getting a recommendation to see a mental health professional. Verdict – anxiety.

That certainly explains a lot. Quite a lot. Did I jump right into therapy to sort things out? I did not. Not only was I diagnosed as neurodivergent later in life; I opted not to start my journey until six years later. Because I am a dumbass. Or, I bought into the bullshit that has permeated our culture since the beginning of time. Therapy is for wimps and bored housewives. And masking is so much easier when you know why. Which… Well yeah, that’s stupid.

Regardless, here we are. If I thought anxiety explained a lot about me, I would have to say I was a bit wrong about that because Autism explains much more about me and anxiety is only a component of that. So, what are we working with here:

• Anxiety
• Noise Sensitivity
• Social Difficulty
• Poor Eye Contact
• Motor Functions

Learning about my brand of autism has been a series of holy shit moments. It is actually a relief to understand why, when for over sixty years I secretly felt I was broken. Nope, not broken; I just have a different set of challenges than other people.

For the last five years I have been on a different journey that includes discovery, management, and figuring out who I am. The journey that is life will eventually come to an end, but the learning will always be ongoing. Learning about my personal challenges and how best to manage them while being as authentic as possible.