Buckle up, this is going to be a longer post. Before I begin, I want to note that this is geared to woman specific problems with the topic but it is in no way excluding men, because they are missed until later in life too. Just not to the extent, and for different reasons than women are. Plus, this is my experience that I’m writing about, as a woman.
- As I was writing I noticed that the post was going to be entirely too long, so I’ll be splitting it into a 2 parter.
In this past week, there have been a lot of big things going on. The biggest one is something that’s been coming for a long time (since birth and I just didn’t know it). I was scheduled to get adult autism screening back in 2020. We all know what 2020 brought to the table. Needless to say, the screening was postponed due to the lockdowns and subsequent changes as things slowly began opening back up. By the time that happened, I had decided that even if I were autistic that I’d been managing okay (or so I told myself) for what was almost 5 decades and didn’t go through with it. Part of it was that I really did think I was muddling through alright most of the time. Looking back, I see that a big part of my decision not to do it was that I didn’t want to know. Not that I would have been ashamed of it, just that I didn’t think that finding out so late in life would help or change anything.
Fast forward 6 years, and I had to acknowledge that I wasn’t bouncing back as I always had after periods of high stress and/or overworking. There was a building worsening when it came to handling things well. I will say that this particular period of stress went on for close to 5 years. There were stressors that lasted for the entire 5 years, and other major ones which just kept coming. It has been relentless. I attributed my worsening health entirely to those stressors. Well, things finally boiled over to the point that I was rapidly becoming unable to function, physically and mentally.
There was one particular change in myself that caused me to see that not all of what I was experiencing could be chalked up to my chronic health issues. I began to have meltdowns, and I mean MELTDOWNS (which I never really had before).This brings us to this week. Over the past week I have taken the entire battery of testing. Even though I’d been (kind of) diagnosed, it just wasn’t official until the full testing process. I had told a few people that I had been diagnosed, because I was almost 100% positive that it would turn out that way, and I wanted to test the waters to see how people in my life would react and to see how I would feel in personally accepting neurodivergence.
As suspected, it turns out that I am autistic. I likely have ADHD too, which will be determined for sure after something is explored (my lack of sleep). Of course I did want to share this as it explains the main reason I haven’t been able to write and do art (I’ve been so hard on myself over this). The biggest reason I wanted to share is that women have always had a harder time getting an autism diagnosis because the testing was geared toward how it presents in males. It is getting better for us though, as it has been discovered that girls/women present much differently, therefore we were missed and often misdiagnosed with other things. There are still a lot of clinicians who tend to lean into the criteria that fits males though, so it’s important to find someone who acknowledges those differences and has experience in diagnosing both adults and women. I got extremely lucky in that regard.
This has been eye opening to say the least! I’m still a little shocked (even though I expected it), and feeling overwhelmed at the necessity of learning how to live as an autistic person. I know that it’ll help me to find myself (which is something I’ve never fully been able to do) and create a life around this knowledge which will finally give me a chance to thrive (more than I ever have at least). First thing though will be getting through autistic burnout which has building for decades and I’ve been told can take a very long time (hopefully not). This means complete self care which is going to be a tough one for me. It has been getting easier to say no even before now. Just not nearly easy enough yet (I’m so used to pushing through stuff). I will be writing a part two which will go into the things I’ve experienced that pointed to autism all along as well as highlight the different presentations in women. If you’ve struggled through life and no one has been able to tell you why, you just might recognize some of the signs and start the process of finding out if this is it for you as well. The next post about this will be coming soon. I will try to make it shorter (no promises though haha).
See you next time!
