i may be autistic. this is what this post is gonna be about i guess. cause it's been a present topic again recently and i need to kind of get used to claiming that descriptor for myself.
two things. well, three things. one, a while ago, a friend reacted very passionately when i said in passing that i only maybe kind of might be autistic. she told me that i 100% am. that she'd clocked me immediately when we first met. okay. this was a good thing for me to hear because up until now, any assessments by others of me as autistic were only ever rather implied or jokey or "soft" in that way. mostly in this way of calling things "autistic" cause they're weird or superficially align with a popular idea of autistic behaviour, not necessarily as a genuine interpretation of my person/behaviours/experiences. not to disregard those passing comments -- they probably did help me figure myself out, as they too provide a kind of basis to ground the self-diagnosis on (others have called me autistic multiple times, independently of each other). but idk. passing comments without further explanation on why and whether they're meant seriously in the first place, don't really help me much beyond that. which probably solidifies the case for the diagnosis. anyway. i felt reassured to have someone be as adamant about recognising me as autistic as my friend was, and to have the room during that conversation to follow up on why she thought so.
two, i had a shutdown last week. this hasn't happened in a long time, maybe close to two years. there isn't a specific thing that caused this one. we had class and part of it turned out to be an unannounced trip to the city centre to do some urban drawing. this would've been fine probably. but i had to take my bike and meant to take a train so i wouldn't have to bike 40 minutes but i misread the train schedules so i did end up having to bike suddenly and then on the way i had one red light after another, which is very frustrating when you're trying to get somewhere in time. it was a whole thing. so i arrived at the city centre with no time to sort myself out and calm down after all that. and i had a bunch of luggage with me because i'd been in another city for a concert and had come from there straight to uni that morning. so all that kind of added up to me being frustrated, overstimulated and overwhelmed with the sudden changes in plans and oncoming instructions, and shutting down as a result.
shutdowns are always very frustrating. people notice that something is wrong and they try to help (which is very nice!!) but i can't really communicate, neither what's going on, nor what might help, so to them, i'm this unresponsive scared little thing that doesn't want to be helped. and i don't even know how others could help me. i have figured out that further missing out on things (like the urban drawing lesson) tends to make me feel worse, at least. so i stick around, having a mediocre time, but at least not spiralling into thoughts of loneliness or fomo. but i haven't figured out what actively makes things better. physical affection, maybe. a hug. though we tried that last week and it made me almost burst into tears.
what's most frustrating about shutdowns is when i can't speak, because it obviously massively impairs my ability to communicate. last week i for the first time adopted written text for in-person communication. it's a bit awkward but the two people i did that with didn't bat an eye (i love you). i keep thinking i should learn some basics of or selected words/phrases in sign language, but i don't quite know where to start with that, even moreso because that would be dependent on my conversation partner to know the signs too. maybe i'll put together a list of essential phrases and while learning them for myself also show them to my friends.
anyway, that whole thing kind of made me think about my (possible) autism again. especially just this thought of, this isn't something that normal people experience. or something. like, why does my body have this reaction to a couple of changed plans? that's weird.
three, looking for ways to get diagnosed (once again). i have done this [search-engine]-search (relatively) many times before. adult autism diagnosis near me. who here knows how many useful results that will yeild? yup. none. in some twisted fucked up way of the german medical landscape, getting an autism diagnosis as an adult on public health insurance when you're not already in therapy is near-impossible. unless you want to wait a gazillion years. great. there are few professionals specialised in adult autism and all of them want 400€ for telling me something that i kind of sort of already know.
do i believe in official diagnoses? idk. i don't think that i believe that it'd actually benefit me in any real way. i don't think i'm "disabled enough" for a diagnosis to allow me access to the sort of accomodations that i'd need a diagnosis to access, or that i even want/"need" those accomodations (i don't even know what those might be, that's how much i don't need them). an official diagnosis might legitimise my struggles/behaviours in the eyes of other people, but idk if i want to in turn legitimise the idea that a struggle is only permitted if it's based in a medical diagnosis. the one way i think an official diagnosis would actually benefit me is as a thing that gives me permission to be autistic. i don't want to, and on a philosophical and conscious level i don't believe this, but subconsciously, i do still see the autism-specialised medical professional as the authority on telling me what's wrong with my brain. so that only when that kind of person tells me, yup. that sure is autism, only then am i allowed to really claim that identity for myself. which is a bad thing to think because well-grounded self-diagnosis is legitimate and i can call myself whatever i want anyway. but i have this thing with truth and probability where if i can't be 100% sure that something is happening or real or a certain way, i'm hesitant to speak of it in definitive terms. i'm a big lover of very precisely distinguishing between if and when for that reason. so idk. i might be wrong. and if i am i don't want to be the guy who appropriates a whole disability-identity. when really i'm fine. i'm so fine i'm not even in therapy. i'm so okay and good i'm only thinking about this stuff like every day. normal guy activities.
it's late. my ear hurts. i have a long day of class tomorrow. i miss my friend. i love you. drink some water. good night <3
No comments:
Post a Comment