Disclaimer: I have not been officially diagnosed, I am going through the process and there is currently a five-year wait and no guarantee.1
PS: if you don’t read the notes you are missing out.
I was not going to write about this but then someone walked by with the strongest cologne as I was writing at the pub, and it made me want to remove my nose from my face. An assault on my sense, the perpetual risk of the Other. For years I struggled to understand what was wrong with me; why I could not function as everyone else, why I did not like people2 and why I was constantly struggling to achieve any tasks. I could not put down my thoughts on paper or find the emotion I was feeling. I started to develop this drive to dig deeper and to understand the reasons behind every decision, feeling, and idea that crossed my mind. To put it in a nutshell: how my brain works.
So I did some research. I read articles and books3 which ultimately led me to the spectrum. Autism is on a spectrum and it was not what I thought it was (you know, all the clichés), so I read some more and fell into a rabbit hole on the autism-ADHD comorbidity. The more I dug the more I related, it was like reading a mapping of my brain. Mental health is a whirlwind. It is also hard to decipher what is what. Take anxiety. I most definitely am an anxious person and stress is eating through my bones. But is that because of a stressful lifestyle or is it because I am going through life like a fish on the beach? Constantly masking who I truly am to fade into the crowd, never truly belonging.
Sometimes it does feel like all I am is a composite of coping mechanisms, a parody of what I am supposed to be. You know, doing my best to go through the day looking like a normal person, when in reality I want to bash my head4 in the walls if someone touches me, disappear into the ground when there are too many people, deafen myself with music when it is too loud. Thank god for alcohol5 really, it smoothes everything. Then there is the executive dysfunction part, the one causing all the procrastination because even when I want to do the thing if my brain says no, it is simply not happening.
It is hard to explain without over-explaining. And I am aware that everyone feels like that from time to time, the issue is that it is not from time to time and it actually sucks the life out of you. Like I know loud noises are not nice, but do you also pick up on the noise a lightbulb makes? Because I do and my whole childhood I could hear the noise of the living room when I was in bed. This was actually quite useful as I could pinpoint the moment to fake sleep before proceeding to read Harry Potter all night.
And when I think about clay pots I have goosebumps, and I can’t touch dry paint because of the shiver down my spine, and I hate the texture of beans so much. And those three things -clay pot, dry paints and beans - all feel the same. Nope. I can’t. You know what’s nice? Pink noise, pink noise is beautiful. It is like the cold bathroom tiles when you are sick.
It also has advantages, like I’m really good at multitasking. Ok maybe not but I am better at chess if I play a card game on the side. It also means I have a different take on a lot of things and think outside of the box, and to be honest, the hyperfixation moments are quite nice. I could write about this for hours but I am already well late to post and for dinner, so I will end on this weird, well, end.
Thanks to the lack of funding given to mental health and the NHS in general. Do not be fooled, the Tories are creating the issue and not the NHS. Yes, I am raging about the conservatives again. Consider this my Roman empire.
On top of that, women and people of colour are less likely to be diagnosed are their symptoms are different than white men, for whom the tests were created. Though I don’t want to brag but I have excellent scores on all the tests so far (9/10 for autism, “request immediate help” for burnout and anxiety, and referrals from two different therapists for an ADHD assessment). I am confident I’ll graduate with the honour.
Euphemism and figure of style. I don’t care and don’t like most of you.
Explaining Humans by Dr Camilla Pang, I cannot recommend it enough. Eye opener. Strong female character by Fern Brady made me feel seen, made me feel a bit more normal. The Pattern Seekers by Sacha Baron-Cohen gives a good insight into the strength of autistic people.
Mine, but mostly theirs. Also sorry, this is not nice for anyone to read but it needs to be said. I know it sounds like I am a despicable person, I have been called ‘cold’ and the more vulgar variant multiple times, but, and allow me to use my therapist's authority because who am I to say, I am actually nice.
A 5 year wait is criminal. I don’t know what else to say.