Seeking Diagnosis as an Adult: My Neurodivergent Journey
Hey bestie!
As you might know I had my first autism assessment this week.
I was nervous to be clear, but I’m more curious and interested than anything else.
I was always so high achieving and I had friends well kind of. I had a lot of people that pretended to be my friend but were not. I was social enough let me put it that way.
I joined extra curriculars. I was normal enough.
Once I entered full time work it was fine at first. But then as I got further along I started to notice some things.
I talked to my doctor and mentioned that my mom was diagnosed with ADHD in college and that I met some friends who had it and started to notice that some things I thought everyone experienced were maybe related to ADHD and not everyone experienced them.
As I continued on in adulthood it was clear there was something else. I’ve spent a lot of time healing from trauma and learning my triggers. The more I heal the more I recognize that there are some things I can only do so much about for so long. Something that I’ve not experienced before when healing from trauma. Trauma demands to be felt and acknowledged, but this was different. It was stickier. Everything I tried kept reverting.
A friend from high school then posted about her autism diagnosis. I started to wonder if some of those similarities we shared were because I was also autistic.
I looked more into it and found women’s presentation of autism is different from the what we think of as signs in boys. This is because all the studies had been done only on white boys leaving all other variations of the human experience out of the DSM criteria.
Since then more and more women started exploring diagnosis which accounts for “everyone receiving a diagnosis these days.” Because two things can be true: more people can seek diagnosis and those people can legitimately have that diagnosis.
Yeah I experienced a lot of trauma and there’s probably some exacerbation of symptoms because of it, but I have enough reason to believe I might that I started the diagnosis process.
I had my first assessment session and it’s interview question and answer style.
It’s conducted by a licensed professional. I chose a woman practitioner in my area who specializes in trauma and neurodivergence so I could also address the question of - trauma, autism, or both?
I am sure there will be some stigmas if I do find I am, but I want to understand how my brain and body work. I don’t want to keep trying to fit a square peg into a round hole if that is the case.
Will it change how I parent or socialize or go through my day to day life? Probably not. But I might be able to figure out ways to work with brain instead of against it by understanding my brain better.
Maybe it’ll be the push I need to prioritize neurofeedback sessions. Wherever it leads I will be tasked with more information and I’ve always done amazing things with information.
Thanks for listening, friend. How have you been? Did you ever finish that project you started? You know the one I’m talking about.
Love,
