That Assessment
If you still have questions or doubts about what kind of person I am...
When I filled out the assessment form, I was so pissed off.
When I saw the word "symptoms," my first thought was:
"What do you think? Do I have a fucking flu or something?"
Then I saw the word "complaint," and that pissed me off even more.
I mean...
Sitting peacefully in my fun little rabbit hole is a fucking complaint to you?
Okay, okay.
I know.
I know.
It's a neutral term in medical terminology, and I shouldn't take it personally.
And honestly...
I don't.
It just annoys me.
I am not sick.
I am different.
Then there was the question asking how my symptoms affect my life.
I answered that I am no longer trying to fit into a world where I don't belong.
I am looking for the place where I actually do belong.
I don't think I am the perfect patient.
I have reached a really deep, really cool inner peace.
The kind where I honestly don't give a fuck anymore.
Not even a little.
This is who I am.
Can we please normalize not demonizing people who simply don't fit in?
Not that long ago, I would have felt ashamed to go for an assessment like this.
Honestly.
That is probably why I spent years spiraling around the possibility of autism.
The realization that I might be autistic didn't come out of nowhere.
It started with my sensory sensitivities and stories people told me about my childhood.
Like the IQ test.
Or how I loved playing with sand but had to wash my hands every one or two minutes.
And ever since then, I haven't liked touching sand.
Then there was always being the black sheep.
Not understanding social norms that felt illogical.
Or maybe understanding them...
Without actually understanding them.
Does that make sense?
Then there was the dysgraphia that people said I had "grown out of."
Then my ability to lock in and hyperfocus in a way I had never seen anyone else do.
Then my sense of justice.
And so on...
It was something I had been thinking about for years.
That maybe I should get assessed.
But I never did.
Partly because what I now suspect are my ADHD traits actually hid—or compensated for—many of the autistic ones for a long time.
And my high IQ probably hid a lot too.
I had to look inward with complete honesty and ask myself:
"Is this really who I am?"
Because the math just wasn't mathing.
That was actually when ADHD first entered the picture.
Most of the autistic traits I noticed in myself were, strangely enough, socially acceptable for a woman.
I didn't have to hide them that much.
But when I started learning about ADHD...
Everything fell apart.
Because those were the traits I had spent my whole life trying to suppress.
My constant need to move.
Because women are supposed to have self-discipline.
Women are supposed to sit still.
That is non-negotiable.
My impulsivity.
A woman isn't supposed to be impulsive.
My intense emotions that I instinctively want to express honestly and directly.
A woman isn't supposed to do that.
A woman shouldn't show her anger.
What will men think?
Honestly...
Who the fuck cares what men think?
I had to hide everything that society considered unacceptable in a woman while being allowed to keep only those traits that were considered acceptable.
Maybe that is why what I now suspect are my ADHD traits couldn't really come to the surface until I broke down completely.
Right to the core.