und1agn0sed

[und1agn0sed]

new years resolution / little me

I remember, as a kid, I really, genuinely believed that I was capable of anything. Not just in the way adults tell you at that age either; I knew I could be number one at everything just by thinking I already was. And it worked for a while - everyone told me how clever I was, I knew I had something extra going for me that the other kids didn't have. I had a bright future ahead of me, full of happiness and success and very little difficulty.

At 10, I started to realise this might not be the case. I had always known I wasn't like the rest of the kids - there was something intangible, alien inside me and I was aware of that. But I'd seen it as a sort of superpower. Being top of the class, feeling like I could match certain adult conversations, standing out and being praised for doing so. But I suppose there comes a point where it all starts to slow down and the older you get the less your quirks are endearing so much as they are irritating, strange, and unpleasant. And suddenly you are 24 and you can't so much as change your bedsheets without crying in a heap on the carpet.

I am still terrified to say aloud (or type) the phrase, "I think I might be autistic", because it's something that has only come to me within the past 8-9 months. I feel like I'm lying, like I'm making it up. All the dots connect, but I'm terrified of looking like I want attention, or that I'm jumping on some sort of mental health bandwagon (as if that is a bandwagon anyone realistically wants to jump on). I don't think I look autistic - whatever that means. I know people who have been diagnosed by professionals, tick more of the boxes, are open and unashamed of it. In fact, I'm unsure whether I'd be more scared finding out I'm autistic or finding out I'm not autistic. If I am, that means I have wasted so many years of my life thinking I'm useless, that I'm a failure for not being able to cope with mundane activities half the people I know wouldn't blink at. So much time spent self-loathing, struggling, not reaching out and thinking that is all I deserved. Time nobody noticed. Help and assistance I could have had, simply bypass me straight into the abyss with little remaining but memories of suffering and pushing through regardless. But if my diagnosis comes back negative, then...is this just me? Have I been right all along? Am I just useless and overly sensitive and immature, with little social skill and even less sense of self? I have reached out to doctors many a time pleading that they listen to me - it can't just be depression, there is something else here, something else going on! But if it isn't autism, what is it? I tick even less boxes for other disorders I have looked into. If this doesn't explain me, what does explain me?

Not being autistic wouldn't change the fact that this is the second time in my adult life I have had to quit a full-time job due to intense burnout. It wouldn't change the fact that I scream and cry my eyes out in the car almost every day on the way to work. It wouldn't change the fact that I haven't made a new friend, not really, without the help of alcohol since age 13. It wouldn't change the fact that I seem to be perpetually miserable, locked in a cycle of highs and lows. It wouldn't change the fact that in my adult life I slowly exhaust friendships. Why would you want an inexplicably miserable friend when you have plenty of happy friends? Friends who mesh well with your other friends, friends who don't drink too much, friends who understand how to be normal and not take things too far, friends who don't take their social cues from television shows and social media, friends who don't do silly things because they think that's what they're supposed to do, friends who understand that not everyone can be first place, friends who live closer and text more often, who can do the dishes and shower once a day and who are truthful about it when they can't.

I cry a lot thinking about kid me. I feel so bad for her, like I have failed her. In the space of 15 years I have gone from feeling like I could do anything, to feeling like I cannot do a single thing. I am trying my best, even if it doens't look like it. I cannot stress that enough. Despite everything,despite how I feel about myself now, I cannot give up on her. On little me. And that's why I am determined to find out what this is before 2025 is up. I suppose you could call it my New Year's Resolution. Autism seems the most likely based on many things. I keep feeling like I need to explain myself, bare all my humiliating secrets and put myself completely and utterly on display to prove that this is real. To list off every symptom I have ever had, every box I tick (and evidence to prove it). I know that for some people, autism might seem a plausible diagnosis, while others likely think I'm full of shit, for lack of a better term.

But I have to know what and who I am, whether it be autism, or something entirely different, something I haven't even considered yet. I have to know how to help myself. There is a breath that has been swelling in my chest for years; the air has been stale for a very long time. I took that breath to survive, but it doesn't serve me anymore. I want to finally expel it in a sigh of relief and feel new, fresh air fill my lungs.