The Blog that Used to Be About Australia: February 2022

I got my diagnosis a few days ago.

I'm autistic. And I have ADHD and OCD.

I wasn't surprised. It's what I thought I had. My feelings were more like relief that the psychologist agreed with me.

I believe that I also have dyspraxia and anxiety. So I'm kind of...disappointed that I didn't get those labels. But I'm thinking it could be more like those fall into the experience of being autistic.

I had actually brought up OCD in the diagnostic interview. I'm not sure what led me to do that. Oh...well, maybe she had mentioned looking into ADHD? And I was thinking...wait, what about OCD? She didn't give me a lot of pushback, but she said something like all autistic people have OCD. It's like part of the package. But she asked/suggested if I perhaps had a bit extra OCD and emailed me another test to take. She also sent me an additional ADHD test.

Wait. Maybe that's what happened? Maybe she told me she was going to send an ADHD test and then I asked about OCD.

Autism is super confusing in many ways. But one of the confusing thing is a lot of things listed as traits can also be found as a separate diagnosis.

For example: Having motor skill problems; being a klutz, having bad posture, being one of the last to be chosen for P.E teams....That's all a common part of the autistic experience. But it can also have the separate diagnosis of dyspraxia.

Maybe it's kind of like ordering at a restaurant. Let's say we get a big appetizer platter that comes with cheese sticks, chicken wings, nachos, sliders, and potato skins. But then we might order EXTRA of one or two of those things.

I should add that I also got an extra order of alexithymia. I personally feel my order of autism includes more extra dyspraxia than extra alexithymia. But it's not like the psychologist sat down and watched a movie of my entire life. It could be that I wrote more about the alexithymia stuff than the dyspraxia stuff. Or it could be that the psychologist is more interested and in-tuned to alexithymia.

I will say that I read the whole diagnostic report, and I do feel that I was listened to and understood. So, that's good.

My other autistic news is that I think I'm over my confusing feeling/idea that EVERYONE is autistic. Well, it's not that I believed everyone was autistic. It's more like I couldn't distinguish autistic from non-autistic. Michelle Obama cured me of the problem. I've been listening to her book and suddenly thought: She is so not autistic.

Now I can't know that for sure. But based on what she has written/said about her own life, she seems very neurotypical.

I think part of my problem was that I equated neurotypical with this kind of...blandness. I saw it as someone who strolls through life with no intense interests, no quirks, no social issues, no sensory dislikes, no compulsions, no strong emotions, etc.

I didn't know anyone like this and couldn't imagine anyone actually being like this. So I saw neurotypical as being a kind of mythical creature.

Getting back to the menu analogy. A neurotypical person wouldn't be someone who doesn't get any items offered on the platter. Instead, they are the people who order the items a la carte. And the a la carte orders might vary in size. Some might get large orders and others might get medium or small.

I'm also thinking....

There are so many traits associated with autism. Instead of saying what our autism includes and what extras we ordered, it might actually make more sense to state what is NOT included in our order.

So for me, I might be an order of autism but hold the high (and low) IQ, the gender dysphoria/non-binary and the Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes.

Despite what I have sort of believed in the last few months, I doubt the other adult members of my Texas family are autistic. But they have received some items from the a la carte menu...and some of them have larger amounts of certain items than what I received on my platter of autism.

I was going to quit here, but my mind is having fun with this menu thing.

So....let's say there's a little salad included on the platter. The salad represents sensory issues. Almost all autistic people keep the salad that comes with the platter. Most get the house dressing which has a variety of herbs (senses) but the strongest herb is hearing.

I'm one of the less common autistic people who did NOT get the house dressing on my platter. My dressing has a bit of the hearing-herb, but the visual-herb and touch-herb are definitely more dominant on my salad.