I never grew out of it
Sometime in the 1990s, I remember asking my mom if she’d thought I was autistic when I was a small child. “Maybe, but you grew out of it,” she replied.
My mom doesn’t recollect this conversation, but I had a valid question. Significant verbal delays, social delays, obsessive interests, a host of issues with sleep and eating…you go down the list of early childhood symptoms and most of them were there.
Increased awareness about what autism and neurodiversity looks like in women, societally conditioned to be people pleasers, and the growing body of research is getting more attention across different media platforms. The more I casually read, the more I went back to that conversation I had with my mom in my teens, and I realized that I needed to talk with my therapist.
After 25 years of therapy, I worked with my psychiatrist and yep, I’m on the spectrum and the surprise kicker was ADHD (more on that later).
I’ve struggled with crippling anxiety, depression, and obsessive thoughts my entire life, but no course of treatment from CBT to medications has ever really provided substantive relief. Twenty milligrams of Prozac stops the suicidal ideation, but 60 mg of buspirone and up to three mg of alprazolam only dulls the constant anxiety.
I have always struggled in social situations, much to the frustration of myself and others. My husband and I have the same therapist and he overheard my telesession with her and I brought up missing social cues. He later told me that he’d always known that about me, but never knew what to call it. For a super benign example, I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve not replied in an expected way when someone is being sarcastic or facetious. I’ll respond in a literal manner as I don’t think the “joke” is over. They say, “I was joking.” I say, “yes, I know that. I was, too.”
On a far more serious level, it’s made work HARD. Missing social cues and not picking up on when I need to lead with empathy instead of logic is a death sentence to women in the workplace. It is not because I don’t feel empathy; I absolutely do. People who know me well know just how much time and energy I put into my relationships because I really and truly care about others.
At work, I’ve been told I must work on my “emotional intelligence.” I’ve been fired and demoted over this. And I can’t even tell you how much I’ve cried over this criticism; I felt like I was a bad person. I was doing everything I could think of to overcome this “feedback”: read a ton of books, took classes, had mentors, etc. But at the same time, my brain just doesn’t work and isn’t wired the same way as a neurotypical brain.
Neurodiversity is NOT a mental health problem; the resulting anxiety and depression are.
I incorporated all the behaviors that I learned to help me demonstrate high emotional intelligence in a socially acceptable way after years of practice. Before I learned that this was masking, I used a computing analogy. At first, they’re the applications you’re currently working on; over time, they become background running tasks. Even still, in some situations, those exhaust all my RAM and as my son would say, “elizabeth.exe has stopped working.” I crash. I now know this is autistic burnout.
In my last role, emotional intelligence was sort of my brand. I taught it at work. I got perfect upward feedback scores. I became a leader people left companies to follow. I’ve adopted the mantra, “never be the source of someone else’s PTSD.” Folks laugh when I say this, but it’s true.
The surprise in my re-diagnosis process was ADHD. With my mom and son both having ADHD, I thought I knew what that would look like. My mom is inattentive type and my son is combined type. Apparently, I’m impulsive/hyperactive type. I never in a million years would have suspected this because I’ve always been exceptionally good at focusing, something my mom and son struggle with. I positively thrive in structured environments like school (because autistic) and have always been a stellar and highly organized student.
What does ADHD impulsive/hyperactive type look like without the inattentive type? Restlessness/insomnia, talking too much, unusually active, info-dumping, impatience, etc. Wow, yeah, that’s me. I added Methylphenidate ER to my already impressive pharmacy of medications and for the first time in my life, I’m getting some physical relief from anxiety. Trying to get my prescription refilled every month with the ADHD medication shortages plaguing the US, however, is a major source of anxiety.
So, what does all this mean for me? Here’s a laundry list of how neurodiversity affects me:
Social issues:
Difficulty in picking up on social cues and picking up on nonverbal communication.
Dislike for making eye contact.
Info-dumping/excessive talking and not recognizing when someone is disinterested in a topic.
Dislike for being touched by others – I love a consensual hug, but I don’t like when others are in my personal space for any length of time. I don’t even like it when I’m seated too close to my husband on an airplane. I am claustrophobic in normal crowds to the point of panic attacks.
Delayed speech.
Rigidity in routine.
Strict sense of morality.
Behavioral/sensory issues:
Stimming (I touch my fingers together, especially when stressed).
Fixation on activities/interests (especially in the sciences).
Organizing and categorizing items.
Encyclopedic knowledge on various topics.
Tactile sensory issues.
Hyperactivity.
Tantrum prone (I hate this about myself).
Sensory overload with excessive and unpredictable sound/visual stimulus.
Physical issues:
Insomnia/sleep issues.
GI problems.
Excessive clumsiness.
Hypermobility (I'm still not sure about this one, I am naturally very flexible, but is that really part of neurodiversity?)
Is it any surprise, then, that I’ve never been able to find true relief for anxiety?
How did this get missed? For decades. I check almost every box in the diagnostics. My grandmother is a retired school social worker. My parents are the most loving, supportive parents anyone could ever wish to have. It certainly wasn’t due to lack of support.
Gender is a big part of it. Girls are raised to be people pleasers and I’m no different. I want to fit in. I crave praise. I want everyone to like me. I learned to mask.
Intelligence is another factor; I’m smart. I don’t believe IQ is a measure of anything but how good you are at taking IQ tests and it’s not supposed to change substantially over your life. Despite my IQ not making the cut for the gifted program in elementary school, when I was re-tested in college to try to sign up for paid psych studies, I scored an obscenely high number that disqualified me from further participation because it was so far outside the normal range. Again, this invalidates IQ as an accurate measure of intelligence, but directionally, I know I’m smart.
My preference for extroversion is another contributing factor. In the MBTI world, which I also know is rife with issues, I test as extremely extroverted. When I’m dealing with a difficult problem at work, I like to talk through potential solutions with others to learn from their perspectives. I make small talk with strangers. I have a lot of friends, though only a handful of close friends.
That said, I have a very difficult time maintaining small talk conversations with acquaintances. I hate parties unless I’m hosting and can control the environment, so I know what to expect. I really struggle when I don’t have “safe people.” I came up with this term about a decade ago to describe people with whom I felt I could be myself without constant fear of messing up the interaction. Now I know it’s that I don’t feel the need to mask around them, so it doesn’t drain my energy to spend time with them. It gives me energy. I shut down in situations when I have been masking too long and don’t have a safe person to help revive my energy. I love getting together with even large groups of people if the majority are “safe people.”
I’ve been slowly “outing” myself to friends, family, and colleagues. And now, I guess, the world. The responses have been all over the place from: “I never would have guessed,” “I always knew,” “everyone thinks they’re ADHD/ASD these days (heavy eye roll).” But here’s the thing: autism is a spectrum. There are depth and breadth components. I’m able to mask so well that some people don’t even believe I’m on the spectrum because while I have a wide breadth of symptoms, they’re not all super deep. I don’t require any significant accommodation.
What do I do with all this?
First and foremost, I am the same person. Having a name for and better understanding of why I am the way I am doesn’t change anything, but it is liberating. It allows me to give myself grace. I’m not going to stop masking, those background tasks usually run smoothly and serve me well, but I have begun shutting down the ones that aren’t essential to give more RAM to the more important processes. So, for example, I don’t make as much eye contact as I used to. I don’t stop the urge to stim, repeatedly touching my thumb to each finger back and forth across my hand.
At the end of the day, some things are just more difficult for me than they are for others and that’s not my fault. Being neurodiverse is a disability; it is and was invisible to others and was even invisible to myself for most of my life. But as I look to close out 2023 and begin 2024, I felt it was time to be a little less invisible. At least in this little corner of the internet.