new paths

This week, I have had two medical appointments.

The second was very welcome: I've been prescribed new medication for my ADHD, which I'm really hoping will bring some positive changes to my life.

The first, however, came as something of a shock.

One of the conclusions of my ADHD assessment back in May was that I potentially displayed some autistic traits. On Tuesday, I had an appointment with an autism clinician to explore this further. At the end of the assessment, I was told that I met all five diagnostic criteria for autism.

I had known for a long time that I had ADHD. I had suspected it, recognised it and, in many ways, made peace with it. But the autism diagnosis? That one really hit me for six. I didn't think it would. It wasn't that I disagreed with the initial assessment. And yet, somehow, it still came as a shock.

Perhaps it's because I had only ever thought of myself as a bit autistic, whereas I knew I was a lot ADHD.

More likely, though, it's the realisation of just how different my life might have been had I known earlier. I could have been better equipped to understand myself and navigate the challenges life has thrown at me.

As I mentioned in a previous post, having an established diagnosis of neurodivergence at work could certainly have protected me from some of the battles I faced. Perhaps I would have been better placed to deal with less scrupulous colleagues and, in particular, to protect myself as a victimised union representative fighting against a toxic workplace culture and dishonest management.

It's all been bouncing around in my mind over the past two days, but, to be honest, it's the smaller things that have struck me most. I'm beginning to recognise how many seemingly unrelated behaviours and thought patterns might actually be connected to my autism diagnosis – things I'd never previously considered in that light.

• The obsessive collecting of things. Some are lovely, such as LPs; others serve very little purpose now: DVDs, home-recording equipment I never actually used, and the hundreds of books I've accumulated on shelves that I'll never have enough time to read. I've always thought of it as hoarding, but I wonder whether there's a connection with autistic special interests, the emotional attachment to particular objects and the difficulty of letting go of things.
• The plethora of habits and rituals. Things I've always assumed were simply signs of not being particularly sensible: parking on one particular side of the road, only changing my trousers once a week, and countless other completely irrational habits and superstitions. Perhaps some of these are less random than I've always thought, and are in fact connected to the autistic need for routine, predictability and sameness: the comfort of knowing that certain things are done in a particular way.
• The constant internal dialogue. Frantic, relentless and exhausting. A mind that never seems to switch off, endlessly processing, analysing and replaying conversations and situations. Perhaps part of the mental effort involved in making sense of a world that doesn't always come naturally.
• The tendency to overthink the most utterly inconsequential things. Going over the smallest details, analysing every possible interpretation and finding it almost impossible to let something go. What might seem insignificant to someone else can occupy a ridiculous amount of mental space, and for so long.
• The feeling that I'm being judged for every little thing I do. An almost permanent sense of self-consciousness, as though I'm being scrutinised. Perhaps connected to the experience of navigating social situations, trying to understand expectations and constantly wondering whether I'm getting things right.
• The feeling that people can somehow read my mind. Not literally, of course, but an uncomfortable sense of exposure, as though my thoughts, insecurities and internal workings are somehow visible to everyone else. Perhaps another manifestation of the heightened self-awareness that comes from feeling different and being conscious of that difference.

What strikes me is that I've spent so much of my life treating these things as individual quirks, bad habits or personal shortcomings. I never thought to look at them as part of a bigger picture. The autism diagnosis is making me revisit things I've taken for granted for years, and I'm beginning to see connections I simply hadn't made before.

There is something quite difficult about looking back and wondering how much of what you struggled with might have been different had you simply understood yourself a little better.

And perhaps that's the most difficult part of all: not necessarily discovering something new about myself, but realising that so much of what I've always known about myself might finally make sense.

Oh, the joys of hindsight! Hopefully, making sense of all this will help in the long run. It's certainly been a long journey.