A New Paradigm

I had assumed PTSD was what was holding me back from accomplishing what I wanted. Most of the symptoms are also found in other conditions. Autism, ADHD, and others can have a similar effect. Interestingly, depression seems to be caused by everything. 

Years earlier, while seeking out possible causes for my mood, I found a site that had various tests to take online with results tallied in realtime. 

In my desperation I took a few, including the autism exam. I don't remember the results but I remember it reporting I had some traits. 

I have had personal contact with autistic individuals and I couldn't see any commonality. Occasionally, as a kid I wondered about what we used to call Aspergers Syndrome. Small personality traits sometimes showed parallels but I attributed it to converging i symptoms.  

I still labored under the idea that autism was something others had. Until I watched a TED talk given by Jessica McCabe. What she described hit me like a shockwave. I could relate to almost everything she described feeling. 

As I expanded my research one thing stood out to me. So many people with Autism described feeling like an ALIEN on earth. I felt like I was an observer and everything was foreign to me. I had always felt this way. I would write stories about characters who came from other planets and even drew a comic strip with that same premise.

When I was old enough to drive I would search for quiet rural locations to sit and secretly hope the mothership would come back for me. I went through various scenarios5 how I could have been switched at birth or even harboring an alien entity. 

Because this world made no sense and I couldn't see how I was a part of it.

The revelation I might be autistic lit a desire to learn for certain. I went online and found as many aitism screening tests as I could. England and Australia seem the most aware of their autistic citizens and had sections on their healthcare websites desicated to education and testing. The U.S. didn't have as many resources but there were national advocacy groups. 

In all I must have taken a dozen tests, variations, and sometimes multiple times. All came back with the same conclusion....

(Yes. One of my own screen cap results.)

On the one hand, it was a bit of a shock. Some part of me wondered, based on what I had seen on television. But, that was TV. Real life is much different....

Right?