A doctor when I went in to figure out why I am unable to physically speak when stressed.

It was a tribunal. Me myself and I.

I did, initially. I couldn’t figure out why everything was just so hard to understand. I literally have a genius IQ, but many jokes whoosh over my head, I have trouble reading expressions, I overthink everything. Navigating the world is just so difficult. As autism became more understood and publicized, I began to suspect that I am autistic. I went to a diagnostician, who gave me the quick testing (in-depth enough to make her confident of her diagnosis, but not rigorous enough to satisfy insurance companies). Sure enough, I’m in the club! I found out a year or two ago, at age 60.

I went to a nerd convention (probably Supernova) and there was a stall there raising awareness for autism and I wanted a cape because they were giving out capes (I’ve since lost the cape, very sad), and the guy there was like “are you autistic?” And I’m like “I don’t think so” (thinking I guess they ask everyone or something). A year later, I’m helping out at this nerd shop and a couple comes in and the guy’s like, “do you remember me? I think we met at the con last year. I don’t want to offend you, but I think you’re undiagnosed.” Turns out he was right.

I went for an ADHD evaluation and the doctor doing it said: “yeah, we should do autism next”

Me