Femaleautism

Hey! I'm here because #MightyTogether #adultautism #Femaleautism #MentalHealth #Childhoodtrauma #Migraine #extremeanxiety

Hello all! I’m new here, looking for people who experience life similarly. I have been diagnosed with BPD, Anxiety, Depression, Eating Disorder NOS, Bipolar Disorder (II), and now we’re looking at female adult autism and ADHD as potential answers. I definitely don’t readily accept all these diagnoses, but they do touch on all of the problems I face in a daily basis (without being a perfect fit). I’m looking into neuropsychological testing to kind of get some more concrete answers. The only things I’m sure of is I struggle with bipolar disorder and anxiety undoubtly, but the rest seem like they don’t quite fit right. I’m hoping other people’s experiences can help me, as despite treatment since 15 (22 now) I have found little relief and answers. In fact, I cycle more rapidly and intense and have had my first real manic episodes despite multiple inpatient stays, years of medication trials, ECT, and therapy.

I’m beginning to feel lost and hopeless, but I have put so much effort into making it this far.

Any advice would be helpful. Especially finding someone really experienced for neuropsychological testing because I need someone who’s extremely experienced.
#BipolarDisorder #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #ADHD #Femaleautism #Anxiety #ChronicDepression

#Autism #AutismDiagnosis #coping #Disability #breakingpoint This is something that's been bouncing around my head for a while. Thought I'd risk putting it "out there" and see what happens, if anybody else has anything beneficial to add. #MentalHealth I have read in a number of places that #Femaleautism is often only diagnosed after a woman has reached her breaking point, and can no longer meet the demands of "normal life", in her 30s or 40s or later, and already has kids and a career etc. This was not my experience. At least not age wise. I reached this breaking point when I was still in high school. Probably about midway through. I knew I'd never be able to manage all the stuff that was expected of me as a "normal"adult. The whole living independently, having a job, interacting with people all the time,having a romantic relationship, children, etc. etc. Was all entirely overwhelming for me. I could barely manage the demands of being part of a family as a teen, and of high school! And really, if anyone had allowed me to admit it, even that was way over my head. Especially when my severe depression was taken into account, never mind my trauma history or the ongoing trauma I was living in.

Anyways, since nobody cared, or would even acknowledge the difficulties I had with the stuff everyone else took for granted, given I was clearly also intelligent and academically capable, I had to find a way to suffer through, and as soon as possible, try to find other alternatives that would suck less, and be less overwhelming. Long story short, as soon as I was living independently, (as demanded by my family, at 19) I started investigating my options, including disability diagnoses. Eventually, it led to an autism diagnosis only a few years after Asperger's appeared in the DSM 4.

What I keep wondering is this: what does it mean that I reached this breaking point so much earlier than most women on the spectrum? Does it speak to the "severity" of my autism, or just to my degree of self awareness? Or is it something else entirely? I've never been any good at self deception or being anybody but me. I suck at role playing, and found ordinary socialization abhorrent.

Learning to socialize just to fit in was anathema to me, in contrast to so many female ASDers. I'm starting to think this was a good thing, now, though certainly nobody thought so then! I have, however, since been able to develop a number of important relationships that were based on meaningful connections, because I refused to socialize for the sake of socialization. I was even beginning to understand a bit why NTs like socialization, prior to COVID. Now of course, the opportunities aren't there, so that has fallen by the wayside. Somewhere along the line I seem to have developed a number of social skills and emotional intelligence without necessarily realizing it until recently.

More to say, but running out of room.

So today I was required to fill 8 vials of blood for a blood test and eventhough that gave me anxiety I knew that I’d done blood tests before and the big bad I was building it up to in my head was untrue. I had the usual nervousness but my doctor struggled to find a vein (fairly normal). She jabbed me and I did my thing of clicking my other hand and breathing to help through the sensory overload that comes with a needle beneath my skin. The prick doesn’t hurt me it’s the needle being under my skin that does. She started to dig around saying my vein was slipping away and I was struggling more and more to tell my brain that everything was gonna be okay. She gave up eventually went to the next test and said she’d try again after. The problem was I slowly started to have a panic attack (thought it coulda be shock still don’t know) where I went pale, struggled to control my pulse and my breathing and then I kept tearing up at the thought of going again.
In the end I was crying begging my mum that we come back another day (she reminded me I’m 18 and it’s fully my choice).
I decided to forego the blood test today and instead am so utterly disappointed in myself that I couldn’t just push past my problems and do it so that I wasn’t an inconvenience on other people. My mum reminded me that normal people struggle with blood tests and needles but I just really hate the ASD today because I just wanted to be able to do it so bad. It’s things like today that make me feel less. Some days I wish I was normal.

I’m just recently 35 and was FINALLY confirmed as being on the ASD spectrum. My 4-years-younger BROTHER was diagnosed when he was 3!!! I’d appreciate some articles on the differences and similarities of the broad range of symptoms represented by ALL genders — not based-off of predominately(SOLELY)-male-data...