Is this me?

Apr 22, 2013

—

Can I be defined by a set of numbers?

Height 5’4″

Weight 10st 7lb

Age: 42.

Which coincidentally is what I’ve just scored on an autism test. Apparently 80% of adults with autism score over 32. And the one where they score 30 or less I got 17.

Hm.

I don’t think of myself as different. And yet, I’m aware that I’m pretty much always out of step with the rest of the world. That things that seem obvious to me just aren’t to other people. And vice versa – I have never and will never understand the attraction of soap operas or reality TV. (Not least because the latter isn’t. Real that is. Which is just annoying when you like terminology to be precise.)

I posted before about my suspicions about myself. Lots of people read the post and were supportive. I was very grateful. And it’s due to advice I’ve received following that that I’ve done this test.

It’s a recognised test. Not just some internet spoof. And I don’t come out borderline, I’m well up in there.

I’m a little surprised. I think of myself as borderline, but as I try to step outside msyself and analyse objectively, I realise that actually, I really don’t get it.

And do you know what? I’m alright with that. I actually feel a sense of relief. Maybe instead of trying so hard to be one of the crowd I can just set about taking down all the walls and be myself for a while. Let’s face it, fitting in is doing nothing but tiring me out and making me feel lonely. So perhaps I can stop being so tired and just maybe I’ll get some acceptance without having to try so hard?

This is me.

This is me, the person who can’t eat Wensleydale cheese or touch velvet, because it quite literally makes my hair stand on end. (Just thinking about it makes my hair stand on end.) This is me, who won’t recognise you twice running, not and be able to put your name to your face. The person who though half deaf will be driven slightly mad by a repetitive noise that no one else can hear.

This is me, who cares ever so deeply, but might not know how to express it. Who knows how to send hugs via twitter but hasn’t a clue how to do it in real life. Who forever misses the undercurrents in conversation, feeling like I must have been missing when people discussed whatever it was that I just don’t know about.

This is me, loving words, but with no pictures in my mind. This is me, able to hold an entire computer system in my head, go straight to a line of code and debug it, but unable to fill in a form without panicking in case I get something wrong.

This is me. I may never get a formal diagnosis, but I know this is me. Autistic me.

It’s where it is

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Comments

39 responses to “Is this me?”

sarahmumof3
22 April 2013
it really is ok to just be you, not have to be one of the crowd, but just be.
Although I am sure Its ever so difficult when you find things increasingly harder than others, my other half has no formal diagnosis but has so many autistic traits and he finds socialising ever so difficult. Its ok tho because not everyone has to be the same. And as hard as it is for him sometimes things are much easier when he tries not to fit in, and doesn’t worry about why he doesn’t. xxx
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1. Jax Blunt
  22 April 2013
  thanks Sarah. I *am* finding it increasingly difficult, I don’t know whether I’m getting more rigid with age, or whether my focus is just taken up with four children and I don’t have the energy to expend keeping up with everything else. Whatever it is, I’m tired of trying to pretend to be someone I’m not.
  Reply
Rachel Cotton
22 April 2013
Dont pretend anymore, do what you need to be happy with you and enjoy finding your normal. I think ASD is so under diagnosed, we’re all flailing around in a snowstorm of non perception which will be much better once more adults get dx or once all of our ASD kids grow up and get jobs, so we have a generation of VISIBLE asd adults.
Big hugs (if ok) I had ME when I was working 10 years ago, and took me 3 years to recover. I now feel it was a prolonged sensory meltdown coupled with other health issues. I still get as tired, but it no longer lasts as I understand the cause. Hopefully the relief for you will continue and continue.
ps I’m 42 too, I’m actually 42 in a month’s time, but I’ve been calling myself 42 for the last few as it’s such a nice number. I’m guessing you’ll have nice numbers and stuff?
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1. Jax Blunt
  22 April 2013
  Oh yes. 42 is am excellent number. Can make it difficult when you have a whole year of not a good number though 😉
  Thank you. I am feeling lighter. Happier may come.
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Helen
22 April 2013
Great post Jax. Yours sounds like the story I’ve heard from so many adults who get their diagnosis or discover their ASD for themselves in adulthood. I hope this is the start of things looking up for you.
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1. Jax Blunt
  22 April 2013
  Thanks Helen. Am hoping self discovery smoothes a variety of things out for me.
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Leoarna
22 April 2013
I don’t feel any need to patronise you with ‘there, there, never mind’, even though I know this aspect of self has preoccupied you of late. I just want to say ‘good on ya’ for looking it squarely in the eye and saying ‘yes, that’s me, and?’ You are you, and I am me, and we’re all just muddling along until it is time to leave. In the meantime, we hope to have some impact, to make some difference – and you definitely do. And there’s plenty to be said for a digital hug. Very partial to them myself. x
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1. Jax Blunt
  22 April 2013
  Thanks. I hope this can be a place where we can be open and direct. And virtually huggy.
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mamacrow
22 April 2013
BRILLIANT post!
Far better to be you, I feel. If people really are bothered that much then they weren’t worth socialising with in the first place imo! Mind you, I’m biased, cos I think you’re fabulous, but you know what I mean!
I identify so much with much of what you say here… I sometimes find the hugging thing difficult. I can do it, especially when I want to, but I do sometimes find it hard with someone who isn’t my husband or one of my children.
I also wonder if the sensory/velvet thing is strongly hereditary? My husband finds anything fuzzy difficult, one of his brothers finds ANYTHING REMOTELY fuzzy IMPOSSIBLE and Roo’s very very texture sensitive… I like velvet but I don’t like buttons, particularly shirt/blouse type buttons *shudders* I don’t like that cold feeling shirt material either. Rather an issue when I had school shirts to iron! I don’t miss those!
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1. Jax Blunt
  22 April 2013
  I certainly think there are some hereditary aspects. How could there not be?
  And thank you.
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Rachel Cotton
22 April 2013
I think sensory things can be inherited, after all it must be a genetic pattern? My daughter has the same sensory issues as me, which is great for understanding and resolving but not so good when we’re both wound up and LOUD. We both hate loud.
Glad you feel lighter, lots of ways to happy and even though I’ve just “met” you, you seem on your way.
Yes I don’t think I like 46 or 47, but 48 is nice.
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1. Jax Blunt
  23 April 2013
  I was very ambivalent about 37. And the jury is still out on 43.
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Nandi
22 April 2013
I’m 42 too, and though it’s my birthday soon I will stay 42! Not budging 😉
I enjoyed this post, thank you for sharing.
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1. Jax Blunt
  23 April 2013
  Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
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Midlife Singlemum
23 April 2013
It seems to me that though nothing about you has changed, you now have a label that you can use to explain anything that makes you feel awkward. Is this not a bit of a relief?
Btw – I can’t touch unglazed pottery and one of my friends has a whole kitchen full of it including the plates and mugs. When I eat at hers I insist on using the children’s plastic plates.
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1. Jax Blunt
  23 April 2013
  It’s a huge relief. And you’re right, it doesn’t make any quantifiable difference – I know there’s no financial support attached, it won’t pay the bills, I still have to do all the things that I find difficult. But I can put them in a box and leave them there mostly, and start fitting my world to me, instead of bending myself into all kinds of shapes that don’t work instead.
  Unglazed pottery. Not sure about that. Not sure I’ve really encountered any. I can see where you’re coming from though.
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Looking for Blue Sky
23 April 2013
I identify so much with this post and everything you say about how you feel – I’ve done the on-line tests and always come out as borderline (but then I answered conservatively) – I’d love to know what is the test that you did this time?
It’s also interesting how I feel drawn to others on-line who turn out to be questioning whether or not they may be on the spectrum x
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1. Jax Blunt
  23 April 2013
  This one was on the autism research centre website. I’ll send you the link. And yes, birds of a feather and all that. 😉
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Julie
23 April 2013
My initial reaction was the same as midlife singlemum’s. You haven’t become any different, but hopefully just found an explanation, and that must be a relief.
(I’m also intrigued by which test you did?)
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1. Jax Blunt
  23 April 2013
  From the autism research centre, so hopefully a little more accurate than some of the others I’ve looked at. And yes, relief. Which also means I can start obsessively gathering resources that might help (and poking fun at myself for doing so).
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Mrs Teepot
23 April 2013
I’m glad you’ve found an acceptance and relief. When I was diagnosed with mental illness (not autism) I was relieved because it gave me a way to explain why I am how I am.
You’re you and you’re wonderful just how you are
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Jenny Lesley
23 April 2013
It’s so strange – I read your post thinking, well yes of course she is in a “d’uh now you’ve said it, it’s obvious” way. Some of the people I like best in the world are autistic. My husband and elder son for instance. But I don’t recognise it necessarily when I meet people, I just respond to traits that I understand and value. Like your ability to cut through to the truth and see things from an angle I can rarely see until you open my eyes. Enjoy being you because we enjoy you being you. xx
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Anne-Marie
23 April 2013
Virtual hugs! I can’t do real ones either, but I think we’re kind of birds of a feather in regards to this. So much of what you’ve written I can relate to, and it (angers/frustrates/annoys/saddens?) me that adult diagnosis is so hard to get, where there are so many of us who have just come to the point where it would make life so much more understandable if we’d only known. So heartfelt virtual hugs (but I’ll cringe or jump in real life!) xx
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camille
23 April 2013
Know exactly where you are coming from, have done the tests and spent a year on a voyage of self discovery to find a way to accept and cope better with me-isms. Finally ridding my life of the things I used to do just to fit in with everyone elses normal is a huge relief.
I wish you well on your voyage, 🙂
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TBird Anni
23 April 2013
your daughter and mine appear to have worked out how to be autie and sociable although I have to say it does tire Aprilia massively. I have so much I’d like to say to you just now but no matter how I type it, it sounds all wrong!
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Hannah
23 April 2013
Brilliant post! Just be yourself, you are fab 🙂
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Merry
23 April 2013
You are a funny old thing 🙂
Yes, that is you – and all the people who have known you for 10 years in real life know that is you. And we don’t even mind it one little bit. We mind when we see you trying to fit in with things that don’t seem to make you happy or more fulfilled and we mind when you push us away, which you do. But mostly we love you and we wish you’d come and be encircled by us all a bit more often, because that friendship and love is there, you just seem to have forgotten to see it and forgotten it’s there. But it is. Friendship that knows this you and that you and would like to support all the yous. And does. Only I think sometimes it frightens you that we want to.
Funny old you. Funny old all of us. It’s just you 🙂
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1. Jax Blunt
  24 April 2013
  Ah and there we have it.
  I’m not pushing people away. I don’t know *how* to come and be encircled. I find the group situations exhausting and confusing and tiring. I can’t keep up with the conversations.
  It’s all about perspectives isn’t it? You don’t see me trying so very hard to be there I don’t think and feeling frustrated and upset when I can’t. Or at least it doesn’t feel like you (plural you, not you individual) see that.
  I could get lost in an ever decreasing circle of who is seeing what how but that’s in a way what I’m trying to get away from. I want to just breathe out and be me.
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Tech
24 April 2013
huge sigh of relief for you xxxx
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1. Jax Blunt
  24 April 2013
  Thank Tech. I am breathing a little easier.
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Anne
25 April 2013
I’m happy for you, why? because once you have realised and accepted this things become a little easier. I spent so long wondering why people did the thing they did, said the things they said and why I just didn’t get people in general. Then I realised that it was me that was different and now I’ve accepted it I just get on with things. I can enter social situations knowing that I’m different, but feeling much less stressed about it. So what if people don’t understand me, I do, and that’s what counts. In fact I’ve also noticed that I’ve become more sociable ?? yes, even last yesterday I met a couple of friends at the station and hugged them!! I didn’t like it but I was convincing in as they didn’t realise I didn’t like it 🙂 Sorry if I’ve rambled on a bit here, I was just happy to see someone else just like me, and I’m figuring there are plenty more of us out there too xx
p.s. I’m 47 and it’s my happiest year ever so far 🙂
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1. Jax Blunt
  25 April 2013
  I’ve got no problem with rambling on, please feel free. I am already feeling much less stressed, and am allowing myself to assess situations and react to them differently – I have hopes that this will make life easier in lots of different ways.
  As to the lots of us out there – there’s a whole undiagnosed generation I think. And it makes some sense that we will have gravitated to each other, so there’s a fair few in this thread.
  Good to know that 47 is working for you 🙂
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Crystal Jigsaw
30 April 2013
Wow! Incredible post. I love your honest approach and the way you have opened up here. You are you and you don’t need to fit in. None of us do.
CJ x
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1. Jax Blunt
  30 April 2013
  Thanks CJ. It’s becoming a little easier to open up each time.
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Claire toplis
2 May 2013
I am like you.
I never fit in or have fitted in.
I don’t like sliced cheese on bread it’s a fear.
I panic in large groups of people.
I have a small group of friends , I don’t do social very often
Hugs binary and otherwise
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1. Jax Blunt
  2 May 2013
  You are always welcome here.
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Pinkoddy
2 May 2013
I could put some great words in this box like the others, but I don’t know what to say. i’m always getting it wrong, trying to fit in, and wonder about myself too.
I can relate to so much of what you say – but about myself.
When I see you on twitter you come across as very popular, and def one of the crowd.
Lovely photo by the way.
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1. Jax Blunt
  2 May 2013
  I’m not one of the crowd, I can guarantee you that. But one of the throng just around the edge wondering how to get in? That’s me. You’re very welcome to throng with me 🙂
  On twitter it’s much easier to remember who is going through what. I can send them a hug. Make sure I mention the people I haven’t seen for a while. Keep track of the names. In real life I haven’t always got much of an idea who is attached to which name. And I’m awful at judging hugs.
  I’d love to be able to hug.
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Mummy Glitzer
29 May 2013
I can identify with how, having a “label” doesn’t make much difference so much but helps anyway. Certainly when I got my diagnosis of multiple rare disorders, including being sent of for genetics tests as there is a high chance I have some underlying genetic fault to be having all of them plus other issues, it was a relief because it explained SO much.
FWIW I am approximately 50% deaf yet can also be driving mad by high pitched (or low pitched) sounds most “normal” people can’t hear, yet speak to me in a normal conversational level without looking at my face and I will more than likely ask you to repeat what you have said.
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