I’ve been internet-diagnosed with autism plenty of times, but the one time I went to get evaluated, they said I didn’t have “it.”
But if it’s a spectrum with different combinations of different traits at different levels of intensity, maybe a diagnosis is irrelevant and what matters is what your constellation of traits actually is, regardless of an official diagnosis (which, let’s face it, is probably highly subjective outside of some constellations–that is to say, with a long enough list of psychologits, I could probably get a dx).
Personally, for me, what this means is I can look to autistic literature to see what resonates with me without worrying about the fact that I don’t share many of the hard markers for autism. For instance, my investment in the truth often conflicts with social niceties even though I can read people’s emotions. I can see myself as an unofficially atypical person in a lot of ways.
I’ll leave my resonsances in the comments below. Feel free to share yours.
My most recent meltdown at work was when someone from a different department asked me to violate a policy and nobody in my department–including my direct supervisor–gave a shit.
Like you as an 8-year-old, I was more upset that nobody cared it was a violation of policy than that I was being asked (quite rudely, may I add).
I also had a GF refer to me as “Mr. Literal” because I was always correcting her speech if she was being imprecise… I also sometimes get in trouble at work for wanting to correct sloppy verbiage. “People know what it means,” is not a good solution.