[Celyn]

If you feel like you relate to autism 'symptoms' and you can trace that back to your childhood then it's definitely worth exploring. I don't see it as 'self-diagnosing' as such- more that you are trying to understand yourself better.

I'm sure many people, including autistic people, have once stigmatised other autistic people, most likely out of lack of awareness and understanding. There's no shame in that since it can be used as a learning curve to make you more aware of autism, how it can present differently in others and why stigmatising others is harmful. It can be very easy to see some autistic people struggle with things and realise that you aren't like that at all but since autism is a spectrum then it's definitely still possible to have autism.

Sometimes people get identified as possibly being autistic and seeking a diagnosis at a younger age, or perhaps those around young people e.g. teachers, therapists are aware of autism and wonder about the possibility of a young person being autistic. But sometimes autism gets missed and that does put you in the predicament of having to seek answers for yourself. Just because someone hasn't approached you about the possibility of autism, doesn't mean it's not worth asking yourself. Sometimes people might not have a lot of awareness about autism, other times people might not want to 'label' you or might not know how to approach the topic of autism with you.

BPD is a complicated area. BPD is often considered a trauma response and unfortunately, autistic people may be more likely to experience trauma. So it's possible to have both autism and BPD. But there are other trauma responses too like PTSD and c-PTSD. To further complicate things, many female presenting autistics are first misdiagnosed with BPD before being diagnosed with autism. And autistic people may also find that they have other conditions, such as anxiety, depression, ADHD etc which could look like BPD from the outside.

It's definitely worth bringing up the topic of autism to your therapist. Do you know if your therapist has much awareness of autism? I ask because it might be easier to talk to someone who does know about autism rather than someone who might not have much knowledge of autism. Especially if they are a mental health professional as they may be more likely to see the mental health side of things rather than the autistic side of things.

Best of luck and let us know how things go