[TH Anonymous]

[SIZE="a"]I've not been officially diagnosed but I did go through a time a little while back where I suddenly realised there was a very good chance that I might be autistic. And that in itself was mind blowing and life altering in a way.

I had previously spent years thinking I might have all sorts of mental health disorders, including BPD, and had blamed previous trauma on the way that I am now. And when I realised it was probably autism all along...my mind just started reprocessing stuff? Lots of memories started coming to the front of my mind, I started linking memories and previous thoughts to what I had learnt about autism. I became obsessed with learning about autism and read all sorts of things from academic journal articles to personal blogs. I just couldn't stop myself. I ended up writing all these thoughts and memories and stuff I learnt down and essentially created a little autobiography which is many thousands of words long. My social media was all autism related too- following lots of autistic content creators, coaches and writers.

For a while, this satisfied me. I was learning about myself and was happy to know that even though I am the same person I've always been, that I now have reasons for why things happened in my life, why I found certain sensory things difficult, why I've struggled socially and have been bullied etc. I also realised that in turning to reading and the internet, I was trying to create a sense of belonging. I could really relate to the things people talked about regarding autism. But I ended up realising that the internet could only take me so far, and it's not a replacement for having a heart to heart with someone who knows me well (though I'm still yet to have that, I can imagine I will get more *emotionally* from it rather than just reading and processing by myself...but that's just me).

I've found myself becoming slightly sceptical of some content on the internet. I can take things personally quite easily, so I find it helpful to remind myself that what I read online isn't necessarily aimed at me, the other person's situation might be different to me, try not take advice too literally (it's okay to take away ideas, but make it work for you, even if that means adapting things slightly), we never really know how true anything is online or what other people's intentions are when they post asking for help or even helping. And even though the content produced by many autistic influencers/content creators/coaches etc., can be really helpful, over time, you might come to realise that the only person who knows you best, is you.

Naturally, I imagine that my life would've been very different if I hadn't spent a lot of time previously struggling. A mixture of being in unfulfilling friendships and relationships, being bullied and taken advantage of, spending a lot of time feeling anxious and depressed and a lot of other things meant that when I left school and university, I pretty much didn't really know myself, let alone what I wanted to do with my life. I tried to be something I couldn't be and felt very anxious about where my life was heading. Any time I tried to do something different (I went from thinking I could be a teacher to thinking I could be a counsellor) it didn't work out. I realise that even though I'm not very good at 'masking' or trying to come across as neurotypical, I did end up losing a lot of my identity. Or perhaps I never really formed much of one to begin with. So I've spent the last few years trying to find out more about myself. What kind of things do I find interesting, what do I like to read or watch or play etc. I realised that my 'default mode' with others who want to be friends with me is to go along with them, so they might watch a particular series and tell me to watch it, so I will, they will say who their favourite characters are and I feel like I have to go along with that (rather than offer my own opinion). It's been helpful to me to separate what others like or want from what I like. There's no harm in occasionally being influenced by a friend or a loved one, but when you find yourself always going along with everyone else, it can help to take a step back and think about what you actually want.

Doing this has helped me to think about what job I could do too. I never really thought much about jobs before. But I've learnt that, for me, I have to think about what interests me, what skills do I have or could improve on, what do I struggle with (or perhaps what to avoid) and also thinking about sensory and social side of things too. I now know that I have to prepare a lot in terms of getting the right kind of experience (e.g. volunteering) and researching the kind of questions that might come in interviews or learning from each interview I have. For me, I rely a lot on memory and writing, so I'm often writing things down to help me prepare. If I prepare, I feel less anxious and a bit more relaxed. I realise that these are probably things that younger people do in school, and while I do sometimes feel a bit left behind in comparison to people my age, I try not to dwell on it too much (and try not to compare myself to others either). I can't change the past but I can try to help myself now and in the future.

So in short, things that have helped me include:

• Self-reflecting and writing things down
• Learning about myself more
• Learning about autism (though also remaining slightly critical of reading stuff online)
• Thinking about what I need in terms of friendships, employment etc.
• Talking to people who know me well about autism

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