it always feels embarrassing to talk about wondering about gender things, "am i autistic," "do i have ADHD," "is this chronic fatigue," etc

but maybe threading these topics will be useful - for me and for anyone else who has similar experiences

i know i tend towards hypochondria, and i do have anxiety, which can produce a lot of symptoms present in other disorders, so it's difficult to disentangle...

things i'm certain i *dont* have:

- BPD
- bipolar
- depression (at least not anymore, but i occasionally have extremely brief depressive episodes to contrast with)
- schizophrenia
- body dysphoria
- addictive personality
- dissociation (*except* sometimes derealization)

i recently realized i may have unusually *high* empathy (the opposite of what i'd supposed), which could account for why so many accounts of people's experiences feel relatable

things that feel relatable:

- high-functioning ASD as it presents in women
- some ADHD symptoms
- gender confusion???

once my anxiety is better dealt with, maybe the associated symptoms and thought patterns will fade and i'll get more clarity on all three of these

one clear step towards reducing my anxiety is to stop trying so hard to cater to everyone around me

once i drop that, it'll be interesting to see whether that was essentially:

- masking to compensate for difficulty with social cues

- anxious inability to trust myself

iirc i've had a lot of experiences of not being able to predict or understand people's reactions, and my social growth has been largely a matter of working around this

not sure whether i can accurately pick up cues vs err on the side of "person doesnt want this to continue"

been marathoning videos again-- this one on masking hit home umm extremely hard

feels weird to deliberately seek out autistic people to hang out with if i'm not autistic but near the end Sam says something like --

-- she always felt weird and quirky until she spent time with other autistic people, and then she felt *just like them*, not interesting or different at all

i'm paralyzed trying to work out how to talk with ANYONE much less be like "hey people w female-presenting ASD hmu?"

(also: i'm getting the same sort of extra buzzy anxious tension thinking about ASD as i did when reading Running on Empty)

it's hard to disentangle social anxiety from possibly-aspie things -- a workaround i've had for feeling like i dont know what other people are thinking is, when in doubt, assume the worst

not about their motives, more like: assume they're not interested, or they're annoyed

and i realized today(!!) that a lot of the anxiety i have in my current relationship comes from this strategy.

my ex was hyperverbal so i never had any doubts about what was going through his head

current bf is much more typical; there've been times where i sensed his --

--discomfort on some visceral level, got anxious in response without being able to understand or articulate why, and then later he told me that he had, in fact, been stressed.

BUT i've just had a false positive--and now i suspect it's just that a broken clock's right twice a day

how do you know if you're good or bad at reading people without relying on... avoiding any risk at all??

me: hmm nah im probably anxious and am confusing my anxiety with high-functioning ASD

also me: yeah my high school had a good cook but i ate chili cheese fries at the cafeteria almost every day bc almost everything else squicked me out too much

the correct and ideal texture for food is plastic, i will not be taking any questions

i at least *appear* to make normal eye contact, but i spend an inordinate amount of time looking at people's mouths when they're talking or i'm trying to read expressions (especially on film, when i don't have to worry about them looking back)

!!! https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2555425/

spoke to my therapist about possible ASD for the 2nd time--

the first time he humored me, flipped open the DSM-5, read through the symptoms with me, but they didnt seem to fit well enough

this time he listened to me give a breathless rundown of symptoms and --

-- came to the conclusion that we should *operate under the assumption* that i'm on the spectrum

he asked how that felt and i told him it depended on whether we were pretending or whether he believed it (with answers for both)

i asked for a likelihood and he gave me: ~75%

anyway i'm p thrilled, got my GP video appointment tomorrow ?! and we'll seeee https://twitter.com/goblinodds/status/1290474426882912256

turns out the GP didnt know why the specialist referred me to him -- his best guess was that hes good at connecting people to the right departments, which should be happening soon (fingers crossed)