Shockingly, the doctor that initially diagnosed my autism, knew I was autistic when I was walking in the door. This was profoundly shocking because I spent about a 1 year in a psychiatric hospital and they literally tested for everything! The only thing they found was that I am profoundly gifted and gave a diagnoses of general anxiety, major depression and panic disorder. I have been treated for these disorders all of my life, literally went through about 20 psychiatrists and nobody actually helped me. I had to pull myself out of crisis after alone.

I did my PhD work in evolutionary psychology and cognitive anthropology and actually took all the required psychology courses to enter a Clinical PhD program. I am not clinical in anyway, but I decided to be my own psychiatrist and I was literally running 4 or 5 theories. For example, I thought it might be low dopamine levels. So, I would go to the Doc and ask for Prozac, which actually increases dopamine levels. I didn’t tell the Doc why I wanted them. I tested them and actually got restless legs, which is a sign of high dopamine levels. As a result, I was able to rule out dopamine levels. I did the same with things like testosterones and other hormones.

Finally, I gave up on the idea of a chemical imbalance. So, it was time to check underneath the hood. I privately paid for an MRI brain scan. I spent an entire week learning to read MRI scans and analyzing my own brain. I literally went to battle with the radiologist. I know now my brain is perfectly fine, but AI analysis is showing a brain age of +17 years. That is scitzophrenic level!

I did the same thing to the cardiologist, because my panic attacks were causing heart attacks. So, I ordered EKG and an ultrasound. Everything checked up perfectly fine.

I am currently working an endocrinologist for testosterones replacement therapy. I don’t think this is the problem, but testosterone has anti-anxiety properties. The docs give me anxiolytic, like benzos sparingly.

The point being, I am/was making a mammoth effort to fix myself. Even though I was using private doctors, I randomly saw this GP and she looked at my file and saw that I was self-referring all of these tests. She said, yes you are profoundly gifted, but you are also autistic. You have been misdiagnosed your entire life! I told her that I was actually a former SEN teacher. She literally banged her head on her desk screaming, I didn’t even have a cup of coffee yet! We were both laughing. How was this autism actually missed?

I was in the psych hospital a decade before autism was actually a recognized developmental disorder. So all the docs looked at my medical records and see general anxiety, major depression and panic disorder. They just prescribed me drugs, i.e. SSRI, which never worked on me and actually the whole serotonin theory has been debunked and really a hoax. They do not work for anyone beyond emotional blunting. I was forced to suffer for 40 years with around 20 psychiatrists that were actually NO help!

Everyone in this world knows that I am quirky as £&^%! However, this doc knew I was autistic the moment that I walked in the room. It turns out that autistics work a bit differently, which I actually worked with a physio to change my gait. Autists postures tend to be slightly differently. Then there is the lack of eye contact and slightly off speech patterns. These are the dead give away signs that doc picked up on immediately. This is really impressive because who I am in private is very different than who I am in public. I try to mask all the little quirks, which is very draining. She saw straight through the masking and allowed me to be just myself.

100% if I did not go through this mammoth effort to figure out what is actually wrong with me, the docs would never order these tests, but once they saw the results of the tests, they actually stopped trying to misdiagnose me and work the problem.

To finish the story, it turns out that I am profoundly gifted, autistic, ADHD, dyslexic and hyper sensitive person, so 5 x exceptional. The profoundly gifted trait is by the most dominate and capable of masking the other traits.

Given all this information and taking advantage of hindsight, I do think people can pick up that s/he is quirky. To me, the dead giveaway are the meltdowns, shutdowns and prolonged shutdowns. You will not see these in public. You might see tantrums.

I was in the doctor’s the other day for an assessment, he marked down that my eye contact was poor. I mentioned this to another doctor and she thought lack of eye contact of autistics was a learned behaviour. I said no, it is reflective of information processing.

NT’s use eye contact when they are talking. The “listener” is actually only paying about 30% of their attention on what is being said and 70% reading body language including eye contact. What they are trying to do is detect if what you are saying is true.

On the flip side, autistics are actually trying to listen to what is being said and thinking if what is being said is said. NT’s think this is so weird!

Both, autistics and NT can not read body language, listen and think at the same time, we all get confused!

What is weird is that the strategies in understanding communication is different between NDs & NTs. NDs assume that NTs are processing the same information the same way, i.e. thinking and listening. After all, somebody is saying something and you should really be listening & thinking. What does eye contact has to do with the content of the communication?

ND’s think autistics are actually lying when they are talking, because they are avoiding eye contact.

Masking occurs when you are pretending to be neuro-typical and in my opinion, to fit in.

This can be simply trying to hold up your head, good posture and making eye contact. This is really superficial.

You can mask by simply trying to read body language instead of actually listening what is being said.

You can mask by attempting to make small talk, but get confused on how to socially engage.

You can mask by going with friends to a night club or even any social gathering. People get upset if you don’t go, but those people are not your friends.

Please don’t make, it sucks the energy out of you and you most likely will go into a meltdown.

In my opinion, the best solution is just to be honest with people at the very beginning. “Sorry, but I am autistic and I struggle with eye contact and reading body language whilst I am trying to listen and concentrate. I am not being deceptive in any way”. “Sorry, I can’t go to the night club, too many people, too bright lights and too loud of noise, my senses will get overwhelmed and shoot into meltdown”.

Please do not mask!

The funniest thing I have seen was my house mate’s, a research scientist, losing his office and being forced to work in an open office. His response was amazing! He took cardboard boxes and built himself an office in the middle of the open office. It had a cardboard ceiling and even a door. When I saw it, I was on the ground laughing.

In an open office, I just put screens up. Nobody likes the screens, but they help me to concentrate. Nobody hires me to be social, they hire me for my brain! I also use headphones to play music or take phone calls. The headphones I use have a built in microphone, so people can talk to me or I can have noise cancelling activated.

What I don’t do is mask at all. I am who I am! I will solve your problems that nobody else can solve but I am not going to be NT. That is the deal!

The difference is actually the cause. With autism, the cause of the melt downs really comes down to over stimulation either by social situations and the environment, loud sounds & bright noises. Also pretending to be normal, i.e. masking can cause a melt down. For the normal person, going to a night club with friends actually release dopamine levels, a feel good hormone. For autistics, such environments will cause a meltdown.