A New Chapter
I don’t really like writing. It’s too much effort to process my thoughts into text, and it takes too long. Writing has never been my strong point.
I don’t talk much, but when I do talk, I talk a lot. And I never think about what I say before I say it. I process it after the fact. This can be problematic.
The point of all this is that I want to quickly get it out there that I have finally, yesterday, been given a diagnosis of autism.
At last, it’s starting to make sense why things don’t make sense.
Here is an unedited copy and paste from my instagram account:
This will probably come as no surprise to some, and it doesn’t really surprise me.
After nearly 50 years of frustration, confusion, fatigue, and feeling like I’ve been banging my head against a wall, after being on a waiting list for 3 years, trying to hold it together, after 3 months of assessment, I finally have an answer.
I AM AUTISTIC, and highly likely ADHD. Waiting on the final report but was told it was obvious from my first assessment.
People have hinted to me that I might be on the spectrum but it never prompted me to check. That is until I burnt out a few years ago and wanted to scream at everyone to get fucked.
I have been called unfriendly, aggressive, intimidating, insensitive, arrogant, a dick, a weirdo, etc
But I suck it up and pretend I don’t give a shit, well I don’t really give a shit because I struggle to think about anything outside of my own mind. I struggle with feeling my own emotions.
I’ve also been called honest, authentic, dependable, unique etc.
It all makes sense, why I struggle to make friends and interact with people, why I struggle to explain myself without being misinterpreted and misinterpreting others, why I find it hard to be motivated about work, even the work I love doing.
Why everything feels so difficult but nobody seems to notice.
It finally all makes sense. Maybe I won’t feel trapped anymore.
Thank you
Although I only received my official diagnosis yesterday, and it’ll be a few weeks before I receive the written report, I see no reason to hang about.
I’ll be 50 this year. I’ve waited long enough to find out why everything feels so disconnected and awkward.
Most of my work has been in the form of self-employment, allowing me to control almost every aspect of my interaction with people and society as a whole. Building my own environment, on my own terms.
However, this has had a downside.
By withdrawing and controlling my interaction with people I have very few friends, don’t really know how to connect or network with people. and due to this I have a rather limited professional reach. I often miss opportunities and don’t have a network within which to sell my work.
People have said that I am brave to announce it to the world, but I have nothing to lose. This is me. I have already virtually destroyed much of what I had built over the years anyway.
Destroying artwork, turning down projects, deleting social media accounts.
Destroy and rebuild. Maybe now it’s time to rebuild.
I want to write more, explain more, but I’ll leave it here for now because:
- this is new territory
- I don’t really know what to do with this new information
- too many ideas rattling around in my head
- if I continue, this post will become a total mess
I am taken aback by the support and the positive responses I’ve already received since my announcement. It further proves how little I actually understand human interaction, hahahaha.
Thank you for your support
nigel palmer 