babies_r_gross

Thanks for doing this! I'm a woman in my 30s with ADHD that was not officially diagnosed until my early 20's. (I suspected I had it for longer but my parents didn't think ADHD was a "thing" and blamed it on laziness.)

I recently started therapy for something unrelated and my therapist strongly believes I may be autistic as well. I had never really considered this at all due to the (mainly male) stereotype of autistic people rocking back and forth and obsessing about trains or something that I couldn't really relate to. I am also pretty "high functioning", have a master's degree, work a demanding job, can socialize and make eye contact, etc so it never occurred to me I might be autistic. However, when I looked at some resources about autism in women specifically it was a LOT more relatable (especially the videos by YoSamdySam) although not 100%.

I think the biggest source of confusion for me is that a lot of the symptoms absolutely applied to me when I was younger--I remember finding social situations completely overwhelming and I definitely got made fun of for being "weird". I distinctively remember trying to mimic people's mannerisms, both physical and verbal, to appear more "normal" and I was low-key suicidal from ages 11-20 because I just felt so awkward and out of place everywhere.

Nowadays I barely struggle with social interactions at all (although to be fair I have sort of engineered my life to largely avoid uncomfortable/annoying social situations to begin with) and when I told one of my friends I might be autistic she was shocked and thought that was crazy talk because I apparently don't come across that way at all.

My question (I apologize for this wall of text)...am I actually autistic, and just got so good at "masking" that it's second nature? Or was I just an awkward kid that grew out of her awkwardness and social anxiety? I am struggling to tell the differnce.

Thanks for doing this AMA!

I have family living in this area and I absolutely dread visiting them, partially for this reason (they like to take us on day trips into the city). My understanding is that there are a LOT of buildings/structures that are known to be unsafe for earthquakes (I think even the Twitter HQ is one?) and the city is giving them literal decades to comply with modern standards. Is this accurate? What happens to the poor saps in or near these structures if an earthquake decides to happen before this absurdly long deadline?

Thanks so much for your answer! A part of me really wants to get formally evaluated for autism because I think certain aspects of it would realllly explain my childhood and family dynamics growing up. But I know it is a time consuming and expensive process to get a formal diagnosis so that's definitely been holding me back.

I appreciate the attention you're giving to women with autism/adhd specifically--I feel like with both conditions the stereotypical male presentation is what dominates the conversation and girls/women can slip through the cracks because our symptoms can present so differently! For ADHD especially I was never the hyperactive disruptive little boy bouncing off the walls and shouting over the teacher in class...I was the quiet girl who was socially awkward and did well enough academically despite suffering from poor organizational skills and lots of missed homework. I think getting diagnosed earlier would have saved me a lot of grief in my teenage years.

Thanks again for doing this AMA!