UPDATE: I finally got diagnosed with ASD (Autism Spectrum) 2 years after making this video! Here are the details of the diagnosis journey:
It's very hard to get a diagnosis in the United States as an adult female. Right after I made this video, I went to my diagnosis appointment with the neuropsychologist. He had claimed to be up to date with "adult female autism", but he had forms from 2001 labeled with the old term "Aspergers." He only interviewed me for a minute or two(!), mostly just gave me a series of standard neuropsychology tests for hours (I told him how I would score in each one before taking it.. no surprises there-terrible with verbal, excellent with visual). He had never heard of "masking" which is the main reason many females go undiagnosed (if we made it this far into adulthood without anyone noticing we're autistic is because we've masking)! And he was not interested at all in seeing my list of autistic symptoms and tests I had previously taken. I practically had to force that stack of papers into his hands as I was leaving. My diagnosis, not surprisingly, was "inconclusive."
Another office that was supposed to call me back "in 3 months" seemed to have gone under with the Covid shutdown. I never heard from them.. drove by and their office was gone.
Covid 2020 dragged on... 2021... By then I'd watched 1000 videos of other people with "high functioning" adult autism/ASD talking, and I fully related to almost all of it. I was 100 percent sure that I had autism.
I finally managed to make an appointment with a local Psychologist who had diagnosed a pre-teen girl I know. And at the same time, I made an even earlier zoom appointment with a psychologist in England who had just diagnosed a long-time friend. I went through all the paperwork and online testing for England, but then they realized USA regulations would not allow it.
Finally, at the end of January 2022, the local psychologist came to the house, interviewed my mom and my husband, then spent 2 hours with me talking and doing some well-known tests with objects on the table, making up stories, and talking. His last words of the interview were, "You most definitely, without a doubt, have ASD."
I tried super hard to hold back my enthusiasm and refrained from jumping up to hug him like a crazy person. A month later I finally got the report in my hands. Even though there are things in the report that I don't agree with (such as a depression/anxiety diagnosis. If I ever have any of that, it's situational. I am not generally depressed or anxious in life, and don't appreciate having that in my permanent record!), THANK YOU!!!!
The big irony is that the only time I ever had therapy was briefly as a teenager after I dropped out of high school. The female psychologist had no clue what to make of my situation then (after fairly normal elementary and junior high years, in HS I was severely bullied, got into some trouble, and dropped out). The man that has just diagnosed me is in the same office(!), just down the street. Although the therapist I had briefly as a teen just retired, I was able to make a funny sarcastic comment to that office that I was coming in for my "follow-up" (36 years later). They were entertained by that. I even talked to the retired therapist herself, and even though she also knows my mom and had come to my wedding, she had very little memory of being my therapist decades prior, so that was unsatisfying.
end of update.
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Since some time in 2021, I knew I wanted to become an autism advocate since I accomplished some great things in life, and instinctually found the right kind of employment that allowed alone time, etc. My teen years were surreal and disturbing, and I later had some epic-ly wonderful relationships fail with no real clue what happened. But autism explains all of these things clearly - the good and the bad. I knew I'd feel more comfortable being an autism advocate if I was diagnosed, so now I need to start thinking about it. I want to write a book someday, maybe "Living half a century with autism and not realizing it." But I surely need a more click-baity title than that. Hopefully, I will make some autism videos. I'm not usually in the mood to vocalize on a microphone (that's why my videos are super inconsistent). But I will try! I know I have a lot to say.