I used to think there was something wrong with me.

AsI mull over my recent late self-diagnosis of Level 1 Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) I feel the need to document my thoughts. This is the third of many posts to come on the subject.

I started telling my neurodivergent story here and here and I think I’m going to be podcasting and writing about this a lot. My purpose in this essay is to illustrate the many ways that Autism provides a more meaningful explanation of Who I Am compared to over a decade of psychoanalysis.

I’m not trying to bash therapy, counseling, or coaching. I learned a TON from this work. But something monolithic clicked in me when I started learning about Autism. Something undeniable has started within me as many late-diagnosed neurodivergents can relate to.

As I have said before, therapy made me feel like there was something wrong with me that I needed to change. An ASD self-diagnosis makes me feel like there is NOTHING wrong with me and all I have to do is change how I interact with the world.

Once I considered that I might be Autistic, a lot of my life experiences started making more sense. There are too many stories to share here, but I will highlight a few things that, looking back, make more sense under an ASD lens.

A timeline of quirks.

Some of my earliest memories:

When I was in kindergarten I got a stomach bug and vomited in school. I thought I was dying. I didn’t know what vomiting was. I said goodbye to my classmates. I prepared myself for death. This initiated emetophobia (the fear of vomiting) that would vary in severity from crippling to not-so-bad throughout my life. Some therapeutic techniques helped, but considering that my neurology might just be heightened helps more. Instead of changing my fear, I can simply accept it and learn to understand it.

In kindergarten and first grade, I had one friend. My memories of him are that he was peculiar, easily scared, and extremely anxious. Looking back I often wonder how he turned out and whether he had severe mental health issues. After my self-diagnosis, and now that I have kids of my own, I wonder why we were friends in the first place. It seems to me that the weird kids get lumped together. Now I assume we were friends because I was the second most peculiar kid at school.

In second grade I moved from Virginia to Georgia and made three friends who stayed with me through sixth grade. We were obsessed with the movie Grease 2. Because no parent in their right mind would buy their ten-year-old boys real leather jackets we got back Member’s Only jackets. Though we were just oddballs, the principal called our parents and accused us of being a gang. In sixth grade, the other two boys got girlfriends. The third girl wanted to be my girlfriend and it freaked me out to no end. This would begin my battle between wanting sex and not being able to navigate male/female relationships.

I moved from Georgia to Ohio going into seventh grade and quickly got my accent beat out of me. I was bullied for all sorts of reasons, but not the least of which was wanting to be Michael Jackson. I was very public about my break-dancing and performed at school dances. Until that was beaten out of me as well.

In high school I got into bicycles and skateboards, choosing to go skating over parties or football games. Eventually, a girl pursued me with heroic abandon and I lost my virginity. My friend group was comprised of all the other outcasts, misfits, and non-conformists across a broad span of ages. I got a job at a pizza joint that led quickly to the kind of joints that were illegal at the time. Though I didn’t drink alcohol in high school, I quickly became a pack-a-day cigarette and quarter-ounce-per-week cannabis smoker. I also started playing guitar in between bong hits.

My relationship with drugs expanded when I went to college where my first order of business was trying LSD and psilocybin. I mostly forgot about classes as I accepted every opportunity to expand my consciousness. My drug use was always about finding spirituality instead of a good time, and I did develop a connection to the mysticism of our universe that I don’t regret.

My first semester at college found me desperate to make friends. So desperate that I fell in with a couple of guys who kept me around because I let them make fun of me. I didn’t realize the abuse and was simply glad to have ‘friends’. Eventually, I found some people whose kind hearts embraced me for the weirdo I was. Hippies were still good like that in the early 90s.

I took three years off after my sophomore year because I almost failed out. I worked at a pet store for three years where I struggled to understand sales. I was unable to tell anyone what to buy, thinking we all could make our own decisions. My boss hated me, but also had a big heart and kept me around. I met a few girls, but mostly longed to be in a romantic relationship and didn’t understand non-monogamous sex (I still don’t, but I don’t judge). Eventually, I met the woman who would become my first wife and mother to three of my daughters.

I finished my degree and two more. I was never really driven toward higher education, but I figured out the matrix and figured I’d just keep going until there was nowhere left to go. I learned to be comfortable speaking in front of people. But when I had my kids I was unable to prioritize my career. I completed my PhD working only about 15 hours a week because I couldn’t stand my kids being in daycare and their mother worked 60 hours a week.

For similar reasons, I quit my tenure-track job after one year. I was unable to balance all the things. I became a stay-at-home dad and I haven’t worked an onsite, full-time job since 2007. It’s just too much. Partly for this reason my first wife had an affair and divorced me.

My divorce kicked off my true pursuit of healing, self-acceptance, and personal growth. I have worked with coaches, counselors, and therapists on and off for the past thirteen years. Most of these folks taught me techniques to fix what was wrong with me. Chiefly, among many maladies, were things like black-and-white thinking, catastrophic thinking, self-loathing, feeling not-good-enough, and most of the irrational beliefs championed by Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Through the years my inability to truly change my thinking only exacerbated my feelings of unworthiness. The harder I tried to heal, the more problems I discovered. I was a people-pleasing, codependent, highly sensitive, empathic, INJF introvert. And most of my problems seemed to be my fault. Or at least my issues were largely rare, which meant I had to accommodate more ‘normal’ people to overcome my struggles.

Nearly everything I learned suggested that I had experienced childhood trauma and needed to reconfigure how I navigated the world by changing my behavior, my beliefs, and my thoughts. Failing to accomplish this made things worse.

These failures to heal might be why I ignored my neurodivergence, ASD, and ADHD self-test results initially. I had sort of given up on finding any meaning in my healing work. I had reached a point where I figured I couldn’t quit therapy for fear of getting worse, but I didn’t hope to ever find any real solution to my heightened levels of suffering.

With the help of a new therapist, however, I was able to look again at these self-tests with a new lens. Many of the things I have said over the years and even podcasted or blogged about sounded like Autism. For example:

• I love myself when I am in my inner world, but I find it difficult to maintain this love when interacting with the outer world. Is this self-loathing or ASD?
• I am very sensitive to some sounds. Is this mysophonia or ASD?
• I care about what other people think about me. Is this codependency or ASD?
• Listening to and playing music induces somatic sensations similar to psychedelic drugs. Is this because I’m burned out or because I have ASD?
• I can get along with everyone and dislike conflict. Is this because I am weak and conflict-avoidant or because I am autistic?
• I love being alone, but I also love people. Am I an introvert? Extrovert? Ambivert? Autistic?

Of course, there are also plenty of explanations that suggest I am not autistic at all. For example:

• I am a great public speaker and enjoy playing gigs in my band.
• I can make eye contact (if I force it).
• I have several advanced degrees.
• I am married and have four kids. I consider myself a good father and husband.
• I can meditate.

What gives? Is this all masking or pretending to be who I think the world wants me to be? I do believe I am a top-level masker and have created ‘Parts’, in an Internal Family Systems sense, or ‘coping mechanisms’ to help me navigate my external world. We used to call people like me ‘high functioning’. But does that mean I am allistic, neurotypical, and not Autistic?

I’ve always felt different. Like everyone but me was given a handbook of how to navigate life. I sought therapy to help me feel better about myself and reduce some of my suffering to live a healthier life. After over a decade of not finding meaningful healing, for the first time, I feel like I might be ok.

So many of my experiences navigating the world can be explained by multiple pathways. Being autistic makes a lot of sense and is suggested by all of the self-tests. But other things also explain the way I am.

Which is it?

Does it matter?

Hopefully, this helps you understand the complexities of neurodivergence, how little we know, and why I will continue to investigate, research, and study myself in this manner. If you are interested, please consider subscribing to my Medium page, blog, podcast, or YouTube channel.