Hello
Figured I should make a new thread for this. I mentioned earlier about how my mom said she never thought I had autism because I picked up on social cues better then I did when I was little, which feel contradictory to what she said. Well, I have been talking about this with my therapist, and he says that with the way I talk about my past, he thinks I may have been part of a very rare 10% of children who did have autism when they were younger, but was able to grow out of it. I did have a really hard time picking up on social cues as a kid. I remember one time I was asked why I always did what I was told. Because I thought that's what I was supposed to do. If you said something sarcastic to me as a kid, I wouldn't have been able to detect the sarcasm. I feel like part of the reason I got picked on a lot in school was because I would believe just about anything, and did just about anything because I genuinely thought I was doing the right thing. I took everything very literally. When I look back on the way I was as a kid, and with talking to my therapist, it does look like I could have been part of that very rare percent. I used to consider my younger self appallingly naive, but I'm not completely sure how to feel if I did behave the way I did because of autism. If that was the case, it kind of makes getting bullied even worse because I couldn't pick up on what was going on. If that is the case, I am thankful to have been able to figure it out, though I feel like I should stress that I don't think autism is anything to be ashamed of, some of my best friends are on the spectrum, which at the same time feels a little unfair that I was able to grow out of it. I do have GAD, and sometimes I feel like I do exhibit some behaviors. My therapists says that there are a lot of traits I could exhibit that wouldn't automatically diagnose me as having autism. I don't know how to feel about this. If I was part of that small percent, I feel like it does explain some of my behaviors, but I'm not sure how to process it, especially because there is no clear answer. Also, with my mom saying she never thought I had autism, I wonder if she was in a state of denial, and in a way lucked out. I didn't tell my mom about this conversation with my therapist, but I did tell my dad, and he says that he thinks that it does make sense. I don't like talking about my childhood because of how naive I was, but now I will probably be looking at my childhood in a different way.