“Your brain is constantly looking for rules.” — why autism is exhausting and diagnosis matters
This sentence made me feel so seen when I first heard it, sitting in the psychiatrist’s office where I was getting my autism diagnosis at the age of twenty. Suddenly it all made sense.The frustration when little things others did not even bother to look at did not add up. The exhaustion when asking myself ‘Why do I have to look for a system behind everything? Why does everything have to make sense?’ Last week my current therapist told me I have to meet people in the middle. They need to understand that uncertainty is more stressful to me than it may be to them, but I have to learn to sometimes just ‘let it be’.I do not believe that ‘everything happens for a reason’ and it can fuel my anxiety. The world seems like a crazy place where things go wrong just because they want to and all you can do is watch and accept that some tragedies just do not have any benefit for you. There’s no rules to pick up on here, ha! The psychiatrist seemed slightly worried that the diagnosis would scare me. He told me not to worry, that I had a perfectly fine brain, with some areas simply being more active than others. I am not worried, I am relieved. I did not tell him, I just nodded. I had been so scared and full of self-doubt for all of these years, it was nice to hear someone tell me don’t worry, you’re good.
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