iamdisillusioned

I had this same debate with myself earlier this year, after speaking with several therapists and a doctor that specializes in autism diagnoses, I decided the time and money to get diagnosed was not worth it.

For me, I considered how I was struggling and whether a therapist could help. I struggle with overstimulation, but a therapist can't do much for that; I addressed it by getting noise cancelling headphones and wearing sunglasses inside. I struggle with burnout, but a therapist can't do much for that; I had a frank discussion with my boss and we agreed to reduce my work hours and I started saying "no" to social events that would be too draining. I stim and hyperfocus but I don't find those problematic. I'm extremely lucky that although I have poor social skills and no friends, I am not lonely and don't feel like I need to make any adjustments to my personality to make friends, this might be one area where a therapist could help.

My point is that, autism is something where you can't treat it overall, you can only treat the "symptoms", so narrow down what is causing you stress and look for solutions. If an autism diagnosis requires meeting a threshold for 6 issues, but you only have 5, that doesn't mean you can't get help for those 5 things. A therapist may be able to help with that and if you want them to see you as autistic, just say you're autistic. I doubt they'll ask for any proof and if they push it just say you were a kid when you got diagnosed and you don't have any paperwork. I'll say that in my experience, the most important aspect of therapy is getting the right modality and this can be tough. It can be difficult to find providers that don't just do CBT and sometimes they aren't very good about discussing what you really need they'll just do whatever they are trained to do. I found it really helpful to go to Psychology Today's website and see all the different modalities that existed, then researching what each of them were and thinking about which may be best for me.

Try not to get hung up on the idea of getting that diagnosis. There's a school of thought that diagnoses are a capitalist construct that aids a doctor in getting paid by giving them a billing code to submit to your insurance company.

I bought them recently and returned them after one night. The battery didn't last even 2 hours and they kept disconnecting from my phone and turning off, but you can't just turn them back on, you have to take them out of your ear and put them into the case to turn them back on. So many design flaws IMO.

For the last week, I've been the sickest I've ever been. Covid tests came back negative and as far as I know I haven't had covid before, but I am miserable with all the symptoms you listed and I didn't socializing at all.

I loved that she narrated the audio book, her accent is fantastic! I enjoyed her memoir. I don't really remember how it ended, so maybe that part could have been tightened up. I mean, she is still so young, I wouldn't expect her to have worked out a big overarching moral for her story yet. I hope she writes another as her career progresses.

This sounds like the schools don't handle the payments for lunches. A third party does and as an electronic payment processor, they probably don't provide a physical address where a check can be received.

Not sure if it's really an accomplishment but I got out of a burnout that started in January. I've been in and out of burnout before but this time I set some personal boundaries and requested and received some accommodations from work. Now I feel better set up to maintain work-life balance.

I skip the one where Colleen dies and I usually skip the last 2 episodes. I don't like endings!

Fair enough but if you have the means, NFCU has almost no cost. I get something small but like .4% interest on my checking account. Their credit card has no annual fee and I average $800 a year in cash back benefits from it. Other than buying paper checks, I've not paid them one penny for any services, a way better deal than I was getting at BofA.

I'm pretty adverse to fermented, pickled or spicy. Anything in the kimchi universe, big no thanks.

For me, it was What About Bob?

It's tough. I know some very small communities that are entirely positive but they aren't very interesting because there isn't much contribution. I also tend to withdraw but after 10+ years of isolation, it has effected my mental health. I am trying to reenter communities and find friends and I'm trying to be more tolerant of things that I find annoying. Here's an example of why, I've been with my husband for 20 years and he seemed perfect at first but over the years his ADHD has gotten worse and now he has some annoying tendancies. Those things cause him a great deal of stress, and if I let them cause me stress then we'd both be miserable and maybe even divorced. I am working to accept and appreciate his struggles and see the differences as a place where I can share and help and provide for him. I hope its making me grow as a person and I hope it will help me better tolerate others and not focus so much on what I don't like or don't agree with. It's a challenge and seems to go against my nature, but I finally got tired of my nature. Not saying you should do something that doesn't feel right, but lately I've learned that my tendency for perfectionism may be creating more harm than good.

That said, feel free to take a break and step back and spend that time looking for another community. There's so many places to spend our energy.