I think I was misdiagnosed with Autism and it’s hurting me
Hello, I was diagnosed with Autism a few months back and I have a feeling I was misdiagnosed, and it’s been really stressing me out. For context, I really wanted this diagnosis and it took me around a year to finally get the diagnosis. I mainly related to the fact I have hyper fixations and social issues. I have been diagnosed with ADHD for a while now and while this can be due to that I thought my issues were because of autism. I had a 2 hour appointment where they tested me, like by asking me and my mom questions, testing me, and doing things like playing and talking with me. I was anxious during all this so I made no eye contact and stimmed a lot, which I think may have impacted the diagnosis. When I got it, I was happier for a while, feeling like I’d finally found the answer for why I had felt strange all my life, but now doing some re-thinking, I think I may have been wrong, and it’s paining me. I really thought this was the explanation, I thought I had finally found a group of people I could relate too, and now I feel lost. The most obvious route is too talk to my mom and psychiatrist about it, but I’m scared they will be annoyed with me because I was the one who wanted this. I’m not sure if this is imposter syndrome or not, but I will list some traits to see what people here think about it. The reasons I thought I had it: While I’ve had friends my whole life, and haven’t been bullied until recently, I’ve definitely felt like I have had social differences. When I was younger, I was much more emotional than the other kids, something my friends would often pick on me for, and something that would get the adults yelling at me for my overreactions. I don’t know if I’ve had a meltdown or not, but I’m pretty sure I’ve at least had something close to it. When I was younger, I had troubles working with other kids, and even with my best friend at the time, it just felt like there was barrier between us, something I have felt most of my life. In fifth grade, I developed social anxiety, something I believe has strongly impacted how I interact with other people, but I still feel like there’s social issues I have unrelated to that. I have trouble with back and forth conversation, often interrupting the person speaking, or having to deeply analyze when it would be my turn to speak, or just completely misunderstanding what the person is talking about. I sometimes will be non-verbal with my teachers, just nodding when they ask me something. I don’t think I’m good at social cues, I’m not entirely sure though. While I definitely misunderstand jokes and sarcasm sometimes, I still feel I’m pretty good at understanding it, and I wouldn’t call myself a very literal person, like I understand metaphors and stuff. I feel like my inability to talk to some people could be due to social anxiety, or that I’m not as socially inept as I think I am, so I’m not sure. I have eye contact trouble, not with family or close friends, or like shows and stuff, but when I’m calling someone or talking to someone who’s not close to me, it feels really uncomfortable. I feel like my eye contact issues align much more with someone who has social anxiety, but eye contact doesn’t make me anxious it makes me uncomfortable. Next is hyper fixations, something I thought I related too but now I’m not as sure. When I was younger, and up until recently, I’d usually have one big interest, along with a few smaller ones. They could become pretty obsessive, usually with me talking on and on about them. Once it was so bad I basically lost two of my friends because of it. But recently, I’ve been without a hyper fixation, and just having casual interests, and I don’t really hyper-focus. My mom thinks I do, but compared to other people, who say they forget to eat, sleep, use the bathroom and say they can’t hear the outside world around them, I don’t think so. For me it feels like my focus is like a train, slow at first but becoming more intense the longer I focus on a subject, and when someone interrupts me, it feels like that train is stopped and it’s hard for me to get it going again. I’m also pretty good at multitasking. Now with some other stuff, I love planning a lot, but I’m too lazy to ever go through with plans I made, I have weird imagination patterns , usually involving me imagining how tall someone is, how old they are, etc. based on how many letters are in there name or something like that. I stim a lot more than anyone I know, and have weird habits like rubbing my stomach. I also have a fairly monotone voice, volume control issues, executive functioning problems, and I’ll sometimes repeat words or say random things. I also have some mobility issues, like bad posture and not being able to ride a bike until I was nine, along with walking weirdly. I also have hygiene issues. Now onto the reasons I think I may have been misdiagnosed. I don’t really have any sensory issues, except getting overheated, some noise sensitivity, and really liking how certain textures feel. I don’t have any attachments to certain items or routines, and I don’t have problems with spontaneous things and task switching. I watched a video explaining how a lot of autistics will not focus on the faces in photos, while I do, and how autistic people have innate physical differences I don’t think I have I feel like I don’t experience most of the problems I have as strongly as other autistic people, and my mom really didn’t believe I was autistic until somewhat recently. I would really appreciate advice on what I should do, and if I even seem autistic or not. I apologize for how unorganized this is, this is my first time posting on Reddit.