Neurodivergence asessment as an adult?

My therapist suggested to consider things like neurodivergence, but I'm not sure what to do, it would be best to get help from an experienced professional to dismantle all the symptoms and find their roots, but I have good upbringing so to say and psychological evaluations and diagnostic criteria are based on how you act on the outside, not how you feel on the inside. I'm curious myself what I feel and where it stems from, and if I have a difficulty, I would want to get help, but given how this system is constructed, which I experience already with being trans and depression, I see it as unlikely that the asessment won't be invalidating to the max (because I don't act how I feel, especially if it would be detrimental to me, and invalidation makes me feel very down) and that it would shed any light whatsoever. I have taken MMPI in the past and it didn't even detect my depression. So did the Becker scale... and meds definitely help and I have very stereotypical symptoms, just according to some professionals and forms I don't act in an extreme enough manner.

And even if it was the case that I had ASD, I'm not sure what to do about it then. For example what kind of help is available at all for adults? I'm pretty sure I might have ADHD, because I'm restless and I've been like that my whole life, I fidget with things, accidentally make noises with the things when something like a lecture is boring, I generally find a lot of things to be tedious and lengthy. Unless I get interested in them, then I can sit for hours doing this one thing. I don't know what kind of help would be available for ADHD, I don't want to take medications and I read all the CBT books already. The books have some helpful tips, but there are equally many tips that are harmful for me personally, like trying to completely against the grain of your personality.

 

Oh, I see now why the therapist lumped them together.

I don't have a problem with understanding why people communicate in certain ways or problems communicating, at least if I want to. I have researched the topic of ASD heavily and I don't think I relate to that type of communication issues. It would be more focused on self-understanding and understanding how others operate then. That would make sense.

Yeah, I'm leaning toward it that it's ADHD if ASD and ADHD have a lot of common symptoms. I sometimes say something blunt, but it's more on an impulse than because I don't understand why it's blunt. That would explain why sensory overload seems like something familiar in some way, but not quite as described from the perspective of someone with Asperger's. And why autism spectrum communities online are the first places in which I encountered so many people also having experience with CBT harming their mental health. At the same time, I have no other symptoms of ASD and many of ADHD.

Also thank you for the book recommendations

 

Yes, thank you. I just don't have anything constructive to reply.

 

So long story short, I had a very honest interaction with a friend and it made me realise that the way I perceive many different things compared to other people is amplified and that I have issues with eye contact and might be not giving enough of it, which might not look autistic, but might come across as cold, uncaring, ignoring etc. It really hit me about the eye contact. It felt like Frodo looking straight into Sauron’s eye, huge, piercing, on fire. My friend clearly did not experience that.

I’m shocked.

I realised that if people see the world the way my friend does, it might constitute a serious problem for me to consume stimuli meant for that level of sensitivity. And it makes sense in this light why I’m nervous while going out with friends to gastronomic locals etc. and she straight up told me she interprets my behaviour as standoffish, while I’ m avoiding a stimulus such as being touched by another person and am reluctant to give hugs or when I’m avoiding certain smells and other things such as air humidity, noises, textures etc.

So most of my problems might come down to sensory hypersensitivity. That’s autism spectrum. I don’t come across this way at all. Apart from being a programmer and very good at it.

But what I’m in dispair about is that I might not be able to socialise at all to the degree I want. If people socialise in such environments full of noises, smells, touching etc. and want me to not maintain physical distance and want me to look at them more, it’s hard to feel comfortable and at ease in such environments and to fulfil their expectations of friendliness. I honestly have no clue what to do about it, it feels like a sentence right now. I want to make friends, I want to not be rejected as reluctant, disengaged, but probably nobody will understand and nobody will care. Even if I told them what I’m telling you now, people socialise with those who are alike and with whom it doesn’t take effort and reevaluation of what you find obvious. I’m not sure how to meet a larger number of people and be able to pick and choose who I get on with the best outside the internet. Has anyone dealt with that? Or have ideas?

 

I’m not sure if I properly understood your post, but I have fairly supportive environment, as in, they won’t reject me if I say anything, like that I’m on the autism spectrum or any of the above things about hypersensitivity, I already managed to tell this to all the people I interacted with since my realisation and nobody had a problem. I’m not hesitant anyway, they have other reasons to find me weird. The problem is that I can’t ask for specific adjustments that will help me out - I would need to not go to large social situations at all. 5 people max. It’s not very possible. I would miss out on a lot. But what benefit is there to me going if I’m all tense and might get set off and lash out anyway? I don’t know how to meet a large number of people without going to parties. Disclaimer: I find dating apps to be a waste of time for similar reasons, they exhaust me with the number of pointless, idiotic, tiring interactions.

 

I can ask, but about specific needs, I can’t ask someone to like me or to be eager to talk to me and can’t ask for nothing unexpected to happen or for a social event to be limited to a certain number of people. The last one would cross other people’s boundaries, actually.

 

Well, they don’t want to meet with me 1 on 1 later. It means they don’t really like me. I mean almost nobody. And it’s all because I don’t make a likeable impression. As I described above, I seem unfriendly to them, because I avoid things like noises, smells, touch, eye contact etc. And people bond over activities that I avoid. They won’t go grab a coffee with me. Because they don’t feel a bond with me.

 

What would “giving them a chance” look like according to you? How am I not giving them a chance? I have a feeling that you misinterpreted something.

And how are they supposed to get to know me? I can attend a certain group for over a year and not get anyone agree to go grab a coffee together.

 

I have a feeling that you are misreading what is going on on my end, it happens over and over, people misread my intentions and feelings. Especially people who use intuition a lot, which is based on their experience of things. The world looks different for me.

 

Ty ^^