Traits

While I’ve not actually been diagnosed with autism (my last assessment of ‘borderline’ was over ten years ago), there are some ‘autistic’ traits that I believe I have:

Rocking
Flapping
Echolalia
Having the desire to be in a corner
Sometimes not feeling able to/wanting to speak
Feeling like there’s a glass pane between me and other people
Unable to listen to conversations right in front of me - background noise is too strong
Lining things up so they have a pattern
Staring at oddly-shaped objects/patterns, examining them really closely
Clicking my fingers while unaware
Being apprehensive about meeting new people
Running my hands/feet/face over different textures
Sometimes just wanting to do something ‘not normal’, e.g. earlier I walked past a row of stalks and just wanted to crouch in them, to feel them brush.

Since I was small, I’ve been strongly discouraged from doing these things, and I very very rarely indulge myself. But say a few minutes ago, in my room alone at 2 in the morning, I rocked. And it did feel good, in a way that’s hard to describe.

That said, here’re some traits that I have that seem ‘unautistic’:

I always make eye contact
I have an active imagination
I can tell lies
I really do feel empathy and sympathy
I see people as people, and appreciate their thoughts and feelings a lot more than my own
I like new places
I get along well with new people

…but I remember being taught about eye contact, about relating to others, being encouraged to be creative. These things come naturally to me now, and they’re part of who I am, but I sometimes wonder if this is just because the lessons have been drummed so hard into me.

Story short: I saw my GP, and told him that I wanted an assessment, to see if I’m on the spectrum. I was talking about this with Cat the other day, we talked about whether I’d want a diagnosis, what it would mean for me, if things would change after, what I’d think/feel if I was diagnosed as non-autistic. I mean, some days I’m absolutely fine and can get along as well as the next person. And some days I feel the glass pane there, and I can’t find words that’ll make sense, and conversations become a blur of noise. I don’t know why this only happens sometimes, though. I’m rather confused as to what I should do. Sometimes I think “Yes, I’m autistic and don’t really fit into the world in the way that others seem to do”, and other times I think “I’m fine, I’ve adapted to the world well and can live a good life in it”.

Just what am I?