The short: lithium poisoning.
It's a interesting experience to be sent to the emergency room, get interviewed by the check-in nurse, then be pushed to the front of the line, in front of people with their arms wrapped in bloody dishtowels, because your brain isn't working properly.
But the poisoning isn't what I'm here to write about.
In my ongoing attempt to correct my brain problems, I spent seven weeks doing TMS. Five days a week I had an electromagnet put to my for up to 20 minutes. Once a week, I met with two doctors who run the clinic, but weren't actually at the clinic because their main office is in another city, to check my progress. When it was becoming clear the I had no progress, the doctors started bringing up possibilities for what is causing my brain problem. After discussion, one of the doctors asked me if I am autistic.
This caught me off-guard.
To the best of my knowledge, autism is not a cause of major depressive disorder. Autism does not cause a person to wake up just as exhausted as you were when you went to sleep. Autism does not cause you to sleep more than 12+ hours a night, if you don't have an alarm to wake you up. Again, to the best of my knowledge. These are the things that I was hoping TMS would help fix.
And yet, it stuck with me because I have... tendencies.
Last year, I brought up autism to a psychiatrist, and he blew it off completely.
Having it brought up to me by a doctor, though, that's different. That's an external source, listening to me describe myself, and coming to a conclusion that maybe I'm somewhere on the autism spectrum in a way that affects my life.
I took several online tests for adults to see if I may fall somewhere on the spectrum. All of the, every one I've taken, say that it's quite possible that I am on the spectrum. Every. Single. One.
So, what next?
Based on the research I've done, diagnosis will cost me $4500-$8500. That's not counting travel and hotels, because nothing is local. Sure, everyone offers video conferencing for the testing, but I can't be myself, for better or worse, on a video call. When I'm on a video call for more than 90 seconds my brain starts shouting at me to get off as soon as possible; I'm the same way on a phone call, get off as soon as possible. So, if I am going to do this, I need to be able to do this in person.
If I do it at all.
Because, honestly, what good would an autism diagnosis do me?
Sure, there's that simple elation of getting a diagnosis. That moment of feeling not alone. But what's next?
I'm not suddenly going to want to join a community and make friends. My depression won't go away because I have a label. I won't feel again. I won't be able to stop masking. I still won't be whole.
But... knowing would be a good thing. Knowing more about myself, understanding myself better, would be good.
While I'm pretty sure that I fall somewhere on the spectrum, I don't know if I'd even be able to get a diagnosis because, based on my research, for diagnosing adults they want to speak with someone who was an adult when you were a kid so that they can get an idea of who you were back then because, again according to my research, an individual on the spectrum couldn't know how to mask when they were young. And I don't think I can trust my parent's to give an honest account of how I was when I was younger.
When I've brought up the idea of getting a diagnosis to them, my dad is indifferent. He says that if I'm autistic then I'm high functioning, his words, and it shouldn't matter because I live a life. Also, I don't know how much my dad actually saw me as a kid. I think, to him, I was a bit of a mystery: a kid who wasn't a kid the way he thought kids should be. My mother, on the other hand, seemed offended at me even considering that I might fall on the spectrum. She worked with autistic kids when she was an aide at an elementary school. Not the worst of the worst, but pretty bad. Kids that really couldn't function if they didn't have a constant guiding hand and I did not need that kind of help growing up. There are no other people, who were adults when I was a kid, who I spent significant time with. My parent's are my only option.
Am I willing to shell out up to $8500 to have my parents possibly derail the process? I've read too many stories online about someone who had their diagnosis process stop after the adult person was interviewed. To not even get the chance to describe yourself would be terrible. More than disappointing. Legitimately terrible.
****************
I don’t know if I’ll be writing again. I want to, but I just don’t know.
Be well.