Hi all. Relatively new to Hexbear, but I was scrolling through the community and saw this, never realized such a thing existed and will be following it more.
Basically, one day just wondered "an I autistic", googled the symptoms, got nervous reading them, so worked up the courage to ask my close friend who is a clinical psychologist.
She said "don't get upset" and then listed about 50 reasons why she thought I was on the spectrum. It was a total punch to the gut, but feels so obvious now in retrospect.
What I'm wondering now is, is it worth seeing a doctor, therapist, or any other professional to get it confirmed and then learn how to deal with this? Or just accept it and be who I am?
Thank you all.
The main question would be if you want to get diagnosed. If you're happy as you are now and it isn't affecting your life significantly, there's probably no real need to see a doctor. If you feel like help from a doctor/psychologist would improve your quality of life, then go for it.
Also, if your friend is a clinical psych, she probably has a much better idea of what a diagnosis would involve and lead to than most of the people on Hexbear, including me.