Rather, I want to root out the cause and treat it. When it comes to my health, unless it’s prohibitively expensive (such as a sleep study, which I recently had quoted at ~$4,000), I’m not the sort to sit at home and cope. There’s also my deep-seated hatred of not knowing factoring into it all. The only further assistance I would seek would be therapy tailored towards those with my diagnosis, if I do in fact get diagnosed, because I feel like ASD brings with it very unique challenges that a mental health professional, even if it’s not one through their system specifically, should know going in. As she says, I don’t need governmental assistance, or anything along those lines.

The reason is my whole life has felt like trying to fit disparate pieces into puzzles they don’t match, whereas ASD feels like the puzzle in which they’ll finally complete the picture, giving me a deeper understanding of myself and a solid platform from which to work from in bettering myself. My fiancee questions why I need a formal diagnosis at the same time as she says she doesn’t take self-diagnoses seriously. Numerous deep-dives later and I’ve arrived at the point where I’m awaiting the final part of my intake (probably mid-July, due to a temporary halt in appointments) for an autism screening. I saw some of myself in these people, and I remembered relating strongly to Max, the Aspie (short for Aspergers, the now defunct label that has been rolled into Autism Spectrum Disorder), from Mary and Max, and this got me exploring why exactly I did. Over time, particularly after watching multiple seasons of both versions of Love on the Spectrum, among other things, a reassessment began that brought me to the conclusion that there was likely something to those jokes.

It all started with occasional “maybe you are autistic” jokes from my fiancee that I brushed off. For the sake of transparency, I guess I should delve briefly into why I went down the autism rabbit hole that led me to reading this book.

The autistic brain by temple grandin