For most of my life, I assumed I was simply bad at socializing.
In group settings, I was the quiet one, rarely speaking unless it was strictly necessary. Social situations felt unpredictable and anxiety-provoking, as though everyone else had been handed a script that I had somehow missed.
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To get through them, I felt like I had to put on a performance. Sometimes, I relied on alcohol just to take the edge off and feel relaxed enough to participate.
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Because I held so much back to feel safe, I struggled to make close friends and constantly felt like no one ever knew the real me. By the time I got home from social events, I was exhausted from keeping my guard up.
Looking for answers, I went through therapy, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)—for social anxiety.
While CBT helped reduce my immediate anxiety, it often felt like I was just learning better techniques to perform confidence. Even with those tools, a nagging feeling remained that something deeper was going on beneath the surface.
It wasn’t until an autistic friend suggested that I might be autistic that the pieces began to shift.
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From Initial Denial to Seeking Certainty
At first, I immediately dismissed my friend’s suggestion. Like many people who go undiagnosed into adulthood, I had a narrow idea of what autism looked like, and I didn’t think it applied to me.
Still, the comment stuck with me. I started researching autism, specifically how it presents in adults who have spent years compensating for their differences.
The more I read about social camouflaging (or masking)—the conscious or unconscious effort to suppress natural behaviors and mimic social norms to fit in—the more familiar it felt.
What stood out just as much was my reliance on predictability. Throughout my life, whenever I lost my daily routine, my mood would drop sharply into depressive feelings. Routine wasn’t just a preference; it was what kept me grounded.
People seek an autism assessment for very different reasons. For many, a formal diagnosis is a practical necessity to unlock workplace adjustments, healthcare, or educational support.
As the 2026 Fonagy report highlights, a system built on requiring a formal diagnosis just to access basic support is ultimately unsustainable, creating bottlenecks and leaving people without help while they wait.
My own motivation, however, was different. At the time, I wasn’t seeking a diagnosis to access accommodations. I pursued it for self-discovery. Because living with uncertainty was making me anxious, suspect-diagnosing myself left too much room for self-doubt. I needed a definitive answer.
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The Mixed Reality of Getting Confirmed
When the assessor finally confirmed that I am autistic, my immediate reaction was overwhelming relief. For the first time, there was a single, coherent explanation that answered almost every question I had ever had about myself.
At the exact same time, I felt a wave of disbelief. Having spent so many years believing I was just shy or anxious, getting that confirmation felt almost surreal.
Part of me even wondered if I had somehow tricked the assessor into thinking I was autistic – a common form of imposter syndrome among late-diagnosed adults who have spent decades masking their traits.
Despite that initial shock, having the official label settled the uncertainty. Knowing for sure allowed my mind to relax. Instead of constantly questioning whether I was making excuses for my struggles, I had clear confirmation of how my brain works.
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Reframing the Past and Navigating the Present
Since receiving my diagnosis, the biggest change has been how I interpret my own history and treat myself day-to-day.
Looking back at my younger self, things finally make sense. I wasn’t quiet in school or social groups because I was standoffish or broken; I stayed quiet because I didn’t know how to navigate unspoken social rules, and staying silent felt like the safest way to avoid saying the wrong thing.
Understanding that removes the urge to judge myself harshly or ask, “What is wrong with me?”
Today, that self-understanding makes it easier to be honest about my limitations, and ironically, the formal paperwork I didn’t think I needed has turned out to be genuinely useful:
- Accessing practical support: Now that I have returned to education to do my PhD, having a formal diagnosis means I can actually utilize university accommodations tailored to how I work best.
- Recognizing energy limits: I accept that socializing requires genuine cognitive effort for me, and that needing quiet time afterward to unmask isn’t a personal failing.
- Setting clearer boundaries: Even when it is still difficult to vocalize my needs out of worry about how others might react, I no longer force myself into situations that consistently drain me just to appear “normal.”
- Protecting my routines: Recognizing how closely structure is tied to my mental health means I treat my routines as a necessity rather than a rigid quirk.
For me, getting an autism diagnosis wasn’t about putting myself in a box. While support shouldn’t have to depend on a clinical label, having that confirmation gave me the right context for my life – replacing years of quiet self-criticism with clarity, practical support, and permission to be myself.
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