After a period without therapy because my previous therapist had family issues and stopped practicing, I decided that it was time to go back to it. A friend referred me to a therapist he trusted, and then the sessions started fine.
Don’t get me wrong, I was always considered a strange-ish person, quieter than usual, introverted, followed some hobbies to the deep but, at the same time, had several. Tech is one of them. I make money from it, but I never saw tech as a profession, much more as what I am than anything else, and it led me to several episodes of burnout, including a big one several years ago. I never understood why I had to stop being “me” for the sake of my health.
At the same time, I never thought that I could actually have something “wrong,” so it never bothered me to the point that I would investigate it deeper. But it turns out that the feeling of being different meant something. There was a hypothesis from my therapist that I could possibly be on the ASD spectrum, which at the beginning surprised me, but after some time and sessions, I started accepting the theory and decided to investigate.
The neuropsychological assessment includes several measurement systems, metrics, in-person sessions, and interviews with the subject and others around their life — for me, it was my wife and mom.
The result came last week, and it was a shock. I wasn’t on the ASD spectrum and even found out that I’m in a dual exceptionality HA/G and possibly have ADHD – which I have to investigate further due to some stress I was under during the tests that could’ve affected the results according to my therapist. Honestly, I got disappointed because I thought I was close to an answer about several things that decrease my quality of life, but in the end, the problem is much more involved with something else than with being on the spectrum, and that sucks. Apparently, I’m just a strange guy.
I’ve given hours of thought to what I’d feel with the results, but nothing prepared me for this. It felt like the floor was removed from under my feet, and I think it could sound weird at first, because why would someone wish to be on a spectrum of people who have so many difficulties? And I think the answer is how I function, why I always try to find an answer for everything, even for what does not have an answer.
I don’t expect to make sense in this text, but I really wanted to put it out there as part of me trying to understand how I feel about myself and about this.
P.S.: The featured image for this post was taken by my wife last weekend, and I liked it, even though the light wasn’t great.