Am I the only one who's in the "Neurodivergent Grey Area"?? (NOT a "poor me" post)
Sorry if any of the content I post here is insensitive/ignorant.
Backstory: I have never been *officially* handed an autism diagnosis. I'm 27 now, and I have been evaluated for autism by several mental health professionals for nearly my whole life, starting at around the age of 4 years old. Each of them has more or less said the same thing: "yeah, he's quirky and has some neurodivergent traits....but I wouldn't put a label on him." Awesome. So even in the eyes of mental health professionals, all they can tell me is that I'm just weird. Great, as if everyone around me wasn't already telling me that lmao.
When I most recently got evaluated in 2024, I took another full blown autism screening (if you can call it that) and the doc who evaluated me basically told me something to the effect of "yeah, technically you meet criteria, but it's by the skin of your teeth. And your symptoms are so tame that they don't really seem to be drastically affecting your life, so it's not really worth it to warrant a diagnosis." Once again, basically telling me the same thing that a ton of other mental health professionals said about me in years past.
And if I'm being frank....I mostly agree. I can absolutely "mask" in a social setting very well, I don't have any "meltdowns" at all (I actually have pretty damn good control over my emotions), and more. The TLDR here is that when someone first meets me, they aren't going to immediately jump to the conclusion of "he's definitely autistic." At the same time.....I hate super loud noises and bright lights (I have to cover my ears during a fire alarm drill), I stim a lot by shaking my hands, I miss social cues here and there, I often mistake people's sarcastic tones as them being dead serious, and I have very niche interests, many of which have drastically shifted over the years; currently, I love high fashion, personal growth/development, psychology, metaphysics, philosophy, and history. My interests in these subjects, along with the fact that I'm completely sober nowadays, leads to the conundrum of having essentially nothing in common with just about everyone I come across.
Nowadays, the most frustrating part about my "condition," if you will, is trying to make/keep friends and also attempting to have romantic relationships. I'm quite the lone wolf right now, although I'd much rather be literally alone than be surrounded by fake friends who make me feel even more alone. And I promise I'm not trying to gloat/brag at all when I say this but.....I keep getting feedback from people I consistently interact with, telling me I'm very good looking. The reason I mention this is because for many years now, I've had the vexing experience of several women quickly expressing their attraction to my looks upfront, but then slowly ghosting/losing interest in me because I'm "weird" and/or awkward with them, and we end up having nothing in common. Same thing with friends; if I'm being frank, I don't think I've ever had a truly super close friend in my entire life, i.e a friend who truly saw and understood me.
Is there anyone else out there like this? I don't think I've ever met anybody else, face-to-face, in my entire life, who also has the same "condition" as me. Again, this is not a "poor me, I feel sorry for myself" post. I am actually glad that I'm now learning to find strength in being comfortably alone. I just wonder if there's anyone else out there with similar experiences to mine.