I think I get stuck with not knowing exactly what is meant by a lot of things, for example a key autistic trait is needing routine and getting upset with breaks in that routine. I sorta hate routine - I don’t like doing the same thing every day, I dread the work week partially because of its routine meetings, etc. I prefer to flit from thing to thing, it sometimes seems almost like a minor ADHD trait, to be honest.

But I have read that “routine” can be interpreted different ways - like, ordering the same meal at a restaurant every time can be considered “routine”, and when I think about that pretty much my whole life I find one dish that I then order every time I go to that restaurant. It’s rare that I order anything but that same dish every time. I wouldn’t be terribly upset if that dish weren’t there, but it would be disorienting.

I also tend to have a kind of rigidity and almost “OCD” like set of behaviors. I get bothered by small things and I am sometimes seen as perfectionistic, highly detail oriented, and compulsive. When I read about OCD it doesn’t seem to describe me that well, but I certainly have some kind of OCD like behaviors. Some of this OCD behavior sometimes come across as getting upset when routine is broken, so I just can’t make sense of any of it.

It sometimes feels like meaning breaks down when interpretation gives room to classify any set of behaviors any way you want - you could say I have OCD, or PTSD, or autism … all from the same behavior. But I doubt the accuracy, then.

Also, I really can’t consider diagnosis - the government is currently targeting autistic individuals. Anti-trans politicians have used the comorbidity of gender dysphoria and autism as a way to deny that autistic individuals genuinely experience gender dysphoria, claiming they are being taken advantage of and groomed - one state even issued an emergency order that would deny gender affirming care to minors and adults who have autism or other mental health issues.

So having an autism diagnosis would be a liability for me, and I don’t know that it would really change anything for me.

However, I was wondering what you meant about colored backgrounds and other accommodations - I have been wondering if I were autistic, what would I do differently? I already have blue-light filters on my glasses and use a blue-light filter on my computers, and I often keep my computer screens dimly lit because I’m so photo-sensitive.

I’ve never figured out how to live comfortably with someone else in terms of lighting, overhead lights in my house really bother me, and my partner unfortunately seems to need much more light than me to see well, so I feel like I’m always being tortured under these bright lights. But wearing shades all the time seems like a non-starter 🤔 Maybe this is what you meant by tinted glasses, something between?

Thanks for your help! 💕