I hate doctors' appointments.
I don't actually hate medical treatment, provided it can be done with my clothes on. I never had a problem when I was a kid and my parents handled the logistics, and I was OK in the military when I was shuffled through assembly-line style.
But the whole process of making a phone call and making the appointment and remembering the appointment and keeping the appointment and finding the doctor's office and talking to the receptionist and filling out the forms and sitting in the waiting room and talking to the nurse and then talking to the doctor and answering all the inane questions from all of them without being rude...it's always been incredibly overwhelming. I've avoided it successfully for most of my adult life.
Unfortunately, last year, I got to a point where I couldn't avoid seeking treatment for one of my medical conditions. I've been forced to make regular contact with an actual civilian medical professional. Two, actually. One of whom specializes in mental health.
I'm pretty good at pretending to be normal. Not "normal" like "ordinary," I can't hide all of my 'unique' characteristics, but "normal" like "not cause for serious medical concern." I'm not really normal, of course, which has been obvious to anyone who knows me well since the day I was brought home from the hospital.
But most of the time, around most people, I just come across as a little ambiguously odd. Odd use of language, odd body language, odd interests, odd conversational awkwardness, odd fidgeting, odd facial expressions, odd nervousness, odd emotional reactions to stuff. I'm like a mild version of Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory, minus the obsessive-compulsive traits and asexuality.
Doctors and education professionals tend to notice something though. Part of it's the training; part of it is that I get particularly stressed in the settings where I tend to encounter them. And when I'm stressed, my oddness gets more pronounced, if no less ambiguous.
But I didn't seek treatment for being odd. The thought hadn't really occurred to me; after all, I've been being odd for 28 years, and it hasn't gotten any harder, so I don't know why I'd bother. I'm in treatment for being transsexual, so that's what I've been reluctantly talking about. I already have a long list of labels that I gave my doctors when I filled out their silly forms. Nonverbal learning disability, social anxiety, sensory integration disorder, ADHD. None of them really fit very well, but if you mix them all together you mostly get a picture of someone kind of like me.
So it came as something of a surprise last week to hear "Has anybody ever talked to you about Asperger's Syndrome?"
Not that I was shocked at the suggestion per se. But I wasn't expecting another label to get thrown at me, especially one I thought had been ruled out when I was a kid. That's what I was told, anyway.
You see, my mother has a master's degree in education, and was going back to school for a math degree when I was little, taking more education classes along the way. She specialized in teaching kids with learning disabilities. She was quite exceptional at it.
But she was quite convinced that there was nothing at all wrong with her adorable little gifted kid. Even if I wouldn't eat 95% of the foods I was offered, wouldn't sleep if there was anyone else awake within earshot, wouldn't gain weight, and had screaming meltdowns over everything from hats to ticking clocks to misspelled words on menus (yes, at age three) I was perfectly fine.
As far as I knew, it wasn't until I was 8, reading Dickens and Tolkien, doing algebra, and still couldn't draw a picture or produce legible handwriting that she was forced to admit something was wrong. That's when I got my NVLD and SID diagnosies. NVLD didn't fit very well (I'm pretty good at math and always had a good intuitive sense of direction) but it got me some occupational therapy for my writing. It was there, I thought, that I overheard Asperger's being ruled out because I didn't have restrictive interests.
But I've been talking more to my family lately. And it turns out that wasn't my first label. High-functioning autism was. Turns out I was diagnosed with that when I was about 4, by an educational psychologist doing a screening for gifted kids for an experiment. And my mother had talked to my family about it, but had rejected the label (not her kid! never!) and never told me.
So I talked to my doctor again. We went over the diagnostic criteria. I fit every one - I'm just good at hiding my stimming (stereotyped body movements for self-stimulation) and special interests. I'm officially on the autism spectrum - and now I'm aware of it.
I'm still not entirely sure how awareness helps. But happy Autism Awareness Month anyway.