#but in the past few yeas when the obsessive compulsive behavior started to become a more and more obvious problem i was like hm maybe its

[opens-up-4-nobody]

the good thing about asperger's no longer being a diagnosis is that it's just called level 1 autism spectrum disorder now. i know i probably shouldn't be poking around in the mental health of strangers online, but as an autistic person myself, your struggles resonated with me. ever since i've been able to accept, understand, and begin to provide myself accommodations for my autism, my mental health has improved tremendously. autism is also co-morbid with oodles of other conditions, so it is definitely possible to have autism and other conditions that may have overlapping symptoms

It's funny, I was diagnosed, accepted it, over analyzed and rejected it, subsequently forgot about it entirely, then when the only helpful counselor I ever had brought up the idea I was like: Oh yeah! That makes sense. And went through the same process over again. I will say, having someone point out that something might be inhibiting my ability to interact with people was extremely helpful. Because I just thought I was really bad at it and processed it as a point of failure (which was intolerable). At one point she said "You don't have to do things you don't want to just because you feel like you should" and I think about that a lot. That should have been obvious but it was like she slapped me with a fish