I’ve always felt that I am “from another planet”, both in social interactions and because I feel like an alien clumsily operating a meat puppet. I’ve been diagnosed with anxiety and depression for decades, but treatments didn’t really help. My social-worker daughter suggested a couple of years ago that perhaps I am autistic, so I started looking into it. I scored as autistic on all the online self-tests. It made sense, explained a lot of my life events. For objective verification, a month ago I went to a diagnostician. Sure enough, I’m a highly-masking autistic person.

I’m 60. It’s such a relief to know that my struggles in life were not because I am a weak or lazy person. I don’t hate myself anymore; on the contrary, I am a bit proud of how much I accomplished in life considering I didn’t know “What the hell is wrong with” me (as my dad would frequently ask).