Letter to a friend
From a letter to a friend...
... We filled in the parental / friends forms which offer the psychologist another perspective during the diagnostic process for an adult. To say they were illuminating is an understatement; you can see who my kid gets it from. For a variety of reasons I have decided to go through the same process and am slowly working through a long questionnaire. By chance, a book I've had on hold at the library has arrived at the same time. It's called "Pretending to be Normal", by Liane Holliday Willey, and it's a beautiful book. The book and questionnaire together have shaken me to a degree I cannot find the words to describe. And I suspect the insights and implications have nowhere near finished coming. In many ways, the process is positive. The questionnaire asks me to take a deep dive into the way I think and how I interact with others. I'm impressed by the many things I have done, even pleased. But there is also a kind of overturning of nearly everything about me, or so it feels.
It's as though I have operated under a serious misapprehension about the nature of the world. Some of it is grace-filled. Holliday-Willey writes of making lists for the day about remembering to hug her husband. I don't feel so bad about having wondered if that's what I need to do: coded buzz-alarms on my watch to remind me go and talk to Wendy. But there are so many other memories of total bewilderment, so much pain. So much misunderstanding. Chris sent us a meme from Facebook or somewhere: "What if I'm not autistic," asks person handing assesor 92 page dissertation about life. It's hilarious and it's true, and I don't know who I am anymore...
[But] it's all gone from, "This is hilarious" to "This explains so much" to something deeper that I can barely discern. Something has been unleashed here that has a life, even if there is [not yet a] formal diagnosis. Although as Deb said, "They decided you were on the spectrum as soon as they read your request for the forms." I don't think there's too much doubt what's been going on. And I seem to have no energy to keep up the masking. In fact, it's as though something in the brain just refuses to do it or can't remember how to...
Andrea (February 2026)
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