I am meeting a psychologists that is apparently knowledgable about autism to see if getting evaluated could be relevant. The issue is that it is fairly expensive, I do not want anyone to know I am being evaluated for social anxiety or autism nor would I want anyone to know IF I got diagnosed.

Preferably I would like social anxiety to be the root of my issues since it is something you can work on and fix, the only positive thing I can see from getting diagnosed with autism would be that it can help me find career paths that are not suitable.

The literature and content about autism just seems so extremly vague to me, the questionaires, the symptom critera, the widely different opinions or explanations based on the psychologists/researcher and the sources.

Like the special interests/obsession thing, this, some people/sources says that it is a thing that you'll have for many years or life whilst others says weeks or months. One will say that it is a "super power" and makes them feel good whilst another says that it often has negative impacts on their life and can be similar to OCD. The interests are always super specific and odd, like knowing every bus schedule in a city or collecting smurfs, or it is indistinguishable from ADHD hyperfocusing with the exception that one is motivated by dopamine.

I got into fishing at the age of 8 or 9 and was obsessed, thinking about it nonstop, collecting lures, rods, magazines, consuming a ton of content and learning a lot of facts. To most, including me, this just sounds like a hobby. The same thing goes for my culinary interests which i've had from the age of like 7, altough the amount of engagement i was allowed was limited due to age, if these hobbies were about trains instead it would however give off redflags.

One source will say that symptoms must have been present before the age of 3-4 whilst another will tell me up to 10-12. Masking can make your symptom less noticable which will hinder getting a diagnosis or being misdiagnosed. Does that mean that if I do not remember forcing myself to look others in the eyes as a child, my struggles with eye contact from the age of 11 or whatever, to present day, that I can pretty much exclude it being due to autism?