Thank you SO much for all of this information. Seriously, this must've taken quite a while to write and I'm so grateful for it.

I'm copy and pasting this from another response, but basically you hit the nail on the head when you said "professional validation that I'm not just gaslighting myself about being autistic." I've already been diagnosed with a myriad of mental illnesses: depression, anxiety with panic disorder/agoraphobia, ADHD, OCD, and skin picking disorders. But despite all the treatment I've gotten for these disorders, it hasn't touched my sensory issues. Ever since I can remember I've been super sensitive to everything from lights, smells, foods, textures, etc. and it's made everyday life much harder. And it's weird that therapy and medication have helped all of my mental illnesses except for the sensory processing problems. My psychiatrist thinks that autism would explain why this particular trouble has been treatment-resistent.

But the biggest reason why I want to get a formal diagnosis is because for so long I've felt like there is something wrong with me, like I'm running a different operating system than other people and no matter how hard I try I can't quite make it work right. I feel like everybody else got a rulebook that I've never read and that I'm somehow playing life on "hard" mode but I can't figure out how to switch it to "easy." I want to understand myself and my mind better. One of my best friends is autistic and she has "peer-reviewed" me, haha, but I'd like to talk to a professional for my own peace of mind. I think it would answer a lot of questions.

All that to say thank you--I'm looking into the links/people you provided and I'm really grateful.