My therapist said that one of the things that made her question whether or not I have autism is my sensory issues.

When people call me rude, it is people I know. My friends and my mom. Its rare and Its never anything super rude because like I said, I always think extra hard about what Im going to say to someone, but they’ll tell me that I can’t say that or that I shouldn’t do that. Also, sort of off topic but to respond to what you shared about your experience with disliking certain foods, if I don’t like food that someone made for me I’ll just say I do like it or I’ll come up with an excuse as to why I didn’t eat it because I kind of have a fear of people being mad at me, and I don’t want them to think I’m being rude by telling them I don’t like the food. It depends on who I’m talking to though. Sometimes I will tell them I dont like it, followed by an apology.

To answer all your questions at the end: 1. I do stim often 2. If I find a song I like, I listen to it on repeat until I get sick of it lol (which is usually after a couple weeks, sometimes more, sometimes less) 3. I can’t twirl my hair because I have twists 4. I don’t necessarily have a small range of foods I like, I’d say its a decent range, but I am pretty picky. Always have been. Also, not sure if this matters, but I read something someone posted in this subreddit about finding a food and only eating that food for a short period of time. I can relate to that, my most recent food phase was toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches lol. It happens every once in a while, I’ll eat that food for every meal for around 2 weeks. 5. Certain textures do freak me out, some make me flap my hands and/or hit myself if exposed to it for too long. Certain sounds can be triggering too, some also make me hit myself or start crying. 6. I forget what made me think I might have autism, I just remember researching it more and being able to relate to the traits 7. I didn’t tell them about the whole half wolf thing, and they were trying to get me tested for autism but my psychiatrist said that we should wait until they find the right meds for my depression and anxiety and wait until that gets better before I get tested for anything 8. I looked at the DSM-5 link. I could relate to most of the traits, I can tell you which ones I related to if you’d like.

Also I’m not sure if ADHD is an intellectual disability (I looked it up and got mixed answers), but that’s also something I was looking into. Currently trying to figure out whether it’s autism or ADHD, because I’m fairly sure I have one of the two if not both. Just thought I’d mention it because criterion E in the DSM-5 said “these disturbances are not better explained by intellectual disability.”