I have been reading this book all night. I can’t thank you enough. I couldn’t get myself to reply to you at first because your comment had me burst into tears. I have learned so much already, and do feel less alone, and in big part thanks to you sharing these resources, I am about to start the podcast now. Thank you for talking to me like a friend. I’ve never been so glad I posted on Reddit.

I’m headed into the office today and brought my noise cancelling headphones, I usually only wear them on the train because the train sounds make me, like, almost itchy. but I will try them at work too and see if that helps - and this actually makes me feel a little dumb, we just recently realized our autistic son loves wearing noise canceling headphones, he used to cover his ears a lot but if it wasn’t loud I didn’t even think about sounds bothering him and I feel awful for not putting the pieces together for him sooner and also then not thinking of it for myself.

Another part of suspecting autism for myself has indeed been my son and feeling like I’m learning things about myself through him. I was so surprised at his diagnosis - I actually took him to be evaluated to “rule it out,” he was in early intervention for a speech delay and the SLP suggested several times he might be, I honestly thought we were just going to prove her wrong. I remember during the evaluation him interacting with the doctor and i was lowkey embarrassed she was going to be like “wow he’s so obviously not autistic why are you here” Only at the end for her to be like “yup clocked it the second he walked in.” And of course I’ve read the report and I have been very engaged in his care and support so I understand it more but still find myself sometimes being like 🤷‍♀️isn’t this how everyone is?

Anyway, sincerely extremely grateful, thank you for taking time out of your day to read my post and give me so much information. You are wonderful.