Am I autistic?

If you can relate to many of the things below, it’s likely. Click here to find out how to get diagnosed.

• You want to touch the fluffiness in the picture above
• “Why am I the only one who cares about doing things properly?”
• You are always hungry or never hungry
• When things line up nicely it makes you feel all content inside
• You go to the toilet a billion times a day or hardly ever
• 3-quarter length sleeves should be banned
• You have great difficulty with friendships and other relationships
• You can talk for 3 hours about Spiderman, The Hulk, Batman or other Marvel characters
• That sentence made you absolutely furious
• Bonus points if you’re already searching for the “contact” button so you can tell me Batman isn’t a Marvel character
• You’ve got another condition like prosopagnosia (can’t recognise people),  synaesthesia (weird sensory thing), hypermobility or Ehlers-Danlos syndrome
• Poor boundaries
• You like being squashed, but only by certain people/things
• Being asked to “tell me about yourself” makes your skin crawl
• Pulling your hood over your head as far as it will go
• The cup handles all have to face the same way
• One or more mental health conditions
• “Why do they have to chew so loud?”
• You wish you could stand right on your toes, like ballerinas
• You get massively annoyed about something that doesn’t seem to bother anyone else, like leeks or Kevin Costner
• “Look, Look at the book, book looks, lookey bookey, My Booky Wook, Wooky, Wookies, booky wookies, lookey at the bookey wookies.”
• Crowds suck
• You can’t throw away the box because it will be sad
• You like animals (except the ones you’re scared of)
• “Why don’t they just say what they mean?”
• You don’t know how you feel
• When someone tells you that something was a joke, you’re confused because it wasn’t funny
• You either wear the same monochrome outfit every day, or dress like a combination of a toddler and a Strictly Come Dancing contestant
• You pick at your skin or nails, or pull your hair, or clench something, or scratch yourself, sometimes to the point of damage
• You don’t know when to talk in a group and want to come back to the thing you had to say but everyone else has moved on
• And now you’re annoyed with Gary for talking when you haven’t had your turn yet and he’s had loads of turns
• Unexpected stickiness upsets you
• “Don’t touch my stuff”
• You’re confused because you answered the question correctly but they laughed at you or are now angry
• You have good intuition but have been taught not to trust it
• You have a favourite rock
• You know an insane amount of random stuff, like the font they use on Ukrainian roadsigns, or the shape of wombat poo
• You’ve just wanted to look those things up (I’ll save you the bother, it’s “Transport” and cubic, respectively)
• Deep feelings
• Putting other people first
• Then wondering why no-one appreciates you
• “Oooh, soft”
• You are told you’re “particular” or “picky” even though you don’t think there’s anything wrong with being meticulous
• You get told you’ve said something inappropriate but can’t fathom why
• The lights are too bright
• Proper filing makes you feel special on the inside
• Especially if the categories have sub-categories
• Being told you “go on about something all the time”
• Over-delivering
• Someone has to explain to you why someone is doing a thing in a film
• You’re a detail ninja in one or more specific areas
• Being told you’re impolite, even though you think you are very polite
• Fiddling with stuff, like old books, or earth, or jelly, or beads
• You just squidged your hands together reading that sentence
• When instructions are good, you learn at lightning speed
• Chewing pens
• Also doing that thing with a pen where you squash it between your top lip and your nose
• It feels like everyone else in the conversation is following a script but you haven’t got one
• Different foods may not touch except under very specific conditions, from which you may not deviate
• And don’t question me on why ketchup can touch the potatoes but not gravy because if you don’t understand, I can’t explain it to you
• Some people’s voices make you want to stab them in the throat
• The standard normal human positions are uncomfortable or unpleasant and you’d rather sit on your foot, lean on the wall, or lie on the floor
• You can’t stand too near some people because they smell weird, but other people are standing in the aroma zone and don’t seem bothered by it
• If someone looks like they want to be your friend, and happens to mention they like salt and vinegar crisps, you will bring them a packet of salt and vinegar crisps every week until you scare them off or you work out that they like you even when you don’t bring crisps
• Your speech is formal and/or monotone and/or a bit stilted
• You like the way this list is written

Autism is a way of being, it’s not an illness or disorder. If you think you might be autistic and you’d like to find out for sure, find out how to get diagnosed.