Children have autism? Do you?

I'm just going to admit to you that my knowledge of autism is incredibly limited.  Esther was diagnosed with autism when she was 16.  I admit it, I didn't see the signs at all.  A therapist she was seeing requested I take her for screening so I did.  They gave her a definitive diagnosis and neither of us really knew what that meant.  She had a very negative response to it at first.  But she started to come around, learning a bit and seeing where she fit within that diagnosis.  I have learned some over the past few years too, but I just really thought while it gave us a bit of insight to her, I just knew her the way she was for years upon years and I didn't try to use the diagnosis to really explain anything about her or to even encourage her to adapt to the world around her.  I don't know if that was a mistake or not, but I thought I had much bigger fish to fry with the bipolar diagnosis and the pervasive depression. She is gone now, so I've had a bit more room to really wonder about things about her, why she behaved the way she did, where there any changes within her over the years that I just didn't see coming, could I have helped her navigate the world better.  Just lots of questions.  

In really seeking to know her over the past year, I've delved a bit into what defines an autism diagnosis. I have kind of said, yeah I do that or no, I don't do that.  But it has really been a non-issue for me.  I tuned into Glennon Doyle's, You Can Do Hard Things Podcast the other day because she had on the author, Katherine May.  I enjoy Katherine May's books so I listened.  And it was all about how Katherine May came to know she was autistic as an adult.  I sat there listening to her and so much of what she said resonated with me.  But one thing just really hit me so very hard.  She said that people often think people with autism do not experience feelings as intensely as people without autism.  I had always assumed this about Esther.  She was very serious all the time.  Very quiet.  But Katherine said that for her, she feels things so intensely that she withdraws.  She said she notices and dissects the interactions of everyone around her, taking all of it in and in many cases, personalizes it to the point where she is so overwhelmed, she withdraws as a coping mechanism. This was not at all what I was thinking about autism.  In fact, this flat effect that Esther had and the overwhelming level of quiet she required, the fact that she shrugged off the arts, all made me think she was less sensitive to the world and people around her.  Yet, I'll tell you she had moments of absolute wisdom.  I trusted her thoughts, I held them precious because she didn't share them often, and they were always very insightful and complex. 


I thought about all of this regarding Esther and I have to say, it hit me so deeply because I almost feel like so much was in there, buried, inside her mind that I never knew and will never know.  And then I started to think about myself.  How I feel the pain and joy of everyone around me, to the point where it is so overwhelming at times that I just completely shut down often going days without interacting with people.  I think sometimes of all the threads I avoid here at times because I feel your pain so intensely, it impacts me to the point where I physically manifest side effects.  I have always, always thought that this is a function of my bipolar disorder.  I am loud, I can be intense, I can be very social, I would have told you right up to when Covid hit that I was an extrovert. All of these reasons were what I was hanging my hat on as the factors that separate me from an autism diagnosis.  (I do have other behaviors, stimming, obsessive tendencies, a serious need to commit to things, ethics that tend to be very black or white, etc.)  But I see that socially sometimes I make people uncomfortable, I can be overwhelming.  And I've learned to temper that, adapt.  I am pretty resilient and overly sensitive to the point where I am in a constant state of questioning myself about my own behavior and I'm quite obsessed with anything that explains human behavior from psychology to philosophy.  So I have been obsessed with learning about myself and others for a very long time.  Now, I will never get on board with a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder for myself (for Esther or Chloe either) as we all have very definitive behaviors that fit that profile.  However, now I'm looking at this as a whole and I'm wondering if there are some quirks about myself that I've always just chalked up to individuality and mania that are in fact, indicators that I may be on the autism spectrum. 

All that to get to my point, but I'm curious if any of you parents of children with autism can see any kind of genetic link between you and your kids.  If you do believe that you or your children's dad is autistic, have you explored any of those ideas within yourself?  Did it shine a light on your own thoughts/behaviors in a positive way?  Did it just muddy the waters for you like it seems to have done for me?  Anything you want to share, share.  I'm just feeling like, I was so confident in myself and my diagnosis, and maybe there is still a lot of mystery to why I do, think, and feel the way I do.  I just wondered really if anyone else had these kinds of thoughts.