Gerald Ogden tells Newsweek about discovering his autism diagnosis in his 30s in this original essay.
When you're autistic, hiding how you feel is tough, but I have gotten very good at camouflage. Camouflage is achieved when, by practice, you emulate the behavior of neurotypical people in public. I became so good at this mimicking normality that even autism professionals couldn't pick up on it.Of all the things that have happened in my life, how I found out about my autism diagnosis was the worst. My eldest son was born around 30 years ago.
But I knew that we needed to try and get a diagnosis for him quickly. Unfortunately, my insurance wouldn't cover it. Luckily, my son's biological mother had remarried and her husband had decided to join the U.S. Army after previously being in the Army Reserve. This meant we were able to pay for him to visit an autism center and get some answers.I will never forget sitting in the center, awaiting results. The counselor came in with a concerned look on her face.
Gerald suspected he had autism after reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a novel about a 15 year old boy who is presumed to have autism. Stock image.Part of the quest in the game is to look at a facial expression and choose which emotion it represents, which is what I had to do when I saw the doctor who diagnosed me. My wife breezed through the questions, but it took me longer, so she stepped in to help.
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