Near the start of my mental crisis last year I had a diagnosis of ADHD and autism. I was expecting the ADHD one. Jeez I am a walking ADHD cliché. The autism one was a shock. Taken a year to even write this post but I feel I should as I have written a lot about my mind and want to update you. So much of my mental difficulties have been to do with me trying to be neurotypical with a mind that isn’t. Knowing what your brain is helps so much so I’d recommend anyone who feels they may be to look into it. It is hard to say how my autism manifests. Ever since a kid obsessed with recognising car headlights in the dark I have been obsessed with patterns. I can tell you the chart position of every U.K. 1980s top ten hit up to 1988 because I used to have a book of top ten singles and I memorised it. (Borderline, Madonna, 1986, peak position 2… etc for ever). Mainly though it explains my social difficulties. I go into trance daydreams. From a young age I built a large internal world because I never fully understood the external one. I have a bad understanding of what people think of me which leads me to be unduly anxious about, well, what people think of me. I think someone is a friend and they turn out not to be. I showed Andrea last year a conversation I had with someone on here and she said ‘why did you think that person was a friend’ and I said because they put the words ‘so proud of you my friend’ into a message. I am ridiculously literal for a person who writes fiction. I am not particularly well behaved but when I fuck up I am straight about it. My brain seems to implode when people are two-faced. I am allergic to bitchiness but as a result can be too blunt. So I end up either too shy or too rude. V little middle. I neglect friendships and get sad about it. My social battery runs out v quickly. My adhd likes fun but my autism means that it exhausts me because much as I hate to admit it I really need routine. I am a continual tug of war. My psychiatrist said I am good at seeming ‘fine’ for someone who scores so high on