This is my moment...

After multiple missed calls and avoided voicemails, I finally called back about the results of the screening test I'd taken for ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder).

I'm already a small distance down the path to ADHD diagnosis, but I'd fought in my own head for a month now on taking part in the screening. I'm not sure why. Actually, I am. It was ignorance of not knowing what ASD meant and my brain telling me I couldn't possibly have gotten this far in life without realising that I could be an autistic adult.

This wasn't really the moment I'd expected. I was in an Applegreen carpark on a weekend afternoon surrounded by the mundaneness of daily life... people filling up their cars with petrol, children getting a Burger King Saturday treat and playing in the tiny play park that looks like a fish bowl for kids.

Whilst they went about their normal routines, I was parked up, talking to a pleasant woman who was telling me the pre-screening questionnaire I'd been through suggested there was a strong need for me to get a more detailed medical/developmental assessment in person. At least that's what I think she said.

My brain wasn't really sure what to think. It had two conflicting thoughts as I sat listening, telling her I'd no questions. Of course I had feckin' questions. I have 1,000 questions. But I don't know what they are or how to ask them.

Internally I was equal parts delighted and confused. I was delighted because I had 'passed the test'. As I had filled in the questionnaire earlier in the week, a blizzard of thoughts had overtaken me. I wondered was I answering questions a certain way because that's how they wanted me to or because that's what I really thought.

Moving to the next stage of detailed assessment meant some sort of vindication that I wasn't entirely looking for. My brain, however, was still wondering was I just trying to pass a test. Surely I couldn't be in my fifth decade and only figuring this out. It couldn't be true. I realised that the comedic two-second delay that had been happening throughout the second half of the call meant it was now suddenly over and I was replying to a question that had happened in some distant blurry past.

I'd been hoping the call would have been a short scolding for wasting their time with the pre-assessment... maybe a slap on the wrists and an increase in my monthly insurance premium. I'd hoped they would tell me I could go back to being whoever I was before. Whatever that meant.

So I was confused as hell. On one hand I was closer to understanding who I was, but I've never felt more internally empty. The realisation that for 47 years I've likely been masking felt heavier than anything I've ever felt. At the same time it felt like a tiny crack had opened... a small window into who I really was in the distance, looking blurry and unknown. But it was me.

It felt like this one call was the most confusing eight minutes I've ever had on this planet. It was The Moment I realised that my internal belief, which I'd never shared with anyone, that I was just different than everyone else was only half true. A million things started to make sense. This meant I probably was different. But it also meant there were many people the world over who understood what it was like to be me. My tribe. People who had felt just like me. Wow. That knowledge is the scariest and most liberating thing I've ever experienced.