During one of the tests I took during my autism diagnosis, I had to look at a particular pattern for a few seconds, and the doctor would then flip the page and I’d need to identify the correct image among between four to seven very similar images (progresses from four to five to six to seven). If I were to choose the correct image, she’d turn the page to the next image I’d need to memorize. If I were to get one wrong, I’d get a second try on it. If I guessed incorrectly again, the test would end.

The doctor told me not to worry if we don’t get all the way through the book of images, that no one ever gets that far. Well…I did get that far. I made a mistake on one image toward the end of the book among seven images total, but I got it correct on the second try. I had narrowed it down to those two before I chose incorrectly.

Every correct answer after about halfway through the book was making the doctor make faces showing she was kind of in awe. After the last one, she said “Welp…I guess that’s how that test ends!” It was that test, I think which contributed to their diagnosis that my cognitive processing speed is in the 99.9th percentile. The diagosing doctor said she never seen a score as high as mine.

And that was honestly a good thing for me to learn about myself; I’ve always felt like my brain goes waaay to fast. I speak well before thinking, I act pretty much on instinct, and that has led to me queering more than one relationship in my life. It will be an extremely useful thing to have in post-apocalyptic times, I’m sure, but I have to force myself to slow down these days.