The Case I Solved Too Early

One of the first conversations I ever had with one of my closest friends wasn't about music or men.

It was about cognitive bias.

We had met while studying criminology, and after reading Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman we somehow ended up discussing tunnel vision in criminal investigations. We talked about how detectives become convinced they've found the right suspect and then, often without realizing it, start collecting only the evidence that supports their theory while overlooking everything that doesn't.

Years later, I realized I had done exactly the same thing.

The only case I was investigating...

...was myself.

 

If there was one diagnosis I was absolutely convinced I didn't have, it was autism.

Not because I had carefully ruled it out.

Simply because, somewhere along the way, I had decided:

"That isn't me."

The strange part is that I wasn't unfamiliar with autism.

I studied psychology.

Later I studied criminology, where understanding human behaviour became part of everyday life.

I had studied disorders, diagnostic reasoning and cognitive bias. I knew how easily an existing assumption could distort everything that followed. I just never noticed that I had already made one about myself.

 

Another reason I was so certain was much more personal.

My boyfriend is autistic.

We've known each other since we were children, and for years he became my unconscious definition of what autism looked like.

When we were younger, he had very little interest in sex. That changed as he got older, but growing up we were almost complete opposites.

I couldn't stop thinking about men.

He had very specific objects he wanted to carry or touch.

He had repetitive patterns with some of his toys.

I didn't.

Today he is still an introvert, but he has more of a social life than I do.

He still prefers spending most of his time at home, but he is more willing to meet people than I am.

Meanwhile, if someone invites me out for coffee, my first thought is often whether I can avoid leaving the house altogether.

If I could choose, I'd rather disappear somewhere remote with the man I love. Just the two of us. Talking, sleeping, having sex, reading, walking, existing. No crowds. No noise. No pretending.

The more I compared us...

the more convinced I became that autism simply wasn't me.

Case closed.

Or so I thought.

 

The funny thing is that I wasn't searching for one magical diagnosis that would suddenly explain my entire life.

I already had explanations.

I had been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.

I also had anxiety.

Later, I was diagnosed with Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder.

Those diagnoses explained many parts of my life.

If anything, I assumed the picture was already complete.

 

Then another psychologist mentioned autistic traits.

I dismissed it.

Later another therapist suggested looking into autism more seriously.

Again, I dismissed it.

Not because I had examined the evidence.

Because I believed I already had.

I had crossed autism off the list so completely that I no longer allowed new information to challenge that conclusion. Whenever something didn't fit, I automatically found another explanation.

 

Then something changed.

Instead of debating labels, my therapist started asking me about my life.

Not dramatic questions.

Small ones.

Almost boring ones.

"Were you a quiet child?"

Yes.

"Did teachers describe you as unusually mature for your age?"

Yes.

"Did you mostly play alone?"

Yes.

"Were there clothes that felt unbearable to wear?"

Yes.

"Foods you couldn't eat because of their texture?"

Yes.

"Bright supermarket lights?"

Yes.

"Unexpected visitors?"

I still hide in my room when I can.

"Do you mentally rehearse conversations before leaving the house?"

Almost every time.

The strange thing wasn't answering "yes."

The strange thing was realizing how many of those things had been with me for as long as I could remember.

They weren't new.

Only the way I looked at them was.

It felt less like discovering new information and more like reopening old files I had never examined properly.

 

Then the questions became even more interesting.

"Why don't you like socializing?"

I expected myself to answer,

"Because I'm anxious."

Instead, I heard myself saying something completely different.

"Because it's loud."

"Because it's superficial."

"Because it's boring."

"Because it feels fake."

That surprised me.

Apparently I'd been carrying that answer around for years without ever saying it out loud.

I dislike being with people.

There are simply a very small number of exceptions.

Give me one or two people I genuinely connect with and I could spend days talking about psychology, horror, magic, martial arts, paranormal stories, men, music or whatever currently has my attention.

Put me in a room full of polite small talk and I feel like I've accidentally walked into a theatre performance where everybody knows their lines except me.

 

Some memories suddenly started making more sense too.

Why I could walk into a brightly lit supermarket and already want to leave before I'd even bought anything.

Why certain fabrics didn't just itch—they felt wrong, as though my body kept insisting they shouldn't be touching my skin.

Why some foods became impossible because of their texture even when the taste itself was fine.

Why certain sounds felt almost physical, and why smells other people barely noticed could become impossible to ignore.

Why several people talking at once could leave me overloaded instead of merely annoyed.

Why I could happily spend years obsessing over the same handful of interests.

Why people always joked that I knew far too much about the things I loved.

Why teachers called me unusually serious.

Why I always preferred one close person over a group.

Why I moved my foot constantly in class without even noticing.

None of those memories appeared because of the diagnosis.

They had always been there.

I had simply filed them under "that's just me."

 

One observation from my therapist stayed with me.

He doesn't think I completely miss social cues.

He thinks I often notice them...

...and then analyse them until they become something they never were.

I see someone's expression.

I replay it.

Before long, I've invented five different explanations.

Usually I choose the worst one.

According to him, I'm not necessarily missing the signal.

I'm often misreading it.

That was an interesting distinction I'd never considered before.

 

One thing I also had to accept was that I had been comparing myself to exactly one autistic person.

My boyfriend.

As if one person could represent an entire spectrum.

I had treated every difference between us as evidence that I couldn't be autistic. Seunghoon had very little interest in sex when we were young; I thought about men constantly. He was more willing to meet people; I tried to avoid them. He needed certain things communicated more directly, while I often noticed social signals and then analysed them until I misread them.

The differences were real. My mistake was believing they cancelled out the possibility that we could both be autistic.

 

Receiving another diagnosis didn't erase the ones I already had.

I still have Borderline Personality Disorder.

I still have anxiety.

I still have Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder.

Those diagnoses remain part of me too.

Autism wasn't a replacement.

It was an addition.

It simply explained some of the parts that never completely fit the explanations I already had.

Not everything belongs to autism or borderline. Some things are probably shaped by both, some by anxiety or Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder, and some are simply my personality.

I no longer need to decide which diagnosis owns every part of me.

And honestly...

I'm perfectly okay with that.

Maybe that's why psychology fascinated me in the first place. I've always wanted to understand how minds work. I just didn't expect one of my own assumptions to remain invisible for so long.

 

The irony was difficult to miss. Years earlier, I had studied tunnel vision in criminal investigations. Now I could see that I had approached myself in exactly the same way: I reached a conclusion early and spent years interpreting everything through it.

I had never imagined I would become my own case study.

 

I'm still the same person I was before that assessment.

I still hate fluorescent supermarket lights.

I still know far too much about strange subjects.

I still prefer forests to crowded cafés.

I still love my boyfriend.

I still think most small talk is painfully boring.

The only real difference is that now I understand one more piece of myself.

After spending so many years trying to understand the human mind, I suppose it was finally time to reopen the case I had solved too early.