After around 15 years, I finally broke.
I attended an early college high school, with a focus on the arts. I finally found people who I could call my friends. They were willing to put up with all my weird quirks whenever they slipped past my masks.
Despite the respite my new friends at school gave, I couldn't take existing how I did. Everything was unbearable. I didn't want to live anymore.
I actually told my mother. She took it as well as one would expect.
Not long after entering therapy, I had a stress induced seizure.
I was told it lasted one minute. I felt like hours. Imagine TV static in your brain. Constant colors and noises that make no sense, mixed with an overwhelming sense of calm.
It was both the most terrifying and calmest moment I've ever experienced.
It took 9 hours for my diagnosis, split into three sessions. My mother didn't wait until we were out of the car to tell me. She looked like she had been crying, like I was dying rather than just different.
I'm on the autism spectrum. But don't worry, I'm "high functioning", for whatever that's worth.