The beginning of the journey is still clear to me. It was July 1, 2005. The first day of the new Financial Year, in Australia.

Three years earlier, I had woken up in the early hours of the morning, screaming from a memory of something that happened at school. I woke to find the light through the windows that brought London Bridge to mind shining through from the streetlamp. I hoped my neighbours hadn't heard me through the wall.

I remember my father telling the story, years earlier, of how a newspaper headline said, "World War Two Veteran Pleads Not Guilty." A veteran of that war had gotten behind the wheel of his car after drinking a skin full and causing an accident. He also said that very little attention was paid to the plight of Vietnam Veterans.

When it was finally dragged out of me that I was struggling with PTSD, my mother told me not to tell anybody else or they'd laugh at me.

Yes, my PTSD diagnosis was correct, and so was my depression diagnosis, and my GP was right to put me on antidepressants. But it wasn't until a social worker told me that she suspected autism that things really started to make sense. It explained my quirks and interests, and why they mattered to me.

I have said to my GP, and she understands, that if I need to see a psychologist, I need to see a psychologist who understands autism more broadly and who doesn't want to make me appear more neurotypical.