developing autism long after childhood?

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The secondary autism thing intrigues me.

Yes, I suppose if the definition is that you must have had it developmentally, then we could just call similar traits that happen later in life something else. However, again, going back to the cause of it, in order for it to properly be 2 separate things, it'd have to have separate causes.
That there are brain differences between autistics and NT's doesn't really help find the cause of autism. It gives validity to its existence (sadly some people don't believe in things like autism unless there's an obvious physically measured component), but unless there's studies that specifically take groups of people who feel like they developed it later in life, and those same people happen to have brain scans from when they were kids so they can compare, I don't think the existence of brain differences in people with autism is much of an answer to my question.
Just thought about something, I guess when I think about Fetal Alcohol Sydrome, where we *know* that a mother's drinking causes it to infants in utero, there's no question about an adult developing it later in life somehow. Even chronic alcoholism isn't the same thing.

Sorry, one more thing to add about me personally.

I feel like a completely different person than I was growing up. I got depressed and I have never gone back to how I used to be. I was actually just recently diagnosed with celiac disease, and I'm hoping that in a couple years time being gluten free I might be 'back to my old self', but sometimes, like right now, that seems impossible. There are definitely facets of me that are the same, but what I like and don't like, especially socializing, isn't the same at all anymore.