Adult diagnosis disadavantages

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Yes, indeed. It's like all seems to be going rather well and then suddenly the rug is pulled out from under me. Like I thought we were all standing on the same ground, and then based on someone's reaction, I realize --oh,no, woops! Wee! I am free falling...and clearly not understanding what I thought was a shared experience. How can one not take that personally?!? And then the sense of pressure to figure it out and avoid it happening again when ...at least to me, at times...it seems impossible to perceive and cognize what it is supposed to be obvious to everyone else.

A problem arises when you have people first dxed with SMI, and then, decades later, Asperger's. The Asperger's may be 'mild', but the combination is far from mild. I'm not one of those whose ever been able to consistently pass as 'normal'. Things like being told you're the 'missing link' at prep school, and having other boys direct monkey chants at you at public school blows a huge hole into passing as 'normal'. Part of that response to me was no doubt due to my having poor balance,coordination and gait from a very young age.

I'm not an 'aspie' who's had a stellar career and achieved great things. I've never had paid employment. I did a week of voluntary work that I couldn't cope with. I have no friends.I don't drive. I haven't got a degree or PhD. In fact part of the reason SMI developed was the constant high anxiety of realising I'd really struggle with the non academic,practical/social, side of going to university. I have a marked adaptive functioning < IQ .

Therefore despite Asperger's itself having been seen as 'mild' I don't see myself as fitting either a 'high flyer' or 'needing 24 x7 care' category.

I was diagnosed at age 60 last year. I am grateful for the diagnosis because it explains much about how and why things have gone down in my life the way they have. However, I would not at all have wanted an early diagnosis. My autistic traits provided some bumps in the road for me, but I carved out a pretty good life for myself, and I may not have if I was walking on eggshells over what I know now was my autistic behavior.

Ditto...except I was diagnosed in 2019 at the age of 64.

That's a great way to describe it, I agree that's how it feels. It sounds pretty horrific when you think about it



Horrid and confusing.

I told my parents I was autistic at 12 years old. I was given a psychological assessment in the military before being attached to a Marine Force Recon team. At 27 years old, I had a psychological assessment ordered by the state after being arrested with 10 kilo's of coke. I specifically requested an autism assessment at 35-years old and again, at 41-yrs old - I received the results of that last assessment on the day my first book hit the shelves. Ten years later, I retired after 24 years as a professional poker player and celebrated with another psychological assessment for a pervasive developmental disorder. Again three years later - although after jumping through hoops for a year and a half to get that appointment, she told me there was no way I was on the spectrum after 7 minutes and ended the appointment. I was diagnosed Wednesday with autism level 2; I am 56 years old.

As you can see, far from trapped in a basement - heck, I left out the infomercial I starred in and the documentary they did on me - and probably another half dozen pretty big life events that I can't even remember. Yeah, okay, I can mask like no ones business, but I never met someone with an autistic family member that didn't ask me if I had ever been diagnosed. The level of incompetence in this field is absolutely mind-boggling.

YES. I get this so much, the cellophane feeling of being separated from so many parts of the human experience that other people experience so easily. I didn't understand it, or how to lessen its effects, until I was diagnosed. That, for me, was the purpose of diagnosis.

When I was in college, before I was diagnosed or even suspected autism, I felt the cellophane. Here is a poem I wrote about it back then, since it sounds so similar to your description (please be forgiving, I really don't write poetry or have much experience with it. This just fell out of my head onto the paper):

"a man in shrinkwrap"

Look at me
Do you see a difference?
Neither do I
And yet I’m cut off by invisible walls

Walls I can’t see or feel or hear
But once in a while I just know that they’re there
A film over existence
Keeping me away

Alone (without you)
In a bubble (without me)
Closed off (kept away)
Wrapped up (gone)

What’s the difference?
I’m here; you’re here
But we’re not

You’re real; people can tell
But I’m covered in plastic
I can’t touch what you can; it’s between me and the world
I can’t feel what you can

I’m not in this world
It’s like gel to me
I’m not really here
I’m protected
But I look the same

People can see it
It scares them; they ignore it
And me, too
Because I can’t hear them

They’re gone from me
And I from them
And I from you
Separated by shrinkwrap

Intangible, really
But still I’m apart; can’t you see it?
They all see it

Sometimes I don’t
I wish I didn’t
I wish I wasn’t
But it is
And I am

And I’ll never be
And why are they
And why am I here if not to be here?
If not to be heard and seen and touched

But there is a wall between us

Outstanding. Glad you shared this.