People with later life diagnosis

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I would be really interested to hear in peoples late life diagnosis stories.

I am not sure if I am on the ASD, but some things point to it while others don't quite fit.

So I am hoping by hearing as many experiences as I can might give me some more aha moments.

Feel free to PM me if you don't want to talk in the main discussion forum.

BTW I am a 46 year old woman, if thats any use to anyone

I'm currently waiting for spare time to be diagnosed. I've had many 'aha' moments since discovering aspie. My best friend is an Aspie. He was the first one to ask if I was. That's when I started exploring it. I'm on the search for a professional view.

Hi,

I got diagnosed in my forties. I wrote about teh diagnosis process in my blog...here:
[url]
https://jofoxadventuresinart.wordpress. ... diagnosis/[/url]

Hope it helps you. Best of luck!

I did read your blog and it was very interesting.

I have had aha moments and I have had well not really moments.

I think I have bubble wrapped myself so well that I have forgotten some things.

I am not sure what to feel.

You speak Glaswegian? Welcome to Wrong Planet!

I was diagnosed with ASD in August at age 53 years. Eighteen months before that, I had subscribed to WIRED magazine and spent the afternoon searching around its web site. I found Steve Silberman's article "The Geek Syndrome" wherein he described the rate of Asperger syndrome in Silicon Valley. Accompanying his article was a auto-scoring version of the University of Cambridge Autism Research.... [Comment length terminated by Captcha]

My dx came 2½ years ago, just before my 60th birthday. Huge relief!
I had the suspicion - or rather, I had always identified with nerds and autistics - to some degree.
My life is full of people, who, after a while began "studying" me as a recognizable, yet strange being, classifying me, doubting me etc. I was psychologically tested at school a few times.
I allways wondered about my social problems and the fact, that I hadn´t succeeded in keeping an "ordinary" job despite a good intelligence and a will to do well. The communication failed.
A lot of wrong diagnoses because of my stress and depressions made me even more stressed out, depressed and uncertain of who I really was.
My psychologists and psychiatrists did note autistic traits - as single traits.
One day I was provoked a bit and began searching. I got two inofficial ASD dxés and started lurking in here.
After a job-trial, that ended with the same accusations as ever: "You don´t listen - you don´t sense, what is going on around you - you´re working too slowly" - I felt the need of being tested - and BINGO.
It is the best thing ever - only I wish it had happened many years earlier, but nobody knew anything about it in my school days.

I can't remember why I started looking into autism, my wife was making hints which didn't really work, I'm sure there must have been more to it. Whatever it was i found out plenty about it and lots of things started making sense. I just knew[i] I was an Aspie. I took online tests which confirmed it. The first test I found had about 200 questions which I rushed a bit, so that when it said you are very likely an Aspie I was sure there was some mistake - perhaps I had rushed too much. So I did it again taking a lot of care and got a higher score, 143 out of 200, I think.
Months went by and I decided that I needed a diagnosis to be sure, which I got last May, at the age of 58. Luckily there was one member of my family (an uncle who lived nearby) who could remember enough of my childhood and was willing to help me.
At the moment I see Aspergers as more of a curse than anything else but at least now, finally, I know for sure what the problem is.[/i]

I may or might not have some answers at this weeks appointment.
My wife began reading articles and books on the subject a couple of years after my pursuit.

Work expectation changes were part of the stimulus.

I hope to find questionnaires for asperger diagnosis wil work for the new spectrum of autism DSM
CHANGE.

I seem to be experiencing this exact same thing. I'm a single mom in my mid-30s. I just recently found this website last week. I seem to be getting worse as I get older. But I seem to experience ALOT of the symptoms, or whatever we call them. I have just started the process of getting a diagnosis but I live in a rural area and there are very few psychologists who work with adults with ASD. The waiting list is more than a year wait and I first need a recommendation from a primary care physician, which I do not have. One of my biggest symptoms (not sure if this is the correct wording) is being touched or even people being in close proximity to me. So I avoid doctors, dentists, getting my hair cut even. I got my haircut yesterday for the first time in 2 years.

I also took one of those tests, but it was a couple years ago and it said I was likely autistic. I've also have had moderate trouble with jobs. I had trouble with attendance. Although, in my defense, most jobs in the private sector are extremely strict about this and quite unfair. I'm a single mom, my kids get sick and so do I. I will never choose my job over my children. My current job seems to be working out well as I work for the government and they tell you exactly what you need to do to stay in good standing and you "earn" time off for sickness and vacation and they are much more forgiving.

Anyway, I'm right now feeling a diagnosis would help me more than hinder. My biggest fear would be that I go through all this, and finally get formally tested and they tell me I'm NOT on the spectrum at all and I will receive no help, no understanding, and everything I feel will be invalidated.

I'm like Mythryel, worried I may hear again there's nothing wrong with me, I just need to try a bit harder, or 'fake it until you make it' or even 'you're just a bit lonely, you need to go out more and meet people' no, joking, but that's what I used to hear from 'specialists' before I got the idea I may be on the spectrum.

I was in fact trying to find out what is going on with me and went to therapy for a couple of months, but the autism idea came from somewhere else, as a coincidence, in September 2015. At first I thought I didn't need an official diagnosis but a few days later I started a new job and I started having problems with a colleague who is obsessed with 'buirding relationship at work' which according to her is interrupting me when I'm doing something to tell me that her daugter just texted her to complain about argument with boyfriend. And then 5 minutes later: 'I'm gonna tell her to tell him to...' And then: oh, she replied that...
Disclosing my possible autism didn't help much. But I managed to convince my GP to reffer me for diagnosis and then I managed to convice people in the diagnostic centre to put me into first available slot.

I'm 38, female, living in the UK. My dad was diagnosed bipolar when he was 50 and since then his mental keeps deteriorating. He's 80 now and I think, he's not bipolar but autistic and he never got proper help. I worry that if I don't get it, I may end up on benefits in a few years, like him. All in spite of my intelligence and ambitions.

I figured out my situation a month ago while preparing a lesson plan on a book featuring a boy with Aspergers. Online tests confirmed my suspicion, as did checking with family and friends. My therapist recommends getting an official diagnosis so I can apply for accommodations for work. At this point I'm so relieved that there is a reason why I'm such a screwball... I'm learning to understand how I function so I can optimize my life and really make the best of the second half of my life!

My late diagnosis story is not typical.

I always knew I was different somehow but thought I was just very shy a loner that type of thing. In the late 1990's my boss said he thought I was a little bit autistic. I thought he was trying to bully me but did think that was a really wierd way of doing it. About 8 or 10 years later I noticed that the charactor Temperence Bones from the TV show Bones was a lot like me. I read a few articles about her and her Aspergers traits and thought I probably have Aspergers also. That is where it stopped, it never became more then a mild curiosity. When I was growing up there still was a lot of shame about seeing a shrink. Also back in college the vast majority of psychology majors were women so I thought looking into oneself was a female thing. I still held these attitudes.

My career which had started out well in the 1980's was gone. My sister is a speech pathologist who works with Autistic kids and figured out her older brother was one. With my brother they staged a soft intervention. It revolved around a finiancial advisor telling me that I was not only hurting myself but potentially messing up my family. A clinicion very experienced in adult autism was found. I was asked if I wanted to see her and I immediatly said yes to the shock of everybody including myself. I guess I was ready. This was in 2013. At that point the relief, this explains everything, there are others like me happened. I equate it to a second birthday. And here I am.

I realize in the support and luck departments I am more fortunate than 95 plus percent of the Autistics in the older age groups. That is why I am an admirer and staunch defender of the older self diagnosers. These people did it for the most part all on their own while overcoming endless obstacles and people discouraging and mocking them. Without my good fortune I know I would not be posting here but dead in the street.

I'm 55 and the self tests say I'm an Aspie.

I haven't been officially diagnosed but want to be tested and I think I have found a doctor in my area who diagnoses adults. So many doctors only diagnose young children.

I want an explanation for the areas in life I have failed miserably in. I have huge social difficulties. I can't manage my life like other people. I have major anxiety about those and other things.

I think if a doctor confirmed that I am an Aspie I would be able to accept myself instead of feeling like a failure.

Hi.
I am a 44 year old male. Born on Scotland living in Australia. I was diagnosed late last year and still working through who I am, ( I tbought o knew). I have an aq score of 32 and eq
Score of 12.
I was a loner from puberty. I have had several failed relationships and 2 failed
Marriages. I do well in jobs ( until I learn the job and master it) but then get bored and frustrated at others who just
Dont seam to care or want to improve things, ( including management), which causes me to get worked up and need to quit.
I've always thought I was a screw up.
I cant put up with other people or there (to me mundane) issues. This makes me dislike myself.
I can do things I enjoy for days and think its only been hours.
I only survived because from age 16 I self medicated with alcahol. ( unfortunately this masked the autism). People who knew me and my quirks/ issues just thought it was alcahol based.
Since my diagnosis I quit drinking. Unfortunately im in an even worse place at moment. No mental health or life assistance yet. Im agraphobic suffer depression and anxiety.
Worse I have lost all my maladaptive coping techniques ( alcahol canabis). All exept self harm. ( burning of arms).
Which I haven't done since I was 16.

Im still here tho and fighting to understand what being an aspie means to me anf even if it changes anything or am I just a screw up even with aspergers.

It would be so easy to just drink and smoke myself back Into life. But I know
Thats just relief not an answer.

Hi Markie,

Your right that going back to drinking and smoking would be a mistake.

I think if you stayed in Scotland you might never of known considering the amount of people here
who self medicate to avoid many things.

I am not sure if I have it or not as I often read about peoples life really hitting fan so to speak.

Yeah I have had ups and downs but not as marked as many with late diagnosis.

I have put up a bubble for years and rarely ventured outside of it, and when I did just thought
" whats this ? whats all the hype about "? Then crawled back into my bubble where I could be safe and me.

I have the doctor tomorrow, and will ask her to refer me for testing, although I am sure it is a 6 to 12 month
waiting list.

At least I don't have to worry about insurance, or costs as it should be carried out on the NHS

Hi
Yea in Scotland id still be drinking probely dead even.
The hardest part for me is knowing what's the aspergers inside and what's just me.
My empathy is so low that I spent all my life assuming that all my thoughts anxiety and problems were normal.
Now im wandering through life second guessing and moderating my actions and thoughts.
Im very confused. ( who the hell am i? ).
Australia isnt very good with assistance ( in my opinion.) But ive heard the NHS is better.

Hope you can find some answer. I sure could use some lol.