Hi, I'm new. Late diagnosed autistic woman

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Hi, I'm an almost 38 year old woman (birthday in a few days), from Northern Ireland. Received a late diagnosis of autism at the start of summer 2024, and am also suspected to have ADHD. I am a mum of 4. My eldest child also has autism and ADHD. He was diagnosed 10 years ago with ADHD and 8 years ago with autism. As he has gotten older, I guess I noticed a lot of similarities between us, and slowly came to the realisation that I may too be neurodivergent.

Along with my neurodivergence, I also have quite severe social anxiety. I've been trying to work on this for the past couple of months, as it's gotten to the point that it's quite debilitating, and impacting my quality of life. I was working until recent years, until daily panic attacks associated with the social anxiety kind of got in the way. It was at this point that I decided to look into an autism assessment. I wanted to find out if it was "just" social anxiety causing the panic attacks, or if my social struggles were perhaps in relation to being autistic. Turns out, it's both.

Anyway, this introduction has unintentionally taken a quite negative tone. I'm actually quite a fun loving, goofy, quirky person. So going forward, I hope to connect with other neurodivergent people on here, and perhaps make a few friends

Welcome to WP! I think you will find quite a few welcoming and interesting folks here.

Hi Dottie.
Welcome to WP

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Welcome to WP! I think you'll find a number of folk here you can relate to.

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

You wrote that both you and your oldest son both have autism. Yes, I think you are right that this condition runs in the family. If you look around, you might even find other members such as uncles and aunts who also have this.

You are finding it more difficult to be yourself. You wrote, "I also have quite severe social anxiety. I've been trying to work on this for the past couple of months, as it's gotten to the point that it's quite debilitating, and impacting my quality of life."

O.K. I will try and help. Stress can accumulate in the human body until it reaches a point where it explodes. There are two things, in my humble opinion that reduces stress and removes it from your body.
1. Strenuous exercise. Your body needs around one hour of strenuous exercise each day to remove stress and keep it off.
2. Sleep. Your body needs at least 2 hours of deep sleep (REM and deep NREM sleep) each night to eliminate stress.

Many times when we get older, we tend to fall short and eventually stress begins to explode inside us. In general autism produces a higher degree of stress then what is experienced by most people. Therefore we need to focus more on eliminating stress from our bodies.

I have autism, a condition known as Asperger's Syndrome. But I use these two means to keep stress under control. I am 76 years old. Generally I walk 1 mile up and down a steep hill each day. Sometimes I go to town and swim a mile at the YMCA pool.

If your sleep is poor, you can maximize your sleep by making your bedroom more suitable and comfortable for sleep by controlling exterior lights/sounds/temperatures to give you the best sleep possible.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Welcome to WP