Age and the practicality of seeking an assessment/diagnosis

I'm a white straight Jewish Brooklyn boy who settled here in the early seventies with my English wife. You write about "Coming Out" ??  Illegal imigrants are treated better than me!  I am the town pariah despite my many efforts to integrate and engage. It must be me. I have been freindless for so long, I have developed subconcious  avoidance tactics as a defense mechanism against social engagement owing to the continual social---and occasionally official ---- letdowns I have experienced over the past 52 years here. There is nothing you can tell me about the struggle for respect and rights.  Perhaps three USAF bases in this area may have something to do with my experiences, but I will never understand why I am treated badly --- so it must be me!

I’ve been diagnosed in 2021 at age 51 and as an older Irish gay man, but what surprised me the most was that so many people in the LGBT community have autism - the process of “coming out” as being autistic after 21 years living in the U.K. has been much more difficult than “coming out” as gay as a traditional Catholic in Rural Ireland in my teens in the 1980’s - the parallels with the struggle for LGBT rights and equality almost match those struggles for those of us with autism and I’ve also seen a lack of autism support within LGBT groups both here in the U.K. and in my native Ireland 

I would love to go and get diagnosis but I honestly feel too embrassed to go to a Dr at nearly 40 years old. My son is autistic and my daughter has dyspraxia so it makes sense that I am on the spectrum. I have struggled socialising my whole life I don't have friends. Since having my son diagnosed I have seen alot of traits in myself.

I had long suspected that I was autistic when I was diagnosed at 62 a year ago.

My doctor had said it was pointless seeking a diagnosis, as I had lived all my life with few problems.  But believe me, I had not had no problems.  It was just that the problems were being masked, that I suffered from anxiety and depression it never occurred to my GP that this may have been partly as a result of being autistic.

In every autistic person, adults as well as children, there is some sort of explosive within, awaiting detonation.  For that is what an autistic meltdown is like.  And that point was reached with me at work which when it did eventually go off led me to five months off work with severe anxiety.

Since diagnosis, I have managed to get some adjustments at work.  Access to work was a great help, as was my local autism charity who provide me with three hours of support per month paid for by Access to Work.  There was also training provided for my work colleagues in the difficulties I face.  Of course, I had to 'come out' as autistic for this.

I would not by any means say my problems are over.  But now they recognise at work that I have a 'disability' covered under the Equality Act, I have rights under the law which I am in the process of asserting, not easy due to the complete intransigence of managers to understand that autism cannot be cured and they think a good stern talking to and I will magically change into a neurotypical.  I am glad to say I won't.  I am not ashamed of being autistic and cannot understand a lot of the ways of neurotypicals.  I do however understand that it takes all sorts to make Bertie Bassett and there is room in this world for many different ideas (even though mine are usually right).

I have never regretted my diagnosis and now, at last, for the first time in my life I feel I can be 'me'.

Former Member Am I rude for asking if you have a spouse, children or siblings? I ask because I'm an NT spouse & mother - the only NT in the house & this explanation of preferring no behaviour change or to "fit in" is often given to me by my ASD spouse & young adult daughter. It's become a very old & destructive perspective in the household, requiring me to live entirely in an ASD world with zero accommodation or attempts at perspective change to benefit my needs as an NT person. I understand the unique gifts my spouse & daughter have accrued & developed in light of their autism, but not the 100% refusal to adapt anything for another's (& ultimately their own) benefit. I must constantly adapt & change to accommodate their needs & those of others. If you were asked to change & adapt for the benefit of another, would you attempt to do so? What would convince you to attempt such changes; what words from an NT would convince you to change your perspective &/or behaviours in select situations? In our home, the ASD diagnosis is not used by those diagnosed as a tool to help themselves, rather as a weapon & I'd like to find ways to encourage voluntary change. Suggestions? 

Yesterday I was really thinking I was schizophrenic and starring in the movies 'psycho/fight club'...

I had to make a tough choice. My wife and children (13/15) wanted to go and see the fireworks display. I usually stayed home, but with some weird thoughts in my brain, decided to go along... As you will read here, I'm now a hypochondriac that read on doctor google that 30% of all autists have epileptic seisures, so decided that that was also my faith. Now I had some moments before where I felt a bit 'off' after working out... 

My mind has to swallow now that my mother (80) had an epileptic seisure in our family living room. I had a talk with her half an hour before it happened. She suddenly proclaimed that this is where she would like to spend the rest of her life. She would be very quiet and we didn't have to feed her that much... I took this very serious, I consider it an honor (still do), Out of four children, I'm the one who 'turned out normal'. I was the third child. My father committed suicide when I was nine. He hung himself on my older sister's birthday. He came home from the mental institution, found a rope on the staircase, and decided to use it to hang himself. I still have nightmares how he 'could have been singing, 'hey Lidia, happy birthday to you...', or more empatic, how he would have regretted and wanting to undo his decision. I hated him, he punched my mother in the face a while before, I wished him dead, Can a nine-year old autistic boy come up with a plan to plant a rope on the staircase? I wasn't even aware he was away and we had no idea he would come home (escape) that day. I'm afraid now tomorrow I'll go back to that house and find some clues. 

The day after, I was in school (it happened in the evening, why did they send me to school? probably needed to clean the house, but why did we not have a friend that could keep me company?) The principal took me out of the classroom. Helped my tie my shoelaces, and told me what happened. I stayed the whole day at school. They seem to have forgotten to tell me to go home... Or did they want to keep me there, so the house could be properly cleaned? my mother doesn't have a proper answer until now, she thinks they were also a bit shaken and just forgot to tell me I could now go home... Or they told me, but after 'dead', the rest was just bla bla to me...

I remember my dad saying 'my left fist puts you in the hospital, my right fist on the graveyard'... I let this sink in (8 years old) and ran back in the house and shouted 'your left one puts you in the mental institution, and the right one in prison'... A brave little fighter, was I not? with words... He wasn't really threatening me in person, just proclaiming it to the world in general. My grandfather (His father) didn't like him one little bit. Further about my father... Once he left me in the station of Brussels and policemen had to take care of me. The only point of interest around that station is the red light district... He was then found and having a nervous breakdown and had to be taken to an asylum. I think my mother was scared a lot about him hurting me...We went rather often (I recall 4 times) on the ferryboat from Ostend to Dover. He seemed to like that a lot.  Imagine as a mother how it must be if your husband and son leave for the weekend without knowing when you would be back or where you went. There's a lot more. My life is an endless string of bizar and stupid situations, strange decisions. The silver lining of it all is that I always took opportunities that were given. My brother luckily advised me to become an Agricultural engineering (a lifesaver). He studied to work in social psychology. Big mistake, without proper working empathy that is not an option. Don't use a screwdriver to hammer in nails! I digress. I'll gladly tell more... I'm rather afraid that I'm actually schizophrenic... that my nine year old self killed my father with the wish of him never to lay hands on my mother again'... psycho (the movie) stuff. This could not have happened. Also, my mother had no way of knowing he would come home on that day... And the act was his decision... he did an attempt to do it before... he showed a social worker while I was standing next to him... I remember something... probably him about my mom... but I'm not sure...  if you tell her she's a cow, she'll eat grass and you can milk her.  He had no friends, when he married my mother, he used her savings to buy a motorcycle. 

Others have responded and have covered all that I would say. I have just been diagnosed and I am 67. It explains a lot. Why I always felt different, square peg in round whole. I have pretended to like the parties, the surprise, the chance meetings that are my worst nightmare. It helps me to know that there is a explanation. My challenge now is who to tell and how. Also I plan on removing myself from situations which I know are most uncomfortable. I will not escape them all but I will save myself where possible from the acute anxiety that these situations cause. I regret so much that this was not picked up earlier but back then when I was young nobody knew about autism. 

That's exactly it - the benefit from that confirmation. 

I had a referral to a course of DBT especially developed for autistic people.  But I didn't go in the end.  So much of it seems to be about adapting/improving(?) behaviour in order to make us fit in better.  And I really would prefer not to fit in!  I've felt like an outsider for most of my life, and I don't see myself changing now.  Quite frankly, it helps me to be on the outside looking in.  It's what drives my writing.

I fully believe that I have Autism-even though I am waiting for the doctor to organise a proper diagnosis. 

Everything -to a greater or lesser degree that I have read here about the Autistic life experience fits in with my own

experience. I am 59 and feel that in many ways it is simply too late to work at but I would benefit enormously by having a

confirmation from the professionals, if nothing else, I am constantly attacking myself for my failings and mistakes and the

confirmation that perhaps not Every single screw-up could be laid at my feet because of my own laziness, stupidity or

ineptitude would be a welcome development.

I'm really glad I went for my diagnosis, and got it at 56.  It was the validation I needed.  My life made sense to me from that moment.  I knew I was on the spectrum, of course - but I wanted it acknowledged.  I wanted it on paper.  Incontrovertible.  My mental health, always precarious, has improved because of it.  Because no longer do I have to make excuses for not being like everyone else.

Another way of looking at it is that the more there are diagnosed, the more the Gvt can see there are needs to meet. 

Yes, diagnosis doesn't turn the clocks back, it can't change anything. Knowing goes some way to understanding and dealing with it. 

I saw an article somewhere that it gets worse with age, so, if I may have a flippant moment, you could offer yourself to science as a medical case study!  Case A001. 

Hello. I'm 45. I just received a full diagnose last month.

They told me my behaviour could be fully explained by autism, and I didn't suffer from manic depression nor paranoia. 

If it's a disease for some aspects of my life, it has perks. I can go through lines of code and see errors where others seem blind.

There is no cure, but I find it helps a lot to allow myself a lonely hobby. Playing computergames from the 90's and gardening. Both hobbies with highly predictable results and sufficiently boring for the brain to start pleasantly purring. The diagnose helped the people around me (two teenagers and my wife) to better accept this. 

It really depends on why you want a diagnosis and what benefit you perceive from it. If you want it because it’s like an itch you can’t scratch and you need an answer then a self assessment would go a long way to getting to the itch. If however you want it for more practical reasons then it maybe worthwhile if the help you are hoping to access actually exists. That would be my take on it

Andrew