Just been to see my GP - and had a surprise.

Welcome, Meccano Man.

As you can see already from the previous posts, this situation is quite typical for autistic adults. Like you, I had a shopping list of mental health conditions stretching back to my late teenage years, and it wasn't until a mental health worker started looking through my previous history in my mid-forties that anyone thought to look into why my mental health problems should have been so persistent and untreatable for so long. Unfortunately, once you have other diagnoses on your medical records, it is all too easy for other medical staff to make no effort to look beyond them, and reported traits often get ascribed to one or another existing diagnosis. Aside from staff who specifically deal with developmental conditions, understanding of autism is generally very poor, even up to the level of senior psychologists. Ironically, autistic people are often much more objective in their insights into their own state of mind than they are given credit for, and it's not unusual for the things which we notice to be put down to delusional thinking, especially the "negative thinking" associated with depression.

Meccano Man said:

I know I shouldn't have but I read up on Asbergers

There is no reason that you shouldn't do this; in fact, I recommend that you do. Since my assessment, I have realised that there are many behaviours and events in my life which I could have reported to the psychologist who assessed me, but didn't because I had no idea that they were autism related. To a well trained assessor, autism isn't something that is easily faked; the behaviour might be simulated to some extent, but not the invisible perceptual and cognitive differences in which they are most interested. Talking to people here will give you a much better idea of how you fit (or don't fit) the diagnosis of autism than any description of easily observed stereotypical autistic behaviours. It is no so much about what you do as about why and how your perceptions and cognition lead you to behave the way that you do. Not all of us experience all of the typical traits, or we may cover them up for the sake of an easier time with other people, and after many decades, may not even realise that we are doing this.

Pre-diagnosis (and even post-diagnosis) doubts and "imposter syndrome" are very common; most of us late-diagnosed adults have been there before. Don't let them put you off seeking the truth, whether that be autism or anything else. It's better to be assessed and proved wrong than to spend decades more with the desperation to know eating away at you.

Welcome, Meccano Man.

As you can see already from the previous posts, this situation is quite typical for autistic adults. Like you, I had a shopping list of mental health conditions stretching back to my late teenage years, and it wasn't until a mental health worker started looking through my previous history in my mid-forties that anyone thought to look into why my mental health problems should have been so persistent and untreatable for so long. Unfortunately, once you have other diagnoses on your medical records, it is all too easy for other medical staff to make no effort to look beyond them, and reported traits often get ascribed to one or another existing diagnosis. Aside from staff who specifically deal with developmental conditions, understanding of autism is generally very poor, even up to the level of senior psychologists. Ironically, autistic people are often much more objective in their insights into their own state of mind than they are given credit for, and it's not unusual for the things which we notice to be put down to delusional thinking, especially the "negative thinking" associated with depression.

Meccano Man said:

I know I shouldn't have but I read up on Asbergers

There is no reason that you shouldn't do this; in fact, I recommend that you do. Since my assessment, I have realised that there are many behaviours and events in my life which I could have reported to the psychologist who assessed me, but didn't because I had no idea that they were autism related. To a well trained assessor, autism isn't something that is easily faked; the behaviour might be simulated to some extent, but not the invisible perceptual and cognitive differences in which they are most interested. Talking to people here will give you a much better idea of how you fit (or don't fit) the diagnosis of autism than any description of easily observed stereotypical autistic behaviours. It is no so much about what you do as about why and how your perceptions and cognition lead you to behave the way that you do. Not all of us experience all of the typical traits, or we may cover them up for the sake of an easier time with other people, and after many decades, may not even realise that we are doing this.

Pre-diagnosis (and even post-diagnosis) doubts and "imposter syndrome" are very common; most of us late-diagnosed adults have been there before. Don't let them put you off seeking the truth, whether that be autism or anything else. It's better to be assessed and proved wrong than to spend decades more with the desperation to know eating away at you.