Hi - Welcome aboard!

I thought I was normal too until I was diagnosed at 42.     There's very little support available to adults with a fresh diagnosis - it's of more use to people in the work environment to ask for adjustments to make their work lives more tolerable.   There is some support for carers but most support is aimed at kids and helping them while they're young and to get them through school.   Even this seems to be a postcode lottery.

It seems to be quite common for us to be labelled as depressed or having other MH problems on the route to ASD diagnosis - it must just be the way we appear to the MH people.

Some common themes seem to be a difficulty in working out the motives of other people, difficulty in social situations, rigid thinking patterns, a need for clear, concise instructions, delaying or missing out on a lot of 'normal' people's path to maturity (we tend to be still into our model trains when others have moved on to girls) and our general persona seems to get us into trouble in the work environment because of all the above.

Like you, I have CFS - and, like you, my sleep is all over the place - like being on here at 2:58am.

Have a look through the threads on here - be kind to yourself - take some time to figure yourself out and what your diagnosis means to you.

thanks 

so reading ur reply there was 1 thing i was brill at turning in tv-video  ( pre digital ).

then retune digital tv boxes and looking and sky digital dish was line up :) .

girls tried and none looked bar 1 aged when i was 20 - married 2 kids . wife got big c 2003 is still here . 

had bowel cancer she ended with bag :( .. but bother as it so was aware of the bag so never worked me up .

working never had was on off dole . some doctor pointed out autism my age i washed it off when i was 18-20-23 etc .

just watching a programme on youtube aged 47 got me overload and ask  for a test was low on score sheet .

but the report on check all was high . ( my problems is over talking - saying the wrong words without think -

give me 10 questions . i keep going back and 2 confusing the person more and gets me worked up .

so answers are in me - wife as worked out some - kids aiso - friends from passed said u was u and we never saw nothink wrong . i asked 45 so called friends ( was passed to 1 back bleep me off and get back then ripped of again again again) 

final 

that i no the answers - and there inside so never going to no them ;-) as the parts of autism is 

autism--Refreshes the parts other autism <<beers>> cannot reach .  just 1 of the 1 lines i do lol .

thanks 

thanks 

so reading ur reply there was 1 thing i was brill at turning in tv-video  ( pre digital ).

then retune digital tv boxes and looking and sky digital dish was line up :) .

girls tried and none looked bar 1 aged when i was 20 - married 2 kids . wife got big c 2003 is still here . 

had bowel cancer she ended with bag :( .. but bother as it so was aware of the bag so never worked me up .

working never had was on off dole . some doctor pointed out autism my age i washed it off when i was 18-20-23 etc .

just watching a programme on youtube aged 47 got me overload and ask  for a test was low on score sheet .

but the report on check all was high . ( my problems is over talking - saying the wrong words without think -

give me 10 questions . i keep going back and 2 confusing the person more and gets me worked up .

so answers are in me - wife as worked out some - kids aiso - friends from passed said u was u and we never saw nothink wrong . i asked 45 so called friends ( was passed to 1 back bleep me off and get back then ripped of again again again) 

final 

that i no the answers - and there inside so never going to no them ;-) as the parts of autism is 

autism--Refreshes the parts other autism <<beers>> cannot reach .  just 1 of the 1 lines i do lol .

thanks 

update i rang more places today and was one for kids :( the manager as autism and give me time of day 30 mins call thanks to him. 
i woken up to the problem of it but kick in the b`b - that it sounds like it adhd aiso and said that the way i was speaking there possible cbt needed , but he wasnt a doctor just given off the record tips . 
northwest near liverpool me . thanks to group for the help so far and users who .
been great that there not just me in the boat with a plug missing ..

Sorry to hear you've had such a rough time.

I took my diagnosis as a turning point to understand what I did that was so different to other people and to understand why I was so different to everyone else.

There's a lot of things I could change about myself - but lots that are hard-wired so I have to find strategies around those.

I still have great difficulty in social situations - I get overloaded and need to leave early to wind-down.    I absolutely cannot work out people's true intentions - I have to wait until enough time passes where their motives become clear - which is normally too late to do anything about it.    My openness and honesty make me an easy target for manipulation. 

I'm comfortable with being still into childish things - I've retained a young outlook, my peers are all sooooo old.

I've found that I like a few, close friends - the rest are acquaintances - people I've met.     I've also noticed that my close friends are probably undiagnosed ASD too - they are very similar to me.

I've had absolutely ZERO support from the MH team - they promised a lot but delivered nothing - so just grab at anything you can get if it's offered.

I've tried joining some ASD social groups but I don't seem to fit in - too young for the oldies, too old for the young ones - a sort of limbo-land for the misfits.