Adult Diagnosis

I'm 47, got the diagnosis about 3 years ago, paid for it myself, I didn't expect I had it, but there you go.

I'm not very good with authority, but in my current job I got better at it. My previous scrummaster, I had a horrible working-relationship with that guy. I changed jobs, and now I try to be more neutral, I work more in IT, but for the Finance department. I'm an engineer in agriculture. I like to refer to these studies as rocket salad science. But somehow programming computers and interpreting accounting info are my cup of tea.

I would advise you this: get a psychologist if you can afford it, once a week. If it's a good match, this person will give you alternatives to certain thinking patterns, It works wonders with me. I also take escitalopram, but the psychologist often helps in seeing things in a different way, so I avoid getting stuck in pointless fights. Best advise in my new job is also she helped me see that often I would apologise for something without being accused, that's often something that draws attention, and it's often unwarranted. 

My sarcastical sense of humour also tends to hurt my prospects, some of my favourite expressions in my previous job:

- I work 4 fifths, but I show up every day... (jokingly admitting that I wasn't working that hard)

- I don't like managers that don't live up to my standards...

- to my boss before that (a woman): you're a good secretary, so I like you as my boss... not good... although I did mean it as a compliment...

- I don't like it here, so I became internal (before I worked for an external company, being internal meant a lot more holiday (12 days more) and working 37 hours a week iso 40. So that triggered my funnybone. Later we also got 2 days telework where externals had only one, so I joked, internals are the ones that are rarely ever here.

I'm afraid at around 40, some sooner, some later, people like us here seem to come to a point of exhaustion, we used to get by on musclepower, but there's actually no real reason to take life so much like a war. I can now afford to see life as a victory (children are 15 and 18, house is paid for, job is ok, ...) so I see life as just running victory laps, it helps a lot in reducing the stress, and I still get things done. If I would get unemployed, I would still survive ...

My experience was the same reaction from the GP.  And I was also told that even if he put me through for an assessment it would be two years at least before I got my diagnosis, but my local authority did not pay for adult diagnoses anyway.

You could ask for another opinion.  But the attitude in many cases seems to be that you have managed all these years so what is the point?  Never mind the fact that in my case I had been suffering bouts of severe depression all my life, that I had frequently been misunderstood, that I had been unemployed for most of my adult life, that I could not get through a job interview despite qualifications, that I was the target for bullying.  The only thing that mattered was that I was in my sixties so things wouldn't change.  

At the time I was undergoing severe problems at work.  I took the only measure I could.  I went 'private'.  Within six weeks I had my diagnosis which helped me get assistance at work from Access to Work, and it resulted in the adjustments I needed.  I can't pretend that this was the end of my problems at work, this is something I have chronicled elsewhere on the forum and won't go into it here.

There are many who believe that a private assessment is not recognised by the NHS.  That is not my experience, and the fact is that those qualified people who offer private diagnoses are invariably employed by the NHS to do assessments.  The NHS constitution also prevents discrimination against those who have had a private diagnosis for any condition, not just autism.   I received a diagnosis pack from my consultant, with his reasons for diagnosis as well as things that could be done to help me both in a work situation and in everyday life.  It was a great help to me.

The only thing I would add is that on receiving the diagnosis there were a strange mixture of feelings.  On the one hand I was very pleased that at last I had a reason for problems throughout my life and a way forward.  On the other there was some sort of 'grieving' for what might have been if this had been recognised throughout my life.  But once this initial reaction had calmed down, there was a much more positive feeling in my life.  I am now very accepting of my condition, iand to me it does not mean I cannot do things.  Just that I do things differently and I think things differently.  And once others realist this, they too are far more accepting of different but unharmful behaviour. After all, it takes Allsorts to make Bertie Bassett.