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Questioning if I have autism in my thirties

Petalsforarmor

Does anyone else get obsessed with certain things? If I love something, I have to learn absolutely everything there is to know about it. If you showed me a 10 second clip from any episode of Buffy, I could tell you the episode title, and which series it was from. I can’t get my head around the fact that there are people who just have interests, but no obsessions. Like how do they live? Lol.

I also really struggle with social interactions. Especially if there are several people I don’t know, I get really overwhelmed and anxious. I find it hard to follow conversations when there are several going on in a room at once. I don’t know who to speak to or what to do, so am often the person sat alone. It takes me forever to feel comfortable around new 

I’m female and in the thirties and I’ve only recently realised that these are autism traits and it’s thrown me a bit. But I’m not sure if I’m just overthinking it. I know no one can diagnose me of course. I’m just wanted to see if others think it’s worth me looking into this more. I also have OCD and get distracted easily.

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  • I'm 39, awaiting an assessment. Many of the things you describe are similar to myself. I wanted to get a canal boat a few years back, subscribed to the canal magazine, watched all the you tube videos, went to the crick show, even bought plans so I could design and build the custom canal boat of my dreams. I also remember obsessing over a TV show called Due South. I wanted to move to Canada! Women on the spectrum can have different traits to men, and it's still being researched so highly recommend reading books by female authors on the spectrum. Rudy Simone has a helpful chart in one of her books - Aspergirls. And I really related to Cynthia Kim who wrote Nerdy, Shy and Socially inappropriate.

    Regardless of if you are formally diagnosed or not, being aware of it, can help you to understand how to cope with situations better. For myself, I now know why I struggled to cope when I was working in Theatre. I doubt I would return to theatre work, but I am looking at returning to dress history which was something I loved, but kind of stepped away from because I was too busy trying to be 'normal', without really knowing what normal meant. 

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  • I'm 39, awaiting an assessment. Many of the things you describe are similar to myself. I wanted to get a canal boat a few years back, subscribed to the canal magazine, watched all the you tube videos, went to the crick show, even bought plans so I could design and build the custom canal boat of my dreams. I also remember obsessing over a TV show called Due South. I wanted to move to Canada! Women on the spectrum can have different traits to men, and it's still being researched so highly recommend reading books by female authors on the spectrum. Rudy Simone has a helpful chart in one of her books - Aspergirls. And I really related to Cynthia Kim who wrote Nerdy, Shy and Socially inappropriate.

    Regardless of if you are formally diagnosed or not, being aware of it, can help you to understand how to cope with situations better. For myself, I now know why I struggled to cope when I was working in Theatre. I doubt I would return to theatre work, but I am looking at returning to dress history which was something I loved, but kind of stepped away from because I was too busy trying to be 'normal', without really knowing what normal meant. 

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