To undiagnosed adults or those diagnosed in adulthood: How did you realize you might be autistic?

Much like most, I spent years not thinking about autist as a possibility due to the sterotypical mute kids with the foreheads being the only 'autists' around but as each attempt to work out why *situation* happened failed over the years I eventually fell onto the ASD trail and like any good treasure hunt I found myself feeling like I was onto something, took an AQ test I found on the internet which returned a high score then pressed forward with my GP who put me in front of a psychiatrist and after a fairly long session she confirmed my suspicions and said she actually had me pinned as autist after about 5 minutes.

From here it was like I had been given the brochure to my own life, suddenly I knew why I suffered the frustrations I did, why people always said I was 'creepy' or 'weird' why I struggled in any situation outside of physical self-defense that required an intense interaction with a normal (oddly I found self defense and martial arts really easy given its all rules and techniques mixed with imaginative flair.

I'm new here but it was my psychiatrist who flagged it up after diagnosing and stabilising my bipolar. I've just got my asd diagnosis today at the age of 49 . It still took 4 years after the psychiatrist mentioning it though due to backlogs and psychiatrists not being able to diagnose. As I'm female and older I was lucky she picked it up at all.

I'm glad it's making some sense of things for you .

I'm new here but it was my psychiatrist who flagged it up after diagnosing and stabilising my bipolar. I've just got my asd diagnosis today at the age of 49 . It still took 4 years after the psychiatrist mentioning it though due to backlogs and psychiatrists not being able to diagnose. As I'm female and older I was lucky she picked it up at all.

I'm glad it's making some sense of things for you .