Published on 12, July, 2020
It was suggested to me by my psychotherapist in the summer that I might be autistic. I have since done a lot of research and can identify with some of the signs but not all of them. Although my GP has agreed to refer me for an assessment, I sense that he has not taken it that seriously and doesn't believe that I'm actually autistic. I have learnt that girls and women are good at hiding their difficulties and, being in my late 40s now, I will have learnt to adapt to survive so far. Does anyone have any advice they can give me about what it's like for a woman in her forties to pursue a diagnosis? Also, does anyone share my sense that they can really identify with some symptoms of being on the spectrum but not all of them? I feel I would benefit from talking to someone who has already been through the experience and any help or advice they can give me.
Hi Guinea Pig Fan
I also love guinea pigs and I have 2 :-)
I was diagnosed a few months ago at 40. When it was suggested to me 2 years ago (waiting list for the assessment was 18 months) I completely blew off the suggestion thinking that it was ridiculous as I am really sociable. Over time waiting for the assessment I began to educate myself about autistic women and realised that actually I am. Also, looking back at my childhood myself and my close family began to see that actually I did have traits all along, but none of knew anything about high functioning autism in females back then.
This is over simplfying things but I know that this is what you have asked, but some of the traits that I now recognise are these.
I cannot lie and my instinct it to be blunt and black and white about things. I have learnt over the years to 'fluffy' things up.
I repeatedly watch the same TV series especially when stressed. I would do this as a child and I still do it now. Before I got Netflix I watched the same film for an hour each night before going to bed for weeks at a time. I would like to watch other things, but I sometimes find other programmes (even food ones) overwhelming and these are comforting. I just let people believe that I don't watch much TV when I say that I haven't seen things.
I repeat sentences in my head if I like how the person has said them. Or instructions. If I did this out loud as a child then my twin sister would tell me off so I do it in my head. ... Nobody knows that I do this.
I am very sociable and I love being around people but I find it exhausting and need lots of alone time to recover. I am very talkative and I've always known that I talk over people as I struggle to know when it's my turn. I have worked on this and I have to constantly remind myself to stay quiet and listen. Other people don't realise this now as I have gotten much better at it.
I use to overshare.
I get really really anxious going to new places or doing new things even though I am sociable ???
I can make small talk really easily and I have lots of acquaintances that I am friendly with, but I struggle to make close friends. I have university friends around the country who I still talk to, but no-one close. I struggle to maintain any close relationship as they get overwhelming.
I can tell if emotions are good or bad but not exactly what they are. I am better with positive emotions, but I struggle to tell the difference in negative ones - anger, irrate, tired, bored. That can cause me to withdraw from some people as I cannot tell what they are thinking and it causes a lot of self doubt.
I am really bothered when my routine changes. My world doesn't end, but I get thrown off and sometimes this means that I am not at my best, whereas at other times it snowballs and everything goes wrong. Which you may think that I am a control freak and I am organised in work but I am disorganised at home. It has taken me YEARS to be able to get myself organised.
Without realising it over the years I had come up with rules about how everything works and how myself and other people should respond in different circumstances. It was only when in more recent years I stopped working with children and worked with adults who did not always follow these rules that I had problems. For example I would know that a nice person should do X but then someone would do Y and I would be really upset. I didn't even know that I was doing it until a psychologist suggested that I had too many rules which I was really angry at her for saying so as I didn't even think that I had rules. Turns out that she was correct.
When questioned about when I was very young I couldn't believe it but apparently my twin sister and I wouldn't respond to people when they called us, played with other children but they joined us and we never went over to them. I also left friends crying and played next to them because I didn't know what to do with them. By the age of 8 I had already learnt lots of social skills as this is when my memory starts and I know that I would never ignore people or do any of these things. I would swear that they weren't describing me!
I have sensory problems with sound and textures of food and clothes.
I do look people in the eyes when I speak to them.
Oh also I have ZERO interest in a specialist subject like autistic men do. I have a poor memory so I couldn't be like that even if I tried lol.
I hope that helps. It has helped me reading your other replies :-). It is nice hearing from other autistic women who are successful in their lives. I wonder what they will say for you :-).
* Sorry for writing so much. It was therapeutic for me writing it all down so I kept going :-).
Hello Echo
Thank you so much for your detailed reply; I have found it so heartening as, like you say, there are plenty of successful autistic women who haven't been diagnosed or, like me, have never had autism suggested to them before! I can really identify with a lot of what you say, although I haven't had an assessment yet and am still in the 'finding out' process. My GP is going to try to refer me to the Lorna Wing centre but we don't know yet if they will agree to the funding.
Like you I also overshare and wear my heart on my sleeve and I can't lie to people.
I am good at small talk too and can be really friendly to people which means I make acquaintances easily but I don't have deep friendships. I don't think I have trouble with eye contact but I do find social meet ups exhausting and try not to plan too much so that I have recovery time. I find it difficult sometimes to understand what people are saying to me and either get the wrong end of the stick or have to ask them to repeat it. In groups you can get away with it but one to one, I worry that people notice it and I'm aware that I might come across as not listening or dopey. As a result I don't have any self-confidence which is why I compare myself to other people and always think they are doing better than me.
I don't repeat sentences but I do talk to myself, particularly when in the supermarket! Once I caught someone looking at me and felt really embarrassed.
I know what you mean about trying to judge people's emotions. Sometimes I'll find myself thinking that I don't know whether someone likes me because one day they'll be friendly and the next day will seem cold. I end up asking my daughter if she thinks they like me which I then feel ashamed of for sharing my doubts with her!
I wouldn't say that I have sensory problems in particular although I'm aware that smell is very important to me. Once in Sports Direct I smelled one of the shoes the staff brought out for me to try on and then he made a comment to me along the lines of how weird you are and I felt really embarrassed afterwards.
Hi :-)
Yes we do have a lot in common! That Sport Direct guy was stupid, but you aren't wierd, you are special in a great way :-). Everyone has different problems in life and these are ours. I have found it so freeing since my diagnosis because I understand myself so much better. I haven't gone round telling everyone, but I am not hiding things with my family and friends anymore, like if I want to swap seats because I don't like the way the sound is coming at me, now I just ask. Before I would have sat there, got a migraine and left early. Now I don't even explain why I just ask someone to swap... the feeling that I have to explain things to people has been really hard to overcome, but it has been a major break through. It has really changed me and it turns out that not explaining things makes zero difference to the way that anyone treats me. I thought before that if I didn't go over why I wanted something then nobody would give it to me. But they do! A nice smile and a polite asking is all that is needed. Who knew! I really advise you to try it. Not with family though, I mean with random people. Like the other day in a wellbeing drumming class I asked if I could change my sticks and I didn't go on about my life story to them about why I wanted new sticks like I would have done before lol.
I am lucky in that because I have an identical twin sister, we were always getting looked at even when standing still lol. So I don't care who is looking at me and I don't get embarrassed at all. I wish I could make everyone see that standing out doesn't have to be negative. I am by no means confident in some areas, but people looking at you doesn't mean bad things. I firmly believe that 95% of people have good hearts and would not want you to feel awful because of them. So I just smile and continue on my way. Assuming that people mean nice things has helped me when not being able to read faces too, because I might back off but I don't go away thinking that they hate me and feeling bad about myself.
Awwww asking your daughter is a really positive thing in my eyes and will deepen your bond. Letting her help you will make her feel so good and the communication will help you to understand each other better. I use to love it when I could help my Mum out because she never showed weakness. My sisters and I have spoken a few times about this and we think that it would have helped us know how to cope with life better if she had admitted some of her struggles to us when we were younger.
Well that's me waffled out hahaha. I am so bad for writing long messages lol. I really enjoy reading the other women's messages so perhaps you and they won't mind :-)