adult diagnosis - woman in her late 40s

Try 50s pushing 60, lol. Diagnosed yesterday.

If anyone had suggested to me last Christmas that I was autistic, I would never have wrapped my head around it. In fact, I ignored it as a potential source of my problems for a long time. What have I got in common with a kiddie in melt down on a supermarket floor?

...that was until 'melt down/shut down emerged as the only plausible descriptor of what I was going through. I then did a good old dig and dive into autism and yup! The childhood indicators were all there - I'd just gotten might good over the years at finding ways to cope such that you wouldn't easily see them all now. 

God, life has been exhausting.

Let the professionals dig and what you don't think is there - it might be. 

Emotional understanding, say. Hey! I'm good at that....errrr I'm analysing my way to understanding others, not reading instananeously their body language cues. Others just read the cues???? Really, who knew? .The whole damn NT world apparently, but not me. I thought everyone had to analyse to the nth degree what people say and their circumstances to know what they think and feel. Apparently not.

Try really questioning the processes you're going through to manage the bits you don't think you fit. How are you really doing it? Is it the same or different to how others are doing it?

Remember there are some criteria which have to be met for diagnosis, but other symptoms are present in some people with autism but not others, or swing between extreme; say problems organising yourself to being hyper- even rigidly organised.

Hello Catlover,

I hope your assessment goes well!
I can relate to what you say, that you worry that you are just seeing autistic traits in yourself because you are looking for confirmation and certainty. 

You won't have long to wait now.  Hopefully it will all feel better once you get a diagnosis.

I learnt to tell the time quite late. When I did, I did it visually; I recognise time from the clock face itself. That means I have great difficulty with digital clocks and if asked the time in the street, I often cannot translate the image of the hands on the watch into words. If asked, I often point to my empty left wrist to avoid answering,  though I always have a pocket watch on me. I cannot stand the irritation of the strap of a watch around my wrist,

Yes that is the same for me. My timekeeping is generally very poor, apart from hating to be late for anything with a set time. 

I’ve just been diagnosed at 39. I was worried that the assessor wouldn’t be up to date with female presentation but she was. She was very aware of the nuance in diagnostic traits and asked probing questions to really understand what it’s like for me. I was ready (if it hadn’t worked out as expected) to say “are you aware of how females present differently to males?” But I didn’t need to and I’m pleased to say I had a positive assessment process.

A lot of the time I would answer “I’ve managed to overcome that problem by doing x y or z”. For example, I can go to the supermarket (because as an adult I have to!) but I wear noise cancelling headphones (and have the same strict list every week) and this helps me cope with the overwhelming sensory input.

I used to have frequent meltdowns but I’ve learnt to predict them and talk through my problems or have a “day off”. So I get totally overwhelmed.

I don’t relate to the collecting things and intense interests in the stereotyping way but my assessor asked more detailed questions about whether I’m ok throwing things away etc.

You don’t need to relate to all the traits in the stereotypical ways. I was worried to say I’m training to be a counsellor as stereotypically autistic people “can’t feel empathy”, but it’s not that straight forward.

Hope that helps x

I can relate a lot to this. 

Firstly, it doesn’t matter what your GP thinks. And secondly, you don’t need to have all traits. I’ve only recently realised this myself. My assessment starts in December. I’m 48. When I realised I probably had Autism, I put it out of my mind. I knew my whole life had been a struggle, but felt I didn’t have many traits, including stimming, routine, food sensitivities, meltdowns etc. 
Over the last year I’ve done a lot of analysing. I do have quite regimental routines, but this is usual for me, so I didn’t think it was a factor. There are foods I avoid, I do stim and I can attribute past experiences where I acted ‘like a child’, shouting, screaming, stomping my feet, hitting things, not realising I’d hurt myself, and feeling somewhat embarrassed after the event which was out of my control.

I don’t think my interests were ‘excessive enough’, or particularly scholarly, and I don’t ‘like numbers’ or scientific things. I give great eye contact, but of course I had to learn this, and monitor it whenever I speak to someone.

There so much I could write about  but all I’ll say is keep looking at your life in detail. Things might become apparent.

The thing is, deep down, I worry, am I just finding these things, so they fit in with some of the traits? I won’t believe I am in the spectrum until a professional tells me. I was exactly the same with my daughters process. I knew what she had. I’d known for years and no one listened (she’s high functioning). But I needed it to be said and on paper for it to be a ‘fact’.

I had the same problem. Then I realised that my difficulty with perceiving time affected my desire for routines. Though I like things to be predictable, and dislike change, I have no requirement for things to happen at a certain time or in a certain order. My need for a safe and predictable environment is fully autistic, but the means of achieving this is not through set routines. I suspect my difficulties with time are a result of how my particular autistic brain functions.

Hello there,
I'm 39 and waiting for an assessment.  Hopefully it will be next spring.
I can relate to your feeling of identifying with some autistic traits, but not all of them.  At the beginning, this really unsettled me, because I strongly related to some autistic people's experiences but not others, which left me constantly hovering between being sure that I was autistic, and at other times, really doubting it.  

But now I realise that the autistic spectrum is a collection of traits, and everyone will have a slightly different combination, and the same traits will express themselves in different ways in different people.  I found descriptions like this helpful:  This Graphic Shows What the Autism Spectrum Really Looks Like | The Mighty

I haven't yet had my assessment, but hope I can help if you have any questions.

I didnt relate to the idea of needing routines, but when I looked more into that more I realised I was just viewing it in a very rigid way. 

I was diagnosed this year, (I'm 41) and I never suspected I was autistic. My psychologist asked if I wanted to do some different tests, and it turned out I scored super high on the autistic test. My first feeling, as she told me the results, was that of a mask being torned of me, and also like a lot of things fell in to place. I was recommended to read a book by Jenara Nerenberg called Divergent Mind - Thriving in a world that wasn't designed for you. She is a journalist who was diagnosed late, and she gives so many great examples of what being neurodivergent is, but also how diverse we all are. We are not the same, we have different experiences and neurodivergent trates. What we have in common is that we are neurodivergents 

I'm 36 and was diagnosed earlier this year. Yes I can identify with some and not other traits. It's probably like this for many which is why it's a spectrum.  I'm quite "high functioning". Maybe read / youtube lianne halliday-wiley or sarah Hendrickx.