I don't think I'm autistic but ...

Wait, you're 70 years old...

And this thread is 3 years old.

Hmnn, okay, ...

On stigma: yes, it was true. Me, 70yrs old. I was given a diagnosis ( I am beginning to resent that word), just not the right one. In hindsight I would have preferred ND to what they did label me for, but it was common, then to assume females, even if they ticked all the boxes, were not part of the ND paradigm. There are other tests and a few good channels on youtube that you can, quietly and on your own, explore. that is how it begins for many of us.  Here is one of my favs:

Se if the shoe fits. ..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXz9TpKGd5g

hear hear! ditto - same withe the mopping!

I only realised how to tie my shoelaces recently at the age of 53. But my mum has never been able to tie her shoelaces so she never taught me.

Shoelaces are a right MOFO! 

I have issues with shoelaces too, was amazed to find that that was a thing and that other people struggled too.

Glad that this thread has helped you. Have a great Christmas.

Thank you everyone for the replies. all very helpful and insightful. I agree with those comments that say I shouldn't take online tests too seriously, I don't know why I got so upset by this and did every test available, each time thinking it would come back with a low score and each time coming back with a high one! I don't have anyone else to talk to about this so it was good to get the collective insights and wisdom of this community who have been through all this already.

I don't know what to think at the moment. I took the advice to dive more deeply into the experiences of those who have late diagnosis of autism to see if anything resonates and the answer is ... quite a lot. An awful lot as it happens. I then started proactively searching my various quirks and eccentricities to see if they would be thought of as 'autistic'. My picky eating and various food aversions? Yes. The fact that I don't like being touched? Yes. That I hate going to the hair dressers? Yes. That I get overwhelmed and exhausted by social chitchat? Yes. Things got so silly at one point that I wondered if my lifelong struggle with shoelaces could be ... yes, whole youtube videos on this. It never occurred to me that my problems with shoelaces could be in any way related to my inability to flirt, but there you go.

I have reflected on whether there were any signs in my childhood. I remember that my middle school wanted my parents to let me see a child psychologist for behaviours that I now know (new word for me) are called 'stimming.'  For awhile my parents would use sending me to the psychologist as a threat. I also remember lots of hearing tests when I was young, which is odd as I had (and still have) excellent hearing. So maybe there were signs that weren't picked up properly. 

On balance I'm glad I didn't go through an assessment and am unlikely to go through one now. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, I think I would have been stigmatised rather than helped. Maybe it would have been reassuring to know that my failure to get a girlfriend until my late 20s was not my fault, on the other hand I can see from this forum that a diagnosis doesn't make people any happier about being unlucky in love. And I'm still skeptical about being autistic - I have all the symptoms of Covid too but am (thankfully) testing negative, correlation doesn't equal causation.

Whether or not an expert would assess me as being on the spectrum, it's certainly been enlightening to find out that there is a whole community of people in the world who have experiences that I thought unique to me. Have a good Christmas everyone.

I just don't see the point of tidying up. It only gets messy again so why bother? Like putting on make up. I've only got to take it off again, so why bother?

My room is, predominately, a tip. Joggers, and jackets, on the floor; rather than the wardrobe.

I'm the same;

I used to be obsessed with Motor Racing, but lost interest given time. Once I learned to drive, for myself, driving was a necessity rather than pleasurable.

This is a really rude and unnecessary remark. Facebook uses targeted advertising based on your browsing history. You would fund after googling the AQ tests that Facebook would likely start advertising them to you, so actually tests suggested by Facebook are not necessarily meaningless after all. 

I'm extremely untidy, unclean even. My executive function is often very poor. 

I initially thought I didn't care for routines. It is amazing how much routine you can begin to notice when you look beyond routine being equivalent to a schedule. Timing is only one type of routine, but order to things is also routine. Sameness is routine. I then realised I do seek routine, and when I am forced to deviate from those routines then I do become really unwell with anxiety. 

That's the exact description of my life, BassFace. The older I get, the more life seems out of control and I don't know what to do and how to cope. Yet I'm expected to know and cope.

It took me until the age of 64 to know that I was autistic. 

I had a pretty good job for decades and thought "I can't be autistic if I'm doing this, can I?"  Then I read about Vice Admiral Nick Hines, No 2 in the Royal Navy until recently and a former nuclear sub commander who is autistic.  It was like reading about myself, so I checked out a credible psychiatric consultant with my GP and got a diagnosis a few weeks later.  Bit of a shock.

I, too, do not present typically in some ways. In others, I do.  We're all individuals and there isn't an approved profile.   I'm high functioning, not affecting language or cognition.  I've been a journalist, corporate consultant, company director, and private pilot.  I've sailed, been a high mileage driver most of my life, and been at the table when some ground-shaking corporate events were being decided, in the US, UK and Europe.  And yep, as it turns out, I'm autistic.

So your doubts do, indeed, resonate.  But once I'd had the diagnosis, and given it time to mature in my mind, s-o-o-o many cogs fell into place, and so many things made sense.

I contacted Nick Hines and thanked him for putting me on the right path, and as he said "it's better to know".  And yes, it is.  I wish I'd known at 20, and if I had, some milestone life decisions would have been made from a more informed base, and would have gone a different way. 

But that's in the past.  From this point, I can navigate a neurotypical world with greater confidence and assurance, and that's an outcome I'll accept, even if it came a little late in life.

Hope that helps.  Wishing you all the best, whatever route you decide on.

This is exactly how I feel! I felt safe when my life had a fixed structure like when I was at school, now I'm an adult I feel like everything is chaotic and unpredictable and it makes me constantly stressed but I can never manage to decide upon the best routine so it's always changing.

You're welcome :)

I should say, I've never done an IQ test, I was using the phrase euphemistically as the previous post did.

Blue said:

describe wanting a routine but struggle to stick to one.

Story of my life! Thanks for the insights.

Autism is a spectrum, its not just about behaviours but how you process information and interpret the world around you.

Autism comorbid with ADHD manifests in strange on conflicting habits that can easily go unseen for decades before anyone actually notices that something is different about you.some people with both disorder describe wanting a routine but struggle to stick to one.

Often the individuals with Average or above intelligence with both autism and ADHD are often misdiagnosed with bipolar, depression, chronic anxiety, dissociative disorder, or post traumatic stress but the identifying feature that can be seen is that it is either individuals with autism, ADHD or both is how they respond to medications used to treat these disorder.

Individuals with autism and ADHD do not often benefit from antidepressants as these medication do not affect patients in the appropriate way. some of these medication that treat anxiety and depression make ADHD behaviour worst and some of these medication make masking autism more difficult or alter sensory experiences.

From experience i do not have a typical autism profile in that even though i am male identify with the new stereotypical profile of Autism in females in that i will do anything to try and mask and camouflage myself but this isn't possible for me to do for too long as it creates a deficit in energy. I had repeatedly experience uncontrollable emotional outburst which i know understands is autism related. I have strange episodes of hyperfocus and episodes where i just can't do anything because i get overwhelmed. I often fight with myself internally because i like to keep to a structure but often get overwhelmed by the newest or littlest change in that structure will make me deconstruct a single task to the point they become super overwhelming.

The test has to be done under quite tight timed conditions. So just because you can answer (or set) an question aimed at someone with an IQ of 159 doesn't mean you would necessarily get 159 on the test.

Whether or not you think that's a good way to measure intelligence, is another question. It favours people who think clearly under pressure and make quick judgements rather than getting caught up persevering on a single question.

(I never did an official test but I did some I found in a book, and a different one online.)