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Adult Female with ASD

Oscie

Hello there,

I have an issue that I wanted to ask other mature females with ASD. I am in my late fifties. I have some of the classic signs of autism for as long as I can remember. However, over the decades I have 'tweaked' them to appear like everyone else. This is now working against me, as at my ASD assessment the assessor said she thought that I just have a sensory disorder, but that doesn't explain all the other issues mainly with communication that I have. I tried to be as authentic as possible, but I am concerned now that the masking has left it's mark so well, that it almost feels part of me without me being aware. I am worried about being under diagnosed, especially as she mentioned the lack of services!

I am not too sure what to do about this, any advice would be welcomed.

Parents

  • I'm also not female, but I was initially not diagnosed as autistic partly, I think, because of masking.  That was in my early twenties.  Over time, I came to realise that that was the wrong diagnosis and was diagnosed autistic last year aged thirty-seven.

    In the years where I was trying to get rediagnosed as autistic, I made a list of all the traits that seemed to me to indicate autism.  Whenever I did something that made me think, "Oh, that's from my autism," I would add it to the list, including masking behaviours e.g. I noted that I can make small talk a bit, but only because I have memorised 'scripts' of what to say.  I went through Tony Attwood's book The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome noting all the traits I had and also did some reading online.  Sometimes I would find things I did that I never knew were autistic traits!  They went on the list too.  Then, when I managed to get the second assessment, I sent the psychiatrist the document with all those traits.

  • in reply to Oscie

    Do the various autism tests online - AQ10, AQ50 and RAADS-R. If you get scores in the autistic range it will give you good ammunition towards convincing clinicians of your autistic traits.

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