Hi there,
I am looking for some honest advice from others who are going/have been through the process of autism diagnosis in adulthood.
Some background: I am a female in my 30s. I have OCD (diagnosed in teens) and anxiety (recently diagnosed). I have always done well academically, gained 2 degrees and I work within the healthcare sector. However, throughout my life I have always felt ‘different’ to my peers - but put this down to my OCD. Over the years, several people have made flippant comments about me having ‘autistic traits’, which I never really paid attention to tbh
Over the past 6 months or so, I’ve looked more in depth at my OCD (as I was going through counselling). However, another recent comment from a colleague had me looking into undiagnosed autism and I now can’t get the thought of it out of my head. I have done several of the autism screening tests, all of which have returned high scores:
AQ-10 - 8
AQ-50 - 34
RAADS-R - 126
I’ve begun noting down some characteristics as I notice them:
*I like routine, and struggle with change to routine/plans
*I like to be in control of situations, and like to carefully plan ahead
*I feel the need to complete tasks perfectly/completely right, and I really dislike not completing a task before moving on
*I see everything in black & white
*I struggle to build/maintain relationships, outwith family I have 1 friend (I have work colleagues, but don’t socialise outside of work as this is something I really struggle with)
*I find social interactions difficult - making/maintaining eye contact, often struggle to interpret peoples thoughts/feelings, I very often worry I’ve upset or angered people after I’ve finished a conversation even if there’s no indication of this.
*Social events make me very anxious - since my teens, I can count on one hand the number of social events I have attended without a close fanimus member or my husband with me
*I will often talk very fast when anxious/in a group of people or if discussing something which heavily interests me
*I will point out small mistakes (even in conversations, much to my husbands annoyance!)
*As a child I was a very fussy eater, much of it was down to food textures in my mouth - certain foods would literally make me gag. I am still like this with textures, although I am less fussy
There may be others I haven’t noticed/listed as of yet.
I am apprehensive about following this up, as I am worried I’m overthinking/worrying and would be wasting peoples time. There’s aspects of my life/characteristics that make me believe I am just worrying over nothing - for example, I am married with children, can deal well with loud noise (concerts/football crowds etc), I loved imaginative/role play as a child. I also worry that some of these could just be classic characteristics of OCD/GAD instead of autism traits
I guess I am worried I am referred for assessment, have a long wait and then waste peoples time to be told I don’t have autism. Have others been through similar and could offer me advice?