Published on 12, July, 2020
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?
I completely relate to all of the traits you listed and sought a diagnosis last year. I had my assessment last week and was diagnosed with ASD. My son was diagnosed a few years previously and as I researched autism I noticed more and more that explained issues I had felt throughout my life. I also noticed behaviors in him that I could relate to.
Whether to seek diagnosis or not is an individual decision, but for me it was about knowing for sure (instead of 99.99% sure as I have been for a while). Others had said they noticed traits but didn't think I was autistic due to my achievements (similar to yours) but because I am not close to anyone and never open up about it, no-one sees the struggles that I have behind the scenes holding it all together.
I had been referred for CBT and was part way through a course when I got my diagnosis as they felt that a more counselling based therapy may be more appropriate given my news and how this would likely have contributed to issues in the present day. Knowing that I'm autistic has helped to get some support that is probably more appropriate and effective, and may not have been as accessible without an official diagnosis. I should also be able to request some reasonable adjustments at work too which will be really helpful as this is where a lot of my stress and anxiety comes from.
Ask yourself "Would I do anything differently in my life if I knew I was autisitc?" If the answer is yes then my view is that a diagnosis would be beneficial. There are a few stages which are presumably designed to identify where individuals are unlikely to meet the diagnostic criteria. I was rejected at teh first stage because my GP did not forward any comments on our discussion where I requested the referral - they only sent my AQ10. I followed up with a similar list to the one you made above, along with some observations from my wife and my boss and was then accepted.