It all came too late for me

I had no pressure to go to uni from my family, but it was there at school, and you see others thriving at learning, even learning while talking a lot which i have no idea how they do that.  You feel thick/stupid, even if its not said.  I have learned much but actually prefer practical side of life, and self-learning what I need to do something I want to do.

The naturalist Chris Packham went to Uni to study Zoology, and focussed on the learning and avoided the social aspects - silent student deeply absorbing it all.  That is how I would have been if I had gone, though not sure I would have completed it.

Flaws and family experiences on both sides tend to cause difficulties or awkwardness, a step-family may be detached from that but may also work differently.

There you go then, you have great worth from helping and passing on knowledge, and much loved as well.  We can get stuck on what we didn't achieve, or lost, when really its what we have to offer now that matters.

Feeling in a little better frame of mind. One that's not willing to buy into the 'If you haven't been to university, you must be thick' messaging that some like to push. Neither of my very intelligent parents went to university. My father was an army officer for a few years before joining the Foreign office. He was a very intelligent boy from a lower middle class background who'd got a scholarship to King Edward's Birmingham. In  the 1950s the F.O was very much the domain of middle/upper middle Oxbridge types. He did later do some studying for a law degree, but I don't think he ever completed it. Despite that lack of a degree he retired as the F.O equivalent of a major general.

My mother was brought up mostly just by her mother. She chose not to go to uni, because she  thought her mother, who was far from well off, had sacrificed enough as it was. She wasn't as successful as my father had been, but was on the verge of being posted to Paris by the F.O when she married my father and was quite highly regarded.

My IQ, as tested over the last couple of years by a psychometrician, is  1.33 SD higher than the average Oxbridge/Ivy league student. Whether I was to go to university or not doesn't change that fact. Nor would it change the adaptive functioning < IQ  gap that is quite large in my case.

I have a stepfamily that I love a lot. That I can use 'I love you' with far more easily and naturally  than I've  ever done with my birth family. One that loves me despite the idiosyncrasies and flaws. 

It actually can be that previous bad experiences etch a mashed-brain response into our brains, and if we haven't replaced it with a better one later on then we are stuck with it.

It also be just difficulty focussing, or writing perhaps aspects of dyslexia or similar.  I am like that, just writing messages here takes a lot of work as I can't get the words and sentences down well, mistakes and having to re-writing bits or all of it until its 'right'.

Trying to do something like writing when your brain seems against you is a challenge, but sometimes pushing through that can get you into the flow-state that allows task to be done much easier and automatically.

In the past I have written short stories and usually gradually keep expanding and adding to an initial idea, until it feels done, but that can take ages or you give up.  Sometimes though big chunks of a story just flow from mind to paper or keyboard, as if sent down from god or some other place.

Writing down is something I'm working on, for some reason whenever I'm trying something is averting my attention before I make first word, It's PDA I reckon, teachers mercilesly ridiculed my writing at school. But since last year I did write few stories. My 3rd friend The Poem-writer influence.

That sounds amazing! Maybe you could write these down as short stories? I think it sounds wonderful :) 

My stepdaughter,granddaughters, and gt grandchildren all love me. I do my best to help and inform  others by passing on articles via my rss feeds.

I understand this to some extent, I wasn't expected to go to uni but expected to get a good reliable job and find a girlfriend and get married, have kids, the usual normal life.  

You aren't worthless for not going to uni, find value in other things in yourself, enjoy the person you are, live in the moment and let the thoughts go about the past or future(s)  not reached.  

I'm 66, retired and can relate to your missing out on further education. I left school at fifteen and a half partly because of bullying. In later years I came to regret not doing O and A levels and going on to university. I have been a student of the Open University for several years now and am working towards an Open Degree. Student loans finance the cost of courses and there is lots of support. Why don't you give it a go - it's never too late to learn - it has given me a boost in terms of my sense of worth.

Absolutely!  And until very lately it's felt like a hidden cost.  I didn't have the key to understanding it and, worse still, the lack of understanding from others easily reinforced any negative ideas around self worth.  I didn't even have the words to articulate much of it. 

I thought I'd be alright when I went for my diagnosis appointment (they wouldn't just tell me over the phone, which would have been easier because I'd have been in my own environment).  Had a list of question either way and went in with an almost detached, business-like attitude.  I'd become rather good at maintaining that in senior finance team meetings.  But, silly me, the magnitude of it all had been building up amongst all the "hidden" stuff, the things I'd swallowed down, repressed or denied over the years, plus the lies I'd told myself (and others!) in order to get by.  Masking to a ridiculous degree.  So, when these two professionals simply sat back in their chairs and said, "So.  Today we'll be making a diagnosis of ASD.  Do you have any questions?" I simply started to cry.  I did ask a couple of my questions.  After all, I needed to feel absolutely sure of their findings, both for my sake and for my family.  But my "accountant's mask" visibly and unexpectedly just dissolved.  They, of course, kept their more distant and professional stance, while I could feel myself - or rather a whole edifice of what I'd thought of as myself, my identity or personality - just falling away.  

The struggle and the costs over the years.  A cumulative load.  Too much!      

Yes, I think it can be harder to bear when part of the answer could have been so simple - basics like listening, respect and compassion for others.  I'm glad you have the support of your stepdaughter and really hope that you see more in the way of these qualities more generally now.  A late diagnosis can come as a major mind shift, I think, plus new knowledge for an older person can take a lot of processing and a goodly while. 

I suppose that I take some solace from at least finding out at all because many in my and others' families lived and died without ever knowing.  And it might feel like cold comfort, given everything that's happened but, compared to previous generations, plus plenty of people even now, it's actually immensely important to know and increasingly understand ourselves and some of the dynamics behind our experiences.  It feels to me as though we've been swept along on waves of ignorance and judgement that often pervade our culture but that now maybe the tide is beginning to turn.  I'm sad and regretful about the past but I'm glad to be alive to see new beginnings.          

that's one of reasons why I love to dream,

sometimes lucid dreaming, it continuous after you get up, it is particurarly pleasant, works like sort of overlay on unpleasant reality, you are no longer able to distinguish being asleep from being awake

or is it hallucinating and I'm going nuts? It worries me not anymore anyway <-- joke

I had a real variaty of all sorts of dreams, including 4 dreams in my life that are so different that I would call them of 'alien' origin:

• being an AI created to evaluate if ship's captain (human) is going nuts,
• being female hive queen of some ant-like creatures,telling workers to go somewhere, that one wasn't a long dream,
• flying alientype creature, that wasn't a bird nor reptilian nor mammal going for some meeting of their kind
• being a being in a far distant future, watching a city from above and some distance yet being aware of everything going in there, unable to interact

basically anything that makes you tick that will stop you from thinking about rubbish like i'm so miserable

You write : 

’ It did come at a cost, I could not understand why things seemed to be so much easier for other people than they were for me, why I was limited in some ways, and why I was often exhausted.’

That’s it in a nutshell really. Undiagnosed, feeling like everything is a struggle, feeling confused and so very tired most of the time. That’s been my life basically. 

I was diagnosed with ASC at 59. I had what I now recognise was a panic attack in my first A-level exam. It lasted about 10 minutes or so, then I started writing at top speed. I did go to university, there is a streak of stoicism in my family that stood me in good stead, if you say you are going to do something, then you just do it. I had problems, in the first couple of weeks I could hardly eat in the hall refectory due to nervousness, and anxiety in the build up to exams was a recurring problem. However, I coped, I functioned sub-optimally, but I functioned. For the first and only time in my life I had a group of friends numbering around half a dozen - all through my school days I tended to have only a couple of friends at any one time. I got a degree, not quite as good as I deserved, I was an undiagnosed autistic after all, and had recurring headache problems, due to sinus issues, that affected my ability to study. Ironically, I now recognise that my autism inhibited my ability to report my physical health problems to the university and thereby receive some leniency in assessment and marking.

I eventually got a job in a university in scientific research and went on to get further degrees - incidentally, research degrees, masters and doctorates, are much easier for autistics than undergraduate degrees. All the time I coped, largely because I expected myself to cope and did not see not coping as an option. It did come at a cost, I could not understand why things seemed to be so much easier for other people than they were for me, why I was limited in some ways, and why I was often exhausted. The first time I ever had any interaction with a medical professional for anything other than a physical problem was in my autism assessment.

I do something similar but for purely hypothetical reasons: e.g. how it could be amazing to be born 500 years ago and being an explorer, not seeing people for years

and you shouldn't feel bad either, if you can't find a reason than because it's ridiculous

it's like wishing you were born neurotypical and rich, if you feel bad 

It would've been wonderful if someone had listened,but they were too arrogant,too lacking in humility to do so.

Oh, Firemonkey, this sounds like very poor care.  You were badly let down by services and it seems that parental expectations weighed heavily on you and have stayed with you over the years too.  I get the impression that if just one of these people had listened, given you space to talk about your issues, feel heard and be yourself without fear of disapproval it would have made quite a difference.   

Services just weren't geared up at all back in the 70s and the dolls house experience just shows how useless they were.  And not very empathic or even considerate either.  When I think back to some of the writers featured on my counselling courses I realise that the way services behaved back then was way out of kilter with well respected psychologists and counsellors who were already widely read in the 50s and 60s!  For me this makes it harder to bear and it becomes even more troubling when I can see that services today are still lagging behind in terms of the knowledge and awareness that has emerged regarding autism in the past 20 years. 

The diagnosis came very late for you and there's really not enough support for those of us diagnosed later in life.  I sometimes think that even services, who we're taught to regard as experts, have an idea of autism that is mainly associated with the very young.  I don't know where they think these youngsters all go as they age!  

I still think, though, that it's a case of better late than never.  I can still feel my own mind reshuffling itself in the light of my own diagnosis, which I think was a few months before yours.  And I'm hoping that this new knowledge, and any validation that might come with it, can shape our futures in more positive ways.  It's largely this hope that keeps me going.  

* I must warn that some of it is harrowing. *

However, in making a case for tragic optimism, I think he come nearer to the truth of our existence and so I find it more of a comfort than, say, some of the more recent positive psychology books.  Also, I found this particular book to be unputdownable.      

At the time of my 1st psych admission I was Felsted for what should've been the term I took A levels.I'd overdosed at the end of the previous term, but foolishly decided to go back  so as not to disappoint my parents. I lasted a week before spending a few days  in the school sanatorium  and then being transferred to a large psych hospital. I went in with a rose tinted view of psychiatrists , which was shattered very quickly.

After a week I was told I was going to help make dolls' houses as part of the treatment. I have very poor constructional ability and indeed wasn't even in a fit state of mind to do anything well. I had a big panic attack, and was pulled from the path of a hospital bus. I then had to see a doctor who instead of doing the intelligent thing , which would've been to find out why I'd reacted as I did, decided to adopt a stern 'You're an awkward and troublesome teenager' approach.

With that my rose tinted view of psychiatrists was completely shattered. To them I was an awkward and troublesome teenager, because it no doubt was written in my psych notes that I was. Over the next 42 years the situation got worse and worse. It was not helped by my becoming friendly with an older woman they disapproved of , and leaving hospital with her in March 1983.  She died due to health complications in 2005. In 2003 she'd been dxed with vascular dementia.

In September 2017 I moved to be near my stepdaughter.I had not been doing well in Essex. In October 2018 I had my 1st psych appointment here in Wiltshire . The pdoc was polite and asked a string of questions. My s/daughter who was with me mentioned autism. The  pdoc ,unlike my previous mental health team  in Essex, didn't dodge the subject but asked pertinent and sensible questions.At the end he said the best fits dx wise were schizophrenia and ASD. 2 weeks later I got a letter saying that I'd been referred to be assessed which would start in February 2019. In May 2019,at the age of 62, I was given the dx of Asperger's syndrome.

Jenny I love what you’ve written here. I think we have to live with a certain amount of regret and grief but also to do our best to move forward with all the optimism we can muster. I haven’t heard of the book you mention here - it looks amazing and I’m going to get a copy. Thanks again x