It all came too late for me

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.

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. 

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

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.

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.

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.