Can someone help me understand my Autism assessment results?

I tend to answer to a lot of information presented at once and really it was addressing/supporting what you were saying too :)  Additional to the secondary schooling chasm, HORMONESSSSSS.  What we may mask as children becomes much more obvious with hormonal development, changing relationships with friends, understanding sexuality, changing bodies.......

This is incredibly well put, and has settled me a lot from my earlier wobble - see above. While that's very much a side-effect, rather than your reason for writing what you did (you were replying to the main question posed by the OP), I still appreciate it a lot!

It seems obvious to me that autistic kids are more likely to end up in traumatic circumstances, the same as autistic people without trauma never get diagnosed.  If the trauma is present from birth, autism is obvious.  If trauma is a build up of events over time, autism doesn't get recognised until it becomes a "problem".  I am autistic but I totally thought I was BPD or bipolar or any number of personality disorders.  But I think mismanaged/unsupported autism from being undiagnosed at a young age is the contributory factor for this.

Ultimately, if I knew I was autistic as a kid, I wouldn't have ended up in an emotionally abusive relationship or been employed by emotionally abusive bosses because I would have known how to get support to avoid all that.  So I wouldn't have trauma.  Some autistics are born into trauma and needs are unmet (not even in unsavory environments, simply because they were born sensitive to that environment and it was obvious) and others never end up in environments that cause their autistic traits to be a noticible problem.

It's always a Catch-22, you can't separate the autism from the trauma when you don't know what was going on inside someones mind as they were desperately trying to fit in.  Which compounded the trauma as "acceptable".

Anthony Hopkins discovered he was autistic at 70.  Autism isn't necessarily obvious from birth or early childhood, but the impacts can build up over a lifetime.

It seems that they didn’t think ‘it’ affects your life enough. Not that they can see anyway, but they can’t see or tell if you mask to disguise things.

Add that to the fact that you have trauma, so they aren’t sure, as both things can look awfully similar. However, we also need to think that you are a female, and it isn’t as clear cut as if you were male sadly.

Do you have a history from as early as you can remember of behaviours that suggest you are Autistic? 

I live with someone who presents like they have ASD, but they do have lots of trauma. And their ASD tendencies didn’t occur until later life it seems. They are being evaluated for BPD.

Lastly, we have the same name .

I've heard it said though that often traits are very subtle prior to secondary school as that's the first big chasm to jump in terms of being more greatly challenged/disabled by one's environment. I don't think I presented in a hugely obvious way as autistic in my earliest years (and still don't, due to masking), yet the diagnosis was still a positive one.  

I'm very vulnerable to imposter syndrome I think, so I'm a bit more sensitive to your well-meaning comment than maybe I should be! 

Do you need an official diagnosis for something?  If so then you may ned to seek another diagnosis (private?).  If not then you can probably tell after looking at the various websites and assessing your own knowledge, self diagnosis is valid in some circumstances.  You may also want t look at the CAT-Q assessment, you may be so good at masking that you can fool the professionals.

Had you not brought forth the life trauma aspects there was more than enough for an autism diagnosis it would seem. Another clinician may well have disregarded that information which was entirely superfluous. There is no reason to hear of it during such a diagnosis unless you insist. If your message isn't that your state of mind is resultant from - example - PTSD or similar, it seems clear you'd certainly need to restate your position. If you still feel you are entitled to be recognised as autistic they will be rational ways to explain how you felt at the time & ways to describe your feelings now. For instance ASD isn't technically an irrational state of mind, and one can speak with good reason when it comes to what caused you to mention such elements. Getting some sense of release after a long time with nobody to talk to about it is perfectly understandable for example. Perhaps then matters would need to refocus around ASD at any request for a new diagnostic sitting.

It looks like they are saying they aren't sure, not that you definitely aren't autistic. For that reason alone I think you may need a second opinion to be sure.

The life span thing, well the trait should have been in evidence since early childhood, but the presentation can change through out life and we develop compensation strategies. Not sure where they are going with the clinically significant thing. There are plenty of autistic people who are managing; differently or perhaps not without some difficulty, out there, but they are no less autistic.

It absolutely can't be that you are not autistic because of trauma. You may have had trauma because of some element of autism. However, some trauma symptoms might look the same as some autistic traits and they need to tease them apart, and it looks like they are saying they can't.

One question I would be asking myself is how much very early developmental information did they have to work with? This could be your recollection, a relatives, documentary, school reports, child hood videos, diaries etc. The key will be there. If there was no or little early evidence of autism, the conclusion is likely to be trauma, if there was then autism likely had a role in the trauma you endured.

It is quite important that they drill down a bit more, because either way it's going to be difficult to address the trauma without getting to the core of your autistic traits...and 41 on the AQ is HIGH

I think they are saying that because of your history of trauma they can’t be sure if that is the cause of your traits rather than autism because they present in similar ways. The part about “across the lifespan” likely means you didn’t have traits before you were traumatised (or they don’t think you did) whereas autism is present throughout life