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Referred For Autism Assessment At 37

SirKaje

Hello all,

Following the completion of an AQ10, and at the age of 37, I have today been referred by my GP for an Autism assessment.

It's been in the back of my mind for a while now that I might be Autistic - I have almost crippling social anxiety, inappropriate emotional responses to particular stimuli, an unwavering focus on the detail at the expense of the overall goal, a preference for solitude amongst many other hints - albeit many of these have been (to varying degrees of success) worked upon by me over the years so that I can function well enough to graduate, find a great job, and have a family. It's just not quite perfect - and I'm noticing things pop up more and more (hence the GP contact).

Now, obviously this referral has a fairly sizeable wait time (and finances aren't quite flush enough to pay £1500 for a private screening), but I wondered what your experiences has been if you've been diagnosed well into adulthood? 

Is there anything you would recommend I do between now and my eventual first contact?

  • Me: Diagnosed at 56!

    That wait, even privately, is horrendous. 

    But meanwhile, treat yourself 'as if'; self identification is good enough for us anyway...

    .. and advice? Read, read, read...blogs, this forum, bios of late diagnosed people, books about autism... there's a lot of them. Indeed an explosion of them with publication dates 2020 to 2022 - lockdown locked a lot of us in to google uncovering the secrets of our true being, get diagnosed, then write to help others.

    Throw your questions out here, someone will have an answer.

    By the time you get to assessment, you will already know in your heart what the outcome will be and already know how to handle it.

    Go read!

    Errr and yeah, some of us do indeed - at least on the surface - function. I have an education, a job, raised a kid and all that. Against the odds, I functioned.

    Big advice number two; give yourself credit for coping

    But big advice three, once you get this diagnosis, know you deserve more than to "cope", but to get support and then truely live.