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I think I'm autistic

NAS82728

Hi, 

     My adopted first child was diagnosed with severe autism. When reading his contact letters from his adopters he sounds just like me. He was quiet non verbal til he was 5 and has the same hobbies I had when I was young.

I have always been quite an unsociable person and have always only had a very small number of friends. Routine is extremely important to me and when things change in my life like change if meals I eat, change of colleagues, changes in routine I become very anxious, i feel helpless and powerless that things are out of my control.

I have never been officially diagnosed as autistic, not do I want to be as I'm high functioning with a second child, boyfriend and a full time job.

However, I think it would be beneficial for me to talk to adults with autism that I can relate to instead of very sociable adults that I feel I can't fit in with sometimes.

Id also like some advice on coping with change. Please be kind as I'm new to all of this and it's taken me about 10 years to have the courage to admit this to myself and seek support.

Thanks.

Hannah

Parents

  • I found a very late diagnosis - aged 59 - was very useful for me, even though I worked for 34 years as a scientific researcher, not an undemanding job, and am married with two children (both neurodivergent). I have received no practical support since being diagnosed, but the diagnosis was a validation of my experiences through life. I was not a neurotypical person with a lot of strange individual quirks and limitations, but an autistic person whose abilities and difficulties were directly related to my autism. Without a clinical diagnosis my identification as autistic would always have felt uncertain and possibly wrong. I like certainty, in itself an autistic trait.

    Autistic people who appear to function in 'neurotypical society' still have problems, which is why so many of us have poor mental health. 

  • in reply to Martin

    Poor mental health is quite common in "normies" too. Maybe the line is between shaping vs defining ones life I infer from your answer.It seems there is a lot of myth about normies among the autistic community if I may raise this issue. 

  • in reply to Annie

    A cursory online search found this:

    "The percentage of autistic people with mental health problems was more than 4.5 times higher (51.1%) than in people without an autism diagnosis (11.3%). More than 25% of autistic people further received two or more diagnoses of mental health problems."

    I would add that I have lived for almost all of my life believing that I was neurotypical, I thought that my traits, that I now recognise as autistic, were just personal to me. I have no axe to grind about neurotypical people themselves, though I have doubts about aspects of the society they have created.

  • in reply to Annie

    I do not use 'high-functioning' as a label for myself, I identify as autistic, but if pushed I use circumlocutions like 'less overtly autistic', however, in conversation I sometimes use the former phrase as it is more universally understood. I have no interest in defining gradations of autism or separating people by their use.

    Though no one I told about my autism diagnosis had any prior inkling that I might be autistic, being autistic has had profound effects on my life. From the panic attack I had in my first A level exam, through my inability to connect with the opposite sex for very many frustrating years, to my paralysing fear of public speaking, which stopped me applying for lectureships, my autism has had many adverse effects. I believe that I fully deserved my clinical diagnosis and that it was entirely appropriate

    People who can describe what it is like to be autistic have a duty to be advocates for those autistics who are unable to. 

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  • in reply to Annie

    I do not use 'high-functioning' as a label for myself, I identify as autistic, but if pushed I use circumlocutions like 'less overtly autistic', however, in conversation I sometimes use the former phrase as it is more universally understood. I have no interest in defining gradations of autism or separating people by their use.

    Though no one I told about my autism diagnosis had any prior inkling that I might be autistic, being autistic has had profound effects on my life. From the panic attack I had in my first A level exam, through my inability to connect with the opposite sex for very many frustrating years, to my paralysing fear of public speaking, which stopped me applying for lectureships, my autism has had many adverse effects. I believe that I fully deserved my clinical diagnosis and that it was entirely appropriate

    People who can describe what it is like to be autistic have a duty to be advocates for those autistics who are unable to. 

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