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Late diagnosis and noticing traits

this_is_phil

I was diagnosed last year at 32 and I've begun to notice a lot more traits, and in particular stimming. The problem is that I'm now not sure if I'm doing things because I feel I should be doing them, or if it's just that I'm just noticing it more. The one thing that makes me feel less of an imposter is when I notice I've been doing something, like rocking or mushing my fingers together (can't think of a better way to describe that) for a while without noticing it. Does/has anyone else experienced this after a late diagnosis?

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  • Yes, I can relate to this- I found out I might be autistic when 25 and I have been diagnosed a few months ago but I really struggled with impostor syndrome initially. It actually made me more aware of some of my differences as I learnt more about autism- I became much more aware of just how bad I am at reading people and their intentions- it's not that anything had changed but I felt like I had just found out that I had been speaking a different language for years without even knowing it. I can also relate to starting to notice all these stims- when I initially read about autism, I could only think of the very obvious stim that I did as a child and teen but rarely as an adult and I thought I didn't really stim anymore...but then I started remembering and noticing all these stims - I like to twirl and rip apart tissues or bits of paper or doodle spirals while doing other things, I used to stim with sounds too - again, I was doing all this before I just didn't notice it. I then also started trying out what would happen if I stimmed more in a concious way- would it really help relieve stress? How would it feel? And then I would worry, am I suffering from confirmation bias and just hyperfocused on trying to find autistic traits- what if I am not autistic and I got it wrong? etc. etc. I'm now much more accepting of my autistic identity - it takes time. Not sure if this helps, but you are definitely not alone in feeling this way. 

  • in reply to Ann :)

    It does help to know that other people feel this too, thank you. I'm already very familiar with imposter syndrome, I work in cyber security and it's a field in which there is always something new to learn, so it's really easy to feel imposter syndrome there. I've managed to adapt to that for work, so I'm sure I'll eventually be able to shake the feeling with my autism as well.

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  • in reply to Ann :)

    It does help to know that other people feel this too, thank you. I'm already very familiar with imposter syndrome, I work in cyber security and it's a field in which there is always something new to learn, so it's really easy to feel imposter syndrome there. I've managed to adapt to that for work, so I'm sure I'll eventually be able to shake the feeling with my autism as well.

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