Late diagnosis adults with Autism

That's roughly in line with what it says here on the NAS website:

"Government prevalence surveys last estimated that around one in 100 people are autistic. However, because these are estimates this is not definite. Other surveys and international estimates have come up with different prevalence estimates. Most of them suggest autism prevalence is higher. The National Autistic Society thinks the UK governments should do more research into autism prevalence to find an updated figure. Until that research is done, we believe that more than one in 100 people are autistic, which means more than 700,000 people in the UK."

A recent research study has indicated that the true number may be in the region of 1.2 million in England alone.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2023/jun/number-autistic-people-england-may-be-twice-high-previously-thought

Hear, hear

I like being different I always have. Part from the years of bullying in childhood.

600,000 is statistically, how many people in the UK are "likely" to be autistic.

60,000 people are "known and recorded as being" autistic in the UK.

I am not a recorded number, I am simply Number.

The 600,000 is only an order of magnitude. Are there only 60,000 people with autism in the UK? Unlikely Are there as many as 6m people with autism in the UK? Equally unlikely

Thats a whole lot of "not normal" people

I’m not sure what the purpose is of separating different parts of you. It’s all you, you/we have an autistic brain therefore can process information differently to others. Accepting that is the big one, and not seeing it as a negative.

I was diagnosed in August this year at the age of 46. I would say there would be more of us with autism as there are many they have ended up in the mental health system instead of exploring autism assessments as well. This is what happened to me. I feel mother is autistic too but sadly is treated for psychiatric illness. It's quite possible we had mental health problems as a result of neuro diversity and as a result of feeling different and bullying.

There probably is a statistic of how many autistic people there are in the Uk or one could be put together but as a very rough estimate if we assume 1% of the population are autistic and the population of the UK is 60m say that gives 600,000 autistic people in the UK

Dawn said:

I can only speak for myself, but personally I AM my autism because it is my autism that is shaping ALL of my personality.  I absolutely couldn't disentangle the two.  The bigger question is in what way might you have been copying NTs and masking in order to cope.

Dawn, this is a really good point and one that I agree with. Being autistic is one of the things that makes me who I am- the hard part is figuring out which bits of the 'being around other people' version of my personality are real and which ones are the mask.

I don't think there is a statistic of how many UK autistics but I am sure it is many thousands. Labeling such a group as "not normal" isn't helpful. My GP once said to me "What is normal?" My attitude  is que sera sera.  If others wish to pidgeon hole me based on rumour --- that's their problem. I yam what I yam --- hopefully not looking like one! 

So boopBrownie try to save yourself from much self analysing, and try to accept your ASD as part of who you are.  My own diagnosis at the ripe age of 76 was a welcome revelation that allowed me to at least try to stop beating myself up---I still do it though as old habits do die hard. Sorry to repeat old worn out sayings but "if the shoe fits, wear it" 

For me, I'd like to be a functional part of my local community rather than being treated as a pariah. I'm partly at fault for this treatment but negative rumours snowball quickly especially for an expat.  

You lot are my salvation 

"inclusive of all warts and bumps,"

I had a huge identity crisis when I was diagnosed. What parts of me were actually me? What was autism? Did I only get accepted onto my maths course because I'm autistic? Who would I be if I wasn't autistic?

A lot of the features I thought of as me were just autism, and that's still something I struggle with. Where do I start? Do I start at any point or do I just blend into the vague background of just "Not Normal"?

Joe said:

For me it's learning to be comfortable with me and not trying to be the person other people think I am or want me to be.

Nice.

For me, I'd like to be more functional and improve various aspects of my life - armed with my new knowledge, insight and calmness.

Hi,

I'm early 50s diagnosed in January and whilst my diagnosis was a relief and it's better than the waiting, it's still a rollercoaster.

What I have been able to do is accept that autism is a part of who I am and I can't change it. That I need to be kinder to myself and practice more self care. Yep I've spent time looking at past events thinking was that because but tried to do that in an explanation type of way rather than negative.

Read a bunch of books, to try and understand (I don't normally read) and tried to challenge some of the things people say.  One thing I've read is that there aren't really autistic only behaviours, if there were diagnosis would be easier. Its things as a whole. Your family will be used to you doing certain stuff or some of the so called autistic traits may run in the family so they won't see them as different (I've had this with one sister).

So I guess my advice would be,, don't try to separate it. It's part of you and be kind to yourself, do you really need to do that thing to please everyone or can you say no or say actually can we meet somewhere quieter or do a smaller group? Whatever it is you need.

Every week something new pops up and I think oh  that's why. Last week it was a flippant comment I made about watching the washing machine as a kid. Yesterday, it was about putting my clothes in the wardrobe in a certain order which a friend thought weird and I was just like how can you not do that? There's a whole bunch of stuff I just assumed everyone did and now I find out they don't! For me it's learning to be comfortable with me and not trying to be the person other people think I am or want me to be.

I was diagnosed as autistic at 50 and bipolar at 53.

Hi, maybe I should keep changing the sock pix.  My feet must be my most photographed part of my body.

I do get this question though.  I'm sure at first I asked myself similar questions and then as I dug deeper and deeper and found myself over and over going 'But I do that, thought it was just my little quirk' to just about everything about myself from the vaguely irritating to what I like to think are better qualities. 

There really is no Dawn without autism.  I suspect that's true of us all.

Hi Dawn.  You've been missed. 

Dawn said:

it is my autism that is shaping ALL of my personality.  I absolutely couldn't disentangle the two.  The bigger question is in what way might you have been copying NTs and masking in order to cope.

I agree ....but before I had become self-aware of my "whole" (aka autism) I had already worked out most of the coping and masking I was doing......I just didn't understand why I was doing them all / any of them.....they made no coherent sense as a suite of behaviours.

*Then, all of a sudden, they did.  B O O M.

Self enlightenment (or grand psychotic self delusion) is the only remaining question, some of the time, for some of us maybe.

We miss your socks. x

I can only speak for myself, but personally I AM my autism because it is my autism that is shaping ALL of my personality.  I absolutely couldn't disentangle the two.  The bigger question is in what way might you have been copying NTs and masking in order to cope.

As for the "every one does a little of everything"... hmmm...sounds close to the "everyone is a bit autistic" line.  Yes, every one has a sense of smell, but ours can be to an extreme of hyper or hypo active.  With other things, NTs might avoid eye contact too but for very different reasons; they are feeling embarrassed or guilty in the moment, don't want to talk to someone; because it's cultural not eye ball superiors (parts of the Far East and Caribbean), or it's modesty (Middle East) and so on.