Published on 12, July, 2020
I was diagnosed 2 weeks ago at the age of 31 and I definitely wasn’t expecting this huge sense of imposter syndrome!
What I find confusing is my issues didn’t really start to come to light until I was 17/18 and started having panic attacks (they generally happened in busy environments or around flashing lights). After that it was down hill from there and my ability to function just got worse and worse.
Prior to that though I was so good at hiding the things that made me anxious and I never really shared my emotions. I don’t recall having panic attacks and coped reasonably well with flashing lights etc. While especially in my teen years I always felt different for no particular reason, I still managed to get by with no obvious issues.
I did stim as a child and teen but very subtly (scalp picking, picking the skin around my nails, swinging on chairs, smelling things, rubbing my feet together when in bed, dancing, moving about a lot etc) but as I went into adulthood and I became more educated about stims I definitely started doing more obvious stims (rocking, ticing, singing, swaying from side to side, rolling of the eyes, nose scrunching etc) I sometimes feel I started doing them due to being influenced. Yet I now can’t stop doing them because they make me feel so much happier. This whole thing is confusing to me.
Why do you think a lot of adults who get diagnosed late seem to have got by with no obvious signs until something big happens to them as they get older? Why do you think as we get older we can’t seem to cope as well? I would love to know other people’s thoughts on this because it blows my mind that I had this my whole life yet managed to get by and function.....
Thanks for you share. I have often thought the same having been officially diagnosed 7 years ago when i was 43. Looking back it seems obvious now that the signs were always there. I have Aspergers or high functioning autism as they call it now. My parents are still alive and I think they feel guilty or are still in denial. Looking back at my childhood, I think i masked it very well and found ways to get around challenges. Anything out of the ordinary was put down to behavioural issues and I was punished or it was put down to me just being me and I needed to find ways to prevent re-occurrences or deal with it. It was a case of fight or flight and often to avoid confrontation I used flight and would just take myself away from situations. I think unless the neurodiversity had very obvious and recognised traits, it often went unnoticed and was branded a behavioural/parenting problem, especially 30+years ago. The question of autism was only raised by my now wife who has experience of working with autism and only after we started living together. I guess in a more relaxed environment it became more obvious, especially when spending so much more time with someone and the environment being more relaxed, one where i no longer felt I needed to impress or put on a front, or act in a specific way in a specific circumstance.
The other thing that I have recently discovered that can maybe explain why it was not picked up sooner, is that my symptoms were amplified when alcohol is involved. Drinking didn’t really kick off for me until I went to university. Alcohol would impact my quality of my sleep, my ability to recognise when i am getting anxious and generally reduce my self awareness, which in turn would not necessarily trigger the coping strategies I have developed. Not living with parents, house shares that regularly changed or living by myself meant it was just me, so who would really be spending that much time with me to recognise autistic traits. I quit alcohol last year and since then, although I still have many challenges, not least one of my daughter's who has just been diagnosed, I am able to deal with them much better and there is far less frequent dramas to deal with.
These are just my thoughts on why I was not diagnosed earlier which I thought I'd share