Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi! I was diagnosed autistic as a 32 year old last year, and during my "journey of realisation" I've noticed that my 72 year old dad exhibits most of the same traits as I do. These include stimming, hyper awareness of noise and texture, niche interests, not being great at following conversation flow etc. He's never had an autism diagnosis. I suspect the reason I wasn't sent for one as a child was he just thought my behavior was "normal"!
Just being aware of it has really helped my relationship with him as things I used to be irritated at I can now explain away as just his undiagnosed autism, but I was wondering if there would be any benefit to bringing my suspicions up with him? Would it help at all or is it just too late?
I'd love to hear from anyone who got a diagnoses at a later stage of life to hear more about their experiences. Also I'd welcome solidarity posts from anyone who's had the same experience.
I am 54 and convinced my late dad had ASD, and other things. Somebody on here a couple of years ago posted stuff about their dad and it was 100% the same. Thing is when we were younger, and more the older you are, there wasn't any appreciation of ASD. We had no classroom assistiants and classes of 30, unless you were a total pain the teacher was not interested. I only wanted to keep my head down and blend in with the average kids at school and not stand out as diffrent.
To be honest at that age I would say a diagnosis could take 4 years on the NHS. How is he doing, is he coping ok with life? I was fine until I lost both parents within 2 years and suffered through lockdown, and the whole thing broke me. If he is doing ok I would say he can do the AQ50 test and the like and investigate ASD online but going through the process of diagnosis migh not be worthwhile.
Rob