Published on 12, July, 2020
Did anyone else here miss out on a diagnosis? Is there anyone from the 60s 70s or 80s who never got diagnosed and had autism back in the old days when no one knew anything about it? I find this really interesting. I missed diagnosis in school in the 2000s. It’s much better recognised now a days.
I didn't find out till I was 49, bulk of my school years were 80s (left highschool in 91), definitely a Very different world.
All these years later I know now why I struggled so much. But had I been diagnosed I can't imagine getting much help, probably would have been excluded even more, even today they diagnose and notice autism in school kids but do little to help them once they have, beyond removing them from mainstream.
That’s a shame but at least you know now. It’s crazy how it wasn’t a thing back in the day. I mean autism likely always existed but was never a diagnosis or a recognised condition. Until now. It makes sense to me now but I feel sorry for my ancestors who had autism and never been diagnosed who suffered poverty and so on.
I went through all kinds of hell in my own head through the years, eventually started to realise it was me not them, so started to mask to fit in. At 40 I was certain I had something like autism or ADHD or GAD or maybe even OCD, or some other thing. But took me almost another ten years to eventually ask for help and end up getting diagnosed. After all those years the biggest problem I'm left with is so many masks and no idea which is really me, if any.
Yeh it must be hard. All those years of masks. I don’t even know if I believe in masking to be honest. I never felt like I was hiding anything yet they still never diagnosed me. Maybe we don’t mask but just generally act in a people pleasing way because we are naturally more inhibited than the average person. Masking makes us sound like Bateman from American psycho in my opinion. But anyway. I over think way too much just can’t turn my mind down at all. Always been like that never tried to hide anything and couldn’t even if I tried. Still never got diagnosed until my life came crashing down like a ton of bricks. Luckily made it through the hard stuff now so got to keep trying.