Diagnosis in late 30s?

Thank you everyone for the really warm welcome! I will look into those tests etc. Thank you ️ 

I was diagnosed in my late 30s. I meet every criteria of diagnosis easily but I still get imposter syndrome all the time and think I must have tricked the person who diagnosed me. It's stupid and I don't know why, but I think it happens to everyone. At other times I think about something that happened in my life or I'll be in a situation where it's so obvious that I'm autistic and I don't know why I doubted it.

I don't know if that self-doubt will ever go away. I was only diagnosed a few months ago and it's still something I'm coming to terms with.

Hello and welcome. As my handle suggests, I am late diagnosed also, I'm mid-50s and have been married 20 years, and only sought diagnosis when our son started to have difficulties a few years ago, aged 15. After he was diagnosed I realised I might be autistic too. I have done the screening tests and been referred for a full diagnosis, but I am almost certainly moderately autistic. Finding out late in life is a blessing and a curse. I understand a lot more about myself, and a bit more every day. Things that happened to me make more sense now: struggling to make friends, feeling "different", and developing anxiety in my 40s are all explained now, and I am re-appraising how I feel about myself and "forgiving" myself for stuff that it turns out I couldn't help: like not making friends, being called "weird" and not "fitting in" at work. 

Like you, I don't recognise every autism trait in myself, for example I don't have a great deal of sensory issues, but I do struggle with hearing voices in loud rooms because I cannot filter out background noise. I can be witty and conversational, even with new people, but I crash quickly and want to leave social events about 9pm at the latest!

I gave up drinking alcohol five years ago, because it was making my anxiety worse: hangovers were not headaches but a long, insufferable day of feeling impending doom and terror, so being drunk wasn't worth the cost. I was diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) about 7 years ago, several years before considering I might be autistic. Now I believe that my undiagnosed autism caused me great difficulties in relationships, especially with my wife.

Finding out how my autism affects me and discussing it candidly with my wife is helping us greatly. We are understanding our differences better, and making adjustments. For example I struggle with lots of questions: I get overwhelmed quickly. I also "go into my own head" or "drift off" and don't listen until someone gets my attention. My wife would get frustrated with me "drifting off" until we started to understand it's part of my mental makeup. She would bombard me with questions, e.g. when shopping, when really she didn't need answers but was using me as a "sounding board". Now she knows not to do this quite so much as it causes me anxiety.

So yes, diagnosis has helped, maybe even saved my marriage. We know what to work on, we know which difficulties are contributed to by my autism, and how to work on them. I also learned I need to work on friendships and nurture them, while NTs seem to just manage this "accidentally". It's been very useful.

Hope that helps, happy to connect on here for DMs if you want. 

I’m 36 and only recently I got the possible explanation to why i struggle with change and transitions, have sensory issues, live in my own world, struggle with friendships, communication and social interactions and feel like an alien. You are not alone, I experience similar thoughts and emotions. I have tested myself multiple times. I’m just honest with myself. In my opinion the best insight into wether you could be autistic or not, gives the RAADS test. It has many detailed questions with possible answers including current state and the childhood. I’ve done this test twice because some of the questions were unclear to me after analysing the questions after the first time. The next test I took a month later to give myself a time and clear up my head before the next testing. My last result is here: 

welcome to the community and I hope you will find understanding, support, explanation and validation in this forum as I did. I’m still not diagnosed but hopefully with success I’m looking for help. My colleague at work helped me find a psychologist and I’m gonna meet this lady after my holidays. 

Hi and welcome. I didn't have a clue I was autistic until I was in my fifties. I'm also not your "typical" autistic person, but autism is still widely misunderstood and we are all different.

I don't have a "formal" diagnosis - the doctor I was seeing at the time thought I was autistic, but advised me that there was no point getting one as I wouldn't get any support because I was able to work. I decided that I didn't need someone to give me a label - I recognised who I was as soon as I joined this forum. But some people get comfort from diagnosis - it's a very personal thing. Everyone is accepted here.

Just keep reading our posts and asking questions. You will get there.

Hi and welcome to the community!

Many of us here were diagnosed later in adulthood (and in many cases much later than our 30s).

As you mention, with autism being a spectrum condition we are each unique - so please don't worry about maybe not being a "typical autistic" person, as there's no such thing. It's perfectly normal and OK for our mixtures and extents of traits to differ.

Some of us here also either are or have been in employment and/or long-term relationships or marriages. And many of us have experienced mental health issues (in my case also over the long term, and as a consequence of difficulties relating to my as-yet-undiagnosed autism).  

So you're definitely in the right place and among new friends :)

If you haven't yet done so, then - in order to get a better personal feel for / reassurance about the likelihood of being autistic - you can complete either or both of the AQ-10 and AQ-50 tests. They're available on the website linked below in a format where you can complete them online and see your results. The pages also include explanations and discussion of the scoring criteria:

AQ-10     AQ-50

Just a quick word on terminology: "high functioning" autism has only ever been an informal term, never an official diagnostic one. The use of high / low functioning terms is now also considered inappropriate by many in the autistic community.

Under both of the major classification systems, you would instead be diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Under DSM-V, this would also include the specifier Level 1, which recognises that you have support needs (versus 2 and 3 with greater needs).

For more information and advice about the pre-diagnosis stage and assessment process, you might find the articles here helpful: Autism diagnosis.

Welcome to our Community.  Each of us finds our path through our Autism journey and getting to know others within our Community can be an important source of recognition, support and understanding. 

I think your questions and concerns are likely to have resonated with many later identified / diagnosed Autistic people on our Forum. 

You are neither alone, unusual in your worries, nor alien!

However, they are important, big questions and concerns - for my part; I hope you will understand that I would wish to think about your points properly before I reply on those topics.

I was keen that processing time did not delay saying "welcome".

Looking forward to getting to know you through our Community.