Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi. I am waiting to be assessed for high functioning autism after being told by my GP and 2 mental health professionals that I likely have it. I am in my late 30s and am not I guess your “typical” possible autistic.. I have been in my job 20 years and married for almost 20 years.. without going into it all, I do identify with a lot of the traits that have been presented to me but I am struggling to accept this possible diagnosis because I don’t want to get mis-diagnosed and I don’t want to be a fraud or like seem to minimise diagnosed autistic people’s struggles.. does that make sense?
I’ve had severe mental health issues since my early teens and so much of this is making sense and making me feel like maybe I’m not crazy or some alien or something.. but then like I say there are other parts which are a definite “no, that’s not me at all”. I know there’s a huge spectrum so it’s likely that I’ll identify with some parts and not others, I guess I’m just struggling to come to terms with it all.
Has anyone else had a diagnosis /possible diagnosis later in life and struggled with it? How did you get past the worries and just focus on yourself and figuring things out?
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.
Thank you everyone for the really warm welcome! I will look into those tests etc. Thank you ️