Did you receive a very late autism diagnosis/realisation?

Thank you Debbie. I am glad that this stuff makes the mainstream news, but I also am worried that NTs will get sick of reading about it. I hope that there is a good balance of this drip-feeding into mainstream sites. A friend here this morning pointed out to me that there is a bit of a backlash at the moment with people thinking getting diagnosed is just trendy***

Anyway, I was diagnosed earlier in the year aged 54. Despite being diagnosed, I FULLY support self-diagnosed people - which was a route that I could have also taken. (In a way, I was self-diagnosed from my 40s, but never read anything about it apart from online tests and from the point of view of being able to 'cure' it.)

Pros

• I now have a small amount of autistic friends, both online and offline.
• I no longer feel truly alone and a bit of a weirdo
• I have a few meaningful concessions from my wife
• My wife's family, at least, are very supporting (My own family are more about never mentioning it)

Cons

• I got all optimistically fired up and then disappointed with my expectations of how people would react (particularly my own family - see above)
• I still don't think I would share it with the medical profession and in work situations
• I'm not sure I will ever know where my mask begins and ends - I think that I even mask alone. Though I am looking my wife in the eyes less (A tragedy of mine is that I love eyes and hers particularly, but I can't look into them comfortably when talking.)
• I am really worried that the ability to cope gets worse with age, not better.

*** Jon Ronson happened to say this in a much longer article yesterday that had nothing to do with Autism, otherwise.

"I’ve noticed that people on the right have tried to make autism a culture war – they’re comparing people who call themselves neurodiverse and autistic to trans people, saying stuff like, “They think they’re autistic, but they’re not really autistic.” And then “high-functioning” autistic people are pointing out that there’s actually surprising little difference between them and more “severely” autistic people. The outward manifestation is different, but the underlying condition is the same. I think that’s all fascinating.

I think the people on the right are wrong about this. It’s like they just find autistic people annoying and think they just want to be special."

Full article:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/nov/10/jon-ronson-what-will-be-the-next-culture-war-autism-and-climate-migration

Thank you Debbie. I am glad that this stuff makes the mainstream news, but I also am worried that NTs will get sick of reading about it. I hope that there is a good balance of this drip-feeding into mainstream sites. A friend here this morning pointed out to me that there is a bit of a backlash at the moment with people thinking getting diagnosed is just trendy***

Anyway, I was diagnosed earlier in the year aged 54. Despite being diagnosed, I FULLY support self-diagnosed people - which was a route that I could have also taken. (In a way, I was self-diagnosed from my 40s, but never read anything about it apart from online tests and from the point of view of being able to 'cure' it.)

Pros

• I now have a small amount of autistic friends, both online and offline.
• I no longer feel truly alone and a bit of a weirdo
• I have a few meaningful concessions from my wife
• My wife's family, at least, are very supporting (My own family are more about never mentioning it)

Cons

• I got all optimistically fired up and then disappointed with my expectations of how people would react (particularly my own family - see above)
• I still don't think I would share it with the medical profession and in work situations
• I'm not sure I will ever know where my mask begins and ends - I think that I even mask alone. Though I am looking my wife in the eyes less (A tragedy of mine is that I love eyes and hers particularly, but I can't look into them comfortably when talking.)
• I am really worried that the ability to cope gets worse with age, not better.

*** Jon Ronson happened to say this in a much longer article yesterday that had nothing to do with Autism, otherwise.

"I’ve noticed that people on the right have tried to make autism a culture war – they’re comparing people who call themselves neurodiverse and autistic to trans people, saying stuff like, “They think they’re autistic, but they’re not really autistic.” And then “high-functioning” autistic people are pointing out that there’s actually surprising little difference between them and more “severely” autistic people. The outward manifestation is different, but the underlying condition is the same. I think that’s all fascinating.

I think the people on the right are wrong about this. It’s like they just find autistic people annoying and think they just want to be special."

Full article:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/nov/10/jon-ronson-what-will-be-the-next-culture-war-autism-and-climate-migration