increased depression and suicide rates in autistic adults

There is a question whether this phenomenon of suicide amongst middle aged and older adults will continue in the future or decrease. Does it have anything to do with bad childhoods as a result of undiagnosed ASD whereas the younger generation with ASD are more likely to be diagnosed and offered recognition and support as children and teenagers?

Despite all the stuff about todays youth being a hard done by generation, I find that younger adults with Asperger Syndrome tend to be reasonably happy and confident people whereas many over the age of 40 are miserable and depressed, and often talk about their ruined childhoods as a result of them being misunderstood or accused of being badly behaved. Some who were children in the 1980s and early 90s are upset that Lorna Wing didn't do more to publicise AS because more awareness could have spared them injustices that they received.

There is a question whether this phenomenon of suicide amongst middle aged and older adults will continue in the future or decrease. Does it have anything to do with bad childhoods as a result of undiagnosed ASD whereas the younger generation with ASD are more likely to be diagnosed and offered recognition and support as children and teenagers?

Despite all the stuff about todays youth being a hard done by generation, I find that younger adults with Asperger Syndrome tend to be reasonably happy and confident people whereas many over the age of 40 are miserable and depressed, and often talk about their ruined childhoods as a result of them being misunderstood or accused of being badly behaved. Some who were children in the 1980s and early 90s are upset that Lorna Wing didn't do more to publicise AS because more awareness could have spared them injustices that they received.

This is all very interesting - I'm AS, aged 52, 10 years since diagnosis - chronically depressed & suffering from a serious auto-immune problem - I may as well book my funeral now.

I was a super-bright kid - got really bored in school. Ended up as a chartered engineer - I've got a whole bunch of letters after my name anda pile of certificates an inch thick. Been married 28 years to a professional councelor - she says she can't 'read me' - I'm a blank wall to her.

Good points.  I know that my childhood, after about the age when I started school in 1964, was not a happy time for many reasons.  I was clearly bright, but my progress at school tailed off around age 7 and then started a continuous decline.  I was bullied throughout my school years, including finally being hospitalised with a shattered cheek bone.  I never went back to school after that - just short of my 16th birthday.  The bullying led to my increasing preference for isolation from around age 11.  I never felt comfortable around other people.  On top of this, there were disruptions at home.  My parents always stayed together, but my father always had problems with drink and money.  I remember lying awake at night hearing awful rows.  Many times in my youth, I remember wishing my dad would leave us because of his moods. 

It wasn't until I was in my early 20s that I began to realise how far behind everyone else I was emotionally and educationally.  I'm still there, really - approaching 60.  I've never really properly matured.  There are so many things I've always struggled with - mainly connected with social activity and emotional attachments.  I don't think I really know what love is, and I don't think I ever will.  My closest attachment was with my parents.  It's why I didn't leave home until my mid-30s, and why I never truly left home.  With those people gone, I feel adrift.  Lost.  My diagnosis means I can make sense of my life now, but it doesn't make it any easier to bear.  I go through my day to day life now and manage things pretty well.  I take responsibility for my health (the drinking aside, and I'm trying hard to kick that, but struggling); I eat well, I pay my bills, I do my job well.  My cat almost feels, sometimes, like the strongest reason I have to keep myself alive.  She had a rough life before I got her, and I want her to continue with the good life I can give her.  In all of that, the thought of suicide as an escape route is always there.  Always.  I live on a knife-edge at times.  Something like this recent new job offer, with the associated changes and ramifications, led me to crisis.  It's why I've had to turn it down.  I can't handle things like that just now.  It took me to the edge of despair.  Chronic indecision (or chronic over-analysis) has plagued me throughout life.  I have no confidence around other people - except around my service users at work, when I can slip into their mode and be the entertainer, nurturer... carer I am deep inside.  I struggle with my colleagues.  It's always 'normal' humans who make me feel inadequate by comparison. 

I don't know whether earlier diagnosis and interventions would have made a difference.  I can never know now.  At a workshop I attended the other week (Autism and Mental Health), the attendees were all on the spectrum.  They were all ages, from late teens to 70s.  Most of the older ones, naturally, had been recently diagnosed.  Of the younger ones who were diagnosed earlier, there were still plenty who struggled: with social issues, with emotions, and with stigma.  A few had eating disorders.  A few were self-harmers.  Most had tried all sorts of medications.  Some very capable-seeming people were in supported living.  Our local authority is working on a joint protocol involving social services, autism services, community groups and the NHS to try to develop better awareness, better understanding, and better access to diagnosis and treatments.  Most people there, of all ages, brought up the same main issue: getting through the wall of being taken seriously by GPs and educationalists.  Many had been and were continuing to be channeled off into mental health services first and getting misdiagnosed.

I'm not sure we can generalise with ages on a 'happiness/misery' scale.  I've met some very unhappy younger people.  I've also met some reasonably settled older people.  Of course, for the older ones - such as myself - there is always that thing of 'if only'.  Opportunities missed when signs were there.  The flip side of my coin is that I'm glad I'm autistic, and proud of it.  It kind of takes the edge off the down times for me.  I look at the NT world and see people frantically trying to compete, trying to find 'happiness' in money and possessions, trying to keep up and keep in with the 'in crowd'.  It all looks like madness to me.  Like rats in a maze.  With all of us, I suppose, the important thing is getting that greater understanding and awareness, and destigmatisation.  I wonder when it will come, or if it will.  Even working with supposedly trained (and therefore, one would hope, enlightened) people in autism services, I still encounter large gaps in understanding at best, and ignorance at worst.  I feel I constantly have to explain myself to people.  A young colleague at work said recently that she never wanted to grow old because she didn't want to succumb to diseases like dementia, arthritis, etc.  I explained that growing old is about so much else, and doesn't need to include these things.  I said about the process of self-discovery.  The accrual (hopefully) of a certain wisdom.  I concluded, though, by saying 'Unfortunately, it's a bit like trying to explain what it's like to be autistic to someone who doesn't have autism: you can't really 'get' it unless you're in it.'  That's the biggest thing we have to overcome, I think.  Only a cat knows what life is like as a cat.

I would say that depends on a couple of things...

1) Is the support which these people are receiving really teaching them what they need to survive independently in the adult world? If all it is really doing is teaching autistic people how to mask better, then I think that the possibility of burn-outs and long term mental health problems may still be very high, if only from the sheer effort of maintaining those coping mechanisms. To an outside observer, I coped well right up until I left home; in reality I was a nervous wreck inside and constantly anxious that I'd be exposed as a fraud. When I left home, my new circumstances meant that I didn't know what mask I should wear, and I fell apart completely; I was closer to homelessness and death than at any other time, and no warning signs that this might happen were ever noticed beforehand.

2) Is there going to be any improvement in services for adults and society's attitude to autism in general? From school-leaving age to middle-age is plenty of time to experience the kind of frustrations that we often talk about here; difficulty with finding work, rejection in romantic relationships, feeling left behind by peers, etc. Even where childhood interventions have been very successful, those people's lives could be full of unexpected, nasty surprises, just like anyone's can be. At those times, support services still need to recognise that they are dealing with an autistic person, and that in a time of crisis, their autistic traits are likely to become far more prominent and will need accommodating. These critical times are when a person is at their most vulnerable, so even if the new generation's general ability to cope is much better, we shouldn't be complacent about the need for adult support tailored for autistic people.