Involvement of family- adult diagnosis

That's fine, I wasn't offended.  The opposite, I am grateful for your input and interested to read your comments.  Yes, I am interested in this issue, both for myself and others, and do also feel strongly about it.  

For me this has helped me to 'fake it' so I that am employable, which is clearly a huge help at least in getting jobs.  In the social area this has helped me somewhat to appear more social, but can also disadvantage me as others don't understand how much I am struggling (I am usually just seen as shy, and my family can't quite understand why I don't just socialise more).  I think that as Attwood mentions, the effort of putting on an act is exhausting for many women on the spectrum.  I also believe that women have much higher expectations to perform socially, and that the social domain is generally much more complex.  For example women tend to be more deceiptful, are nasty about others 'behind their back', and in my experience are generally very hard to read, trust and fit in with.

In my opinion and from research, I would say that there are many factors that affect a different manifestation of autism in some women.  For example, many (as did I) had a 'best friend' in childhood.  This friend then assisted me to fit in to some extent during my school years, which were hard but I wasn't isolated.  However once I was away from the structured, supported environment at school I really started to struggle.  University was a whole new and more complex social environment, and work has gone on to be even worse.

Again, from my opinion and research, I believe that the ritual/routine part is also less obvious in girls, and may be linked to the fact that we sometimes have 1 or more friends.  Or perhaps it is just different in nature, I am not really sure.  Therefore I have asked myself if a social communication disorder that I have read about is not more suited to people like me, as I have read that it doesn't require a ritual/routine element.  However this somehow lacks the image of being as severe as autism and so may not be taken as seriously or support given.  I don't know really.

I imagine that regarding reading partners that this varies.  Is this not dependent on the level of difficulty reading subtle cues?  Personally I feel that I am rather weak on this.  I don't know of any other women on the spectrum to be able to comment.

Other than the ritual/routine part of the diagnosis, I feel as though my complete lack of understanding in most situations is evident (although actually a lot of the time doesn't seem to be clear to others, I imagine an experienced diagnotitian should be able to see how hard it is for me).  However I do understand things like metaphors, in fact quite well I think.  Again this clouds the fact that I take a lot of other language literally, but once I am used to a particular saying, I soon pick it up.

I am happier to be on the road to something, however as you can see it is leaving me with many unanswered questions.  I think it is part of putting a jigsaw together of how I see myself and how others perceive me.  Until recently this was very different.  I am still struggling to understand whether I am truly autistic or just incredibly awkward and without much social ability to read others, use language in social settings,etc.  In fact I never even considered the possibilty of being autistic until I read about autism in girls, and there are so many stereotypes around about what autistic people (both high and low functionning) are like.  Whatever the case I certainly feel that I need a diagnosis of some sort, and I wonder how many girls and women out there are like me and also want to understand why everything is so hard.

Sorry, this is quite long.  I would normally edit or shorten my response so as not to be boring (another adaptation to myself in an attempt to be social- very hard to do when speaking!) but I see that you are also very interested in the topic.

That's fine, I wasn't offended.  The opposite, I am grateful for your input and interested to read your comments.  Yes, I am interested in this issue, both for myself and others, and do also feel strongly about it.  

For me this has helped me to 'fake it' so I that am employable, which is clearly a huge help at least in getting jobs.  In the social area this has helped me somewhat to appear more social, but can also disadvantage me as others don't understand how much I am struggling (I am usually just seen as shy, and my family can't quite understand why I don't just socialise more).  I think that as Attwood mentions, the effort of putting on an act is exhausting for many women on the spectrum.  I also believe that women have much higher expectations to perform socially, and that the social domain is generally much more complex.  For example women tend to be more deceiptful, are nasty about others 'behind their back', and in my experience are generally very hard to read, trust and fit in with.

In my opinion and from research, I would say that there are many factors that affect a different manifestation of autism in some women.  For example, many (as did I) had a 'best friend' in childhood.  This friend then assisted me to fit in to some extent during my school years, which were hard but I wasn't isolated.  However once I was away from the structured, supported environment at school I really started to struggle.  University was a whole new and more complex social environment, and work has gone on to be even worse.

Again, from my opinion and research, I believe that the ritual/routine part is also less obvious in girls, and may be linked to the fact that we sometimes have 1 or more friends.  Or perhaps it is just different in nature, I am not really sure.  Therefore I have asked myself if a social communication disorder that I have read about is not more suited to people like me, as I have read that it doesn't require a ritual/routine element.  However this somehow lacks the image of being as severe as autism and so may not be taken as seriously or support given.  I don't know really.

I imagine that regarding reading partners that this varies.  Is this not dependent on the level of difficulty reading subtle cues?  Personally I feel that I am rather weak on this.  I don't know of any other women on the spectrum to be able to comment.

Other than the ritual/routine part of the diagnosis, I feel as though my complete lack of understanding in most situations is evident (although actually a lot of the time doesn't seem to be clear to others, I imagine an experienced diagnotitian should be able to see how hard it is for me).  However I do understand things like metaphors, in fact quite well I think.  Again this clouds the fact that I take a lot of other language literally, but once I am used to a particular saying, I soon pick it up.

I am happier to be on the road to something, however as you can see it is leaving me with many unanswered questions.  I think it is part of putting a jigsaw together of how I see myself and how others perceive me.  Until recently this was very different.  I am still struggling to understand whether I am truly autistic or just incredibly awkward and without much social ability to read others, use language in social settings,etc.  In fact I never even considered the possibilty of being autistic until I read about autism in girls, and there are so many stereotypes around about what autistic people (both high and low functionning) are like.  Whatever the case I certainly feel that I need a diagnosis of some sort, and I wonder how many girls and women out there are like me and also want to understand why everything is so hard.

Sorry, this is quite long.  I would normally edit or shorten my response so as not to be boring (another adaptation to myself in an attempt to be social- very hard to do when speaking!) but I see that you are also very interested in the topic.