• Replies 20 replies
  • Subscribers 25 subscribers
  • Views 6087 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

59 year old and not assessed

m21ian

Hi, yes, I'm 59 and I've never benn formally assessed for Autism, and nowadays I have learned to adjust and have coping strategies for social situations, and the avoidance of the same. I have a partner, and a 10 yo daughter, I have a good job and on th eoutside all looks rosy - but that's not the whole picture is it.

I have no "mates" - in my whole life I have never ever instigated a social meet-up with a friend, the ideas of having to meet 121 or in a group for a regular social chit-chat both scares and makes me feel trapped. People have tried in the past to form matey relationships, but I have always batted them away, or failed somehow.

That's ok - I ma not lonely - I have plenty of friends/associates at work and I can handle that as the relationships are defined by where we are and what we do and it never overlaps into out-of-work so it's all good.

My childood was . . . odd. So were my teens, and my 20's and right up into my mid 30's I was still struggling. When I was 23 I worked in a open plan office and several of my workmates took it upon themselves to role pay "sarcasm" for me as I just did not get it. Funny looking back, I was just cosidered eccentric and I have played on that all my life - making a joke out of it witghout ever knowing what "it" was.

I dropped out of school when I was 17 as it was all getting too much, found jobs where I worked on my own, then over the years moved into jobs where i worked around people. I used to apologise to people wh sat near me because I couldn't talk small talk like  everyone else, ha ha, I can now but it's taken a long long time.

Later I moved into freelance working because that meant that I could move on when I found myself socially floundering - as everywehere I went I found a small number of people who liked me for myself, an equal number of peoole who really disliked me for the same reasons, and a whole raft of people who I just confised, or whatever.  

My partner wants to get married, but I can't do that as it fills me with dread, she wants me to have a party for my 60th: no thanks, she wants me to go out with friends on my own - that will never happen. I not unsociable but anything that centres on my and might illustrate the gaping hole in my social network I have to avoid, and protect the illusions and barries i hae built around me.

I am considering applying for a diagnosis, not for myself, mostly for my partner (although she doesn't know) but I'm afraid of opening up to a GP for fear of being knocked-back, like I said I now how coping strategies so that is what they wil see - not the me inside or the historical me who almost 60 years of back story.

I dunno.

Someone tell me - what am I thinking?

Parents

  • I have been reading with interest the posts on this thread and contemplating what relevance or correlation they have for my own unique journey and also reflecting on the course of my life so far, and this morning, while walking my dog in the local forest, a couple of memories suddenly popped into my mind (the conscious part anyway). I mentioned in an earlier post on this thread that I wondered whether I would ever get to the bottom of my problems. Well the two memories I am about to describe feel important, if not the total reason, then certainly very relevant.

    The first is from a very early age when I have a picture in my mind of me lying on my back I believe having a nappy changed and for reasons unknown I decided to urinate. The resulting fountain would cause much amusement on "you've been framed" I am sure but the reaction from my mother was quite the opposite and the resulting trauma is cemented into my brain. Corporal punishment was not taboo in those days!

    The second is  when I was about 6/7 years old and had joined a cub scout group with a neighbour.  I was excited because a Xmas Gang Show was proposed and had seen similar shows on TV (black and white maybe) But when it came to pass I was told I was to be a "fairy". In due course and much to my consternation I was bedecked with a ballet dancers skirt (frilly thing sticking out from my waist) and handed a fairy wand with a star on the end to wave about. I said little at the time but inside I was humiliated and on the night of the performance I was shocked to see my mother and her friend in the audience laughing uncontrollably at me on the stage.

    Now Freud might have a field day with these two memories but the fact I can recall them so vividly 60 years on tells me they are hard wired into my brain.

    Maybe these are the source of my problems?

    Laddie.

Reply

  • I have been reading with interest the posts on this thread and contemplating what relevance or correlation they have for my own unique journey and also reflecting on the course of my life so far, and this morning, while walking my dog in the local forest, a couple of memories suddenly popped into my mind (the conscious part anyway). I mentioned in an earlier post on this thread that I wondered whether I would ever get to the bottom of my problems. Well the two memories I am about to describe feel important, if not the total reason, then certainly very relevant.

    The first is from a very early age when I have a picture in my mind of me lying on my back I believe having a nappy changed and for reasons unknown I decided to urinate. The resulting fountain would cause much amusement on "you've been framed" I am sure but the reaction from my mother was quite the opposite and the resulting trauma is cemented into my brain. Corporal punishment was not taboo in those days!

    The second is  when I was about 6/7 years old and had joined a cub scout group with a neighbour.  I was excited because a Xmas Gang Show was proposed and had seen similar shows on TV (black and white maybe) But when it came to pass I was told I was to be a "fairy". In due course and much to my consternation I was bedecked with a ballet dancers skirt (frilly thing sticking out from my waist) and handed a fairy wand with a star on the end to wave about. I said little at the time but inside I was humiliated and on the night of the performance I was shocked to see my mother and her friend in the audience laughing uncontrollably at me on the stage.

    Now Freud might have a field day with these two memories but the fact I can recall them so vividly 60 years on tells me they are hard wired into my brain.

    Maybe these are the source of my problems?

    Laddie.

Children
No Data