Published on 12, July, 2020
I'm a 63 year old female and live in North Yorkshire. I worked as a nurse but am now retired. Never married and don't have any children. Realised about 10 years ago that I had A.S. but felt it wasn't really appropriate to be professionally diagnosed. Some other family members are also affected but, like me, are high-functioning, except for one cousin who is profoundly autistic. It was a relief in many ways to realise that I was on the autistic spectrum as explained lots of things about myself that I had found puzzling such as hypersensitivity to noise, hating going to parties etc. When I was younger nothing seemed to be known about Aspergers and I wonder how different my life would have been if I knew then what I know now. Are there other people in the same situation?
In my early 40's recently diagnosed with Aspergers, after the psychological crash and burn brought on by the condition, been sacrificing my life for work obsession, on paper I was a total success, but the Aspergers rock has to come back down to Earth at some time when the fuel is spent. It is hard picking up a new functional role or pathway, because of the rocket ride all my life, so I am learning to take it easy on myself, the diagnosed allows me to hopefully too build a new structure which has more comfort within long-term. I love to learn so,, in a way it is my new challenge. Step by step we Aspies get there as we are dumbgeniuses as my brother puts it, we don't stop