Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi there,
My name's Gary and, at 49 years of age, I've been diagnosed with autism quite late in life.
What started the ball rolling with regards to eventually getting this diagnosis was that I was seeing a psychologist for counselling following my beloved foster mum's murder and it was my mentions of feeling strangely disconnected compared to how the rest of my family were that particularly interested her.
At first my psychologist was looking at PTSD and dissociation disorder, but then when I happened to mention that I went to a special educational needs school when I was young she became quite curious as to what diagnosis I'd been given way back then.
'Oh I wasn't given a diagnosis' I replied, adding: 'I was just told by everyone that I was slow - though that's never sat well with me, but hey, this was the 1970s. I have wondered whether there was something like an autistic spectrum disorder or ADD going on back then, though - something that would be recognised now, but "didn't exist" back then'.
...Anyway, that started the ball rolling with various assessments last summer and has led up to my eventual diagnosis this July.
I decided to have a look at this forum because I was curious to see if anyone has had a similar experience to me with regards to being diagnosed with an ASD relatively late in life.
i found out now and i am 21. far far to late in my opinion . i have been through a lot of trauma as a result of the missed diagnosis.
it does sound like autism if you ask me, as i have experienced a similar thing following the death of my grandmother.
dissasociatoin. well that can be either due to autistic masking, where the autistic person has created a not autistic persona to be able to function around nuerotypicals (not autistic) or could be due to the sort of distance autistic people experience vs not autistic people, for me can feel like we exist in different dimensions.
also i can't help noticing you wrote a long post (like most autistics) if you ask me that points to autism.
NAS72895 said:also i can't help noticing you wrote a long post (like most autistics) if you ask me that points to autism.
well not always ----- some autistics I have conversed with could only process short sentences each on a separate line
I tend to only post short posts
yes i will BJS
I was wondering about pikl, haven't seen he on here for a while, give her my regards.
yes they're the best --- i dont have much time anymore --- I spent more time PMing people at set times. BTW pikl is pretty ill and about to go into hospital. We're all hoping its some sort of false alarm.