I’m 64 and I think I may be on the autistic spectrum - can anyone give me some tips?

Hi everyone,

I hope u don’t mind me bouncing my experiences off u all but I’m hoping that one or two of u can maybe validate them and give me a few tips. Basically I had a mega light bulb hour last night. I’ve suspected I’m on the autistic spectrum for a while, ever since my grandson was diagnosed 4yrs ago and my daughter and I had many long phone calls about it all. She thought we were both on the spectrum ourselves and she certainly does have some tendencies but unfortunately we are not in contact at the moment. About my own tendencies I dont know where to start but I’ll try not to go on & on too much (one of my many tendencies!) I probably should mention before I start that I’m a 64yr old woman with a no. of heavy duty medical problems and also complex PTSD from a very abusive marriage in my late teens and i think the effects of these have obscured the various signs of (?high functioning) autism. I also nursed for a no. of years in my youth and have been a practicing Buddhist for the last 25yrs - both these have given me coping strategies in social situations which may have masked things too at times, particularly the Buddhism which has had a profound effect on my life generally and has also shown me my mind and the way I relate (or don’t relate) to others more & more clearly. The nursing served to highlight some of my ‘failings’ too which is one of the reasons I was forced to change career. I had a few of the usual sorts of social blunders yesterday and there was a conversation with my Mum recently about how I’d had what she called ‘tunnel vision’ ever since I was a toddler and these made me at long last check out my various tendencies & experiences online - and they led me straight to autism sites/blogs. And it was just “Yes this is me!” again & again, not with everything but with quite a lot more symptoms than would be just coincidence. To be honest it was a huge relief - at last I know why and I can stop beating my self up about these  tendencies and maybe do something constructive about them.

About my ‘tunnel vision’ my mum said that I when I was doing something I just didnt seem to be aware of other people or my surroundings or the context of a situation, that I didn’t seem to think of the consequences, of how what I did affected others. I was totally unaware I was doing this and often didn’t really get it when ppl got upset or tried to explain what I was doing wrong. I can look back now and see that some of my bad choices when I was younger were because of this tendency, there were always really obvious parts of the picture that I didn’t pick up on. Mum says I’ve improved over the years and my Buddhist practice has undoubtedly helped with this and I’m more aware now of this tendency. It still happens again & again though, even though I care a lot about others and always have. My spatial awareness is also very poor - my partner remarks on it frequently and in school sports I was banned from the javelin etc for this reason.

Nothing was ever done about any of my tendencies because ppl just weren’t aware of the autistic spectrum when I was younger. My parents & friends knew I was ‘different’ in some ways and ‘in my own world’ and for all my intelligence just devoid of the ‘common sense’ my peers had. I always had a a sense that I was somehow ‘different’ too. My teachers knew I think but no label was there to be attached - I was the only one in the whole of the 6th form for instance (numbering maybe 40 of us) who wasn’t made a prefect. I was always described as impetuous too, unable to contain myself if I knew an answer or had something to say and I acted on impulse ‘without thinking’ - with me though there wasn’t ever a thought there to think. I was the one that would always do a dare, I wouldn’t see the consequences, once it was suggested I just had to do it. My nickname in school was ‘the mad professor’ - I guess this was one of the reasons I did have friends, because I amused them and I think I was a good friend in a lot of ways but there have been many times since where I’ve just frustrated and bemused the ppl close to me. “But why didn’t u think?” has been said to me so many innumerable times since and is to this day. I have no answer to that, I just don’t know why.

As I said, I’m now a 64yr old Buddhist and this particular tendency is mainly confined to social blunders now but I frustrate and bemuse myself when I realise after the event (or I’m told) that I’ve said or done something silly/tactless/inappropriate/strange/eccentric. I have a sense so often these days that a lot of ppl find me a bit odd generally and to be honest I dread social situations with ppl that don’t seem to accept this or seem to be laughing at me in not a nice way. People that I’ve blundered with already, that I think I’m going to blunder with. I guess it’s progress that I’m becoming more aware, but I have to be really careful, I just cannot relax my focus or I’ll blunder. Once ppl have experienced a few of these blunders though and they are obviously starting to think I’m a bit odd then it’s nerve-wracking for me. Sometimes these days I actually do have a sense that something I’m about to say or do is not appropriate, but a sort of recklessness or impulse makes me say or do it anyway. Or a feeling that yes it is the right thing to say or do so I go ahead. I guess that’s progress too that I’m starting to get an inkling sometimes that I shouldn’t say or do something - that again is the effect of my Buddhist practice. But it’s an almost daily issue for me.

I have a lot of good close friends in the Buddhist community, they know my oddities but they aren’t phased, they focus on the good things about me and I try to do this myself with other friends with mental or physical challenges. I also have PTSD as I said and a lot of physical challenges & disabilities and i now have hearing loss too so I can understand a lot of what ‘challenged’ ppl go through - again this is part of my Buddhist practice but I’ve always had strong compassion right from a child. Don’t know how this fits with tunnel vision or my possibly autistic tendencies but somehow they seem to have co-existed with intense emotion about people or animals suffering and a burning compulsion to do something about it which persists to this day.  As a child I collected for the RSPCA etc and was nearly beaten up quite a few times defending the class underdog or making I guess unwise remarks like we should eat our horrible school dinners because children in Biafra were starving. As a young divorced mum in my 20’s & 30’s I was heavily involved in, obsessed with CND, the Anti-Apartheid movement, Oxfam, the Labour Party etc - I was doing it I thought for a better world for my daughter as well as for people that were suffering but somehow I didn’t click that it wasn’t helping her in the here & now. By now I was suffering with PTSD and without going into details our family life with my parents was horribly dysfunctional but my daughter has said many times since that even though I did do alot of things for her &with her that she didn’t feel loved or connected to me. Quite a few of my boyfriends finished with me because of this too. Then we lost my sister to cancer and my daughter, in the 3rd yr of Uni was diagnosed with OCD. Since then my daughter has estranged herself from me for long periods, the latest one involving my grandson as well. This is going off the point a bit but looking back my mother and I can see how my ?autistic tendencies and PTSD have been big factors in it all and have been the cause of my worst mistakes with my daughter. 

In more recent years, since I found Buddhism and started sorting out my mind, as I was suicidally unhappy by time I reached my 30’s, my physical health has fallen apart and with it came a lot of the apparently normal anxiety that accompanies chronic illness & disability. I had crippling social anxiety & extremely low self-esteem related to these issues and not being able to work because of them. I was also obsessive about having to do/not do all sorts of things related to my health - some were rational because I knew what would happen if I did/didn’t do something but some were definitely OTT. I still have this tendency tho I’ve been trying to let go more the last few years - maybe b/c I’ve been so obsessed with protecting my 87yr old Mum and my partner on cancer treatment from Covid that there just hasn’t been the mental space for much else. My PTSD was also diagnosed 13yrs ago and I’ve seen it playing into all these health anxieties. I had medical crisis counselling and also CBT for my PTSD and again my Buddhist practice has held me up. I feel a lot more accepting & confident about my own health stuff these days and my Mum, partner & I are supporting each other as we come slowly out of Covid shielding mode. I only mention all this because i think my ?autistic tendencies have played in too - the extreme anxiety when something changes and I have to try & adapt for instance. Health anxiety for sure but I’ve never dealt well with change and my Mum says it was a really big issue when I was a child. It was the reason why my parents wouldnt allow the school to put me up a year as I would never have dealt with a new class and also kids a year older than me. Nowadays my Mum and partner have become veterans with health-related things having to be done in a certain way or I can’t cope, they find it easier just to go along with it. And if something ‘big’ is happening like the day we’re finally going away after weeks of packing then I take a Valium to stop me melting down.

Something else my partner has had to put up with, and my parents when I was a child, is once I focus on something I think is important or has gripped me I’m just ‘driven’. My focus is intense and absolute to the exclusion of all else. I have to do it perfectly and it can take much longer as a result. My mother called this ‘tunnel vision’ too. These days I’m made more aware by my partner telling me again & again to stop and do something else I need to do like test my blood sugar or eat something or settle down to sleep. But often I just feel defensive and compelled to carry on anyway sometimes for hours and hours more. It’s a big almost daily challenge for me, especially as it often involves things that aren’t that beneficial or useful and detract from things that are. I’ve been 6hrs straight composing this post for instance but I hope it’ll be helpful. My daughter is the same with her work - at times she’s even collapsed due to not eating or exhaustion. She is also extremely emotional and has very frequent meltdowns but luckily she has a very good husband.

I’m also more & more finding I cant multi-task at all.  I never could do this easily but my brain is ageing now i guess and being affected by wildly oscillating diabetic blood sugars etc so I just can’t manage at all anymore. I can only think about one thing at a time and can’t cope at all with other things coming in. I can even meltdown occasionally. And if I’m trying to focus on conversing with someone and they have the TV on or my partner’s strumming his guitar or even my Mum is doing her habit of rocking her foot back & fore I just can’t do it. I have to ask them to stop so I can concentrate on  what I’m trying to say.  When i am able to concentrate on a conversation though I go on & on & on apparently, saying the same thing over & over. My daughter has always done this too though it’s partly due to her OCD. When I am aware I’m doing it it feels a bit compulsive. I also interrupt a lot, I always have apparently. Everyone complains about it. I try not to but it always seems to happen. I just can’t control the impulse.

Another one that I have is sensitivity to light, particularly in the morning, and to noise. Re the latter my hearing loss has helped a lot with this - I only wear hearing aids when I have to.  I much prefer to live in my muffled world and am grateful I have this. My daughter has these sensitivities too and my grandson has sensory processing disorder amongst other things. Time is also a big difficulty with me, I just can’t judge it - everyone says I have no concept of time and no matter how I try I’m always late.

Sorry this has been such a long one. I hope there may be one or two of u tho that have experienced similar things and could maybe point me in the right direction. I saw some videos last nite of ppl talking about their experiences and it helped a lot, I recognised myself a lot. It was such a relief. I don’t know whether it’d be helpful to try and get a proper diagnosis at my age and with all my other conditions that complicate things. I’ve been thru enough to be honest without putting myself thru a process that could strip me of self-confidence yet again. But I wonder if there are things I could read or techniques I could try - if I could find techniques that will fit with my Buddhist mind-training for instance that would be really helpful I think. Some I already do, I’ve just learnt over the years that they help - another lightbulb moment last night was coming across an article that basically listed all the techniques I’ve been using to cope with daily life tasks right down to colour-coded lists!

Anyway thanks very much to any brave souls that have got thru all this and can manage to reply

Karen