Am i autistic?

Thanks for your reply. 

Its good to hear from someone who has had CBT and feels the same way. I could never quite put my finger on why i never felt i was getting what i should out of my sessions, or why the tools I learnt couldn't be applied to situations where it seemed they should have been helpful. 

I think even if i wasn't to be diagnosed it would stop me wondering and then I could look into other things. 

Jay123 said:

Whenever i tried to bring anything up that wasn't necessarily related to my OCD or GAD then i was redirected quite quickly. 

I found this too. My ruminating thoughts didnt always feel like worry but it was always steered into that direction. I think CBT is effective some of the time but altho I understand everything I did and can CBT my way through a situation it often doesn't make much difference. Understanding how autism affects me and accepting things has made more difference, A diagnosis will give you some answers (and gives you permission to be yourself) but then I have found this needs further work in order to integrate it into your life. There seems to be little support for adults. 

Hi, 

Thank you for your reply. It's reassuring to hear about people who have been through similar experiences. 

I found CBT for be somewhat helpful, however, very singular in its focus. Whenever i tried to bring anything up that wasn't necessarily related to my OCD or GAD then i was redirected quite quickly. 

I am seriously thinking about seeking a diagnosis, though i am worried about the number of questions that it will entail and how that will make me feel. Looking through the replies ive had on here and reading peoples own experiences, i can see how helpful proper support is. 

Thanks again. 

Hi, 

7 years ago, I was diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD).  I received Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to help me manage my anxiety.  However, only 5 years ago, I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and I am now in my mid-twenties.  So, for many years, I was struggling in life not knowing what was wrong with me.  I had been suffering the same pain as you and I feel for you.  Life can be very difficult sometimes.

You should pursue a diagnosis because, when I was having CBT for my anxiety, no one raised a concern that I might have autism.  It was only 2 years after my GAD diagnosis, after not being able to cope, I got myself assessed for autism.  I was then diagnosed with autism. 

Getting a diagnosis may seem daunting at first.  However, when you get a diagnosis, life becomes so much easier with proper support, trust me.  

Hope you understand that there are many people in your position.

Yes you would think that a therapist should recognise these things but they don't always. I am still surprised by this myself- I saw a lot of different therapist and even was inpatient for 8 weeks once and not one of them ever thought of autistm. It took a dietitian to pick up that I am autistic and to get me started on the diagnostic process. When I did mention that I  could be autistic to other medical professionals they agreed that it was likely... I am now 25 and in the process of being diagnosed (final part of assessment coming up this week actually!). At this point I have become quite accepting that I am autistic- after meeting other autistic people and realising that most of my friends are actually also autistic (I just hadn't known previously) it just makes so much sense and I really don't understand why noone picked up on it sooner. But I think many mental health professionals are maybe not aware of the female phenotype? 

I was on the waiting list in Germany for diagnosis (and actually also in Luxembourg) but I have been moving a lot so I have ended up going privately (in UK) as I am not sure I will be long enough in any one country to ever make it to the end of the waiting list. I had a prediagnostic assessment with Sara Heath, which was great and I am now having the second part of the assessment this week- so hopefully that will all go smoothly and if I am diagnosed I hope that it will be accepted by the GP too. 

I think it does really help to know if you are autistic- I've felt in the past like I was collecting diagnoses (depression, OCD, anxiety, eating disorders etc.) but none of them really fit and noone seemed able to help- It does help a lot to know I think so I hope you manage to get a referral and in the meantime I hope you meet lots of people on this forum- this is such a friendly community and it is very nice to meet people here and to share experiences. 

Best, Ann 

Hi, thanks for your reply. May i ask if your therapy was NHS or private? i found the NHS therapy to be very focused on one thing without much space to delve into other subjects. 

Yes, the masking thing does make sense, i would often feel in therapy that i wasn't completely myself even if i was talking quite openly about my OCD. 

How did you find lockdown in regards to masking/unmasking autistic traits?

The way i handled/ reacted to lockdown and the unlocking also made me question if i was autistic, i think i may have unmasked more during lockdown and now i am struggling more than i did previously trying to go back to how i was.   

I was diagnosed privately and my son has a private diagnosis from the same company. His has been accepted by the local neurodevelopmental service who do NHS autism assessments in Norfolk. Mine is in the process. It's been accepted by GP, dentist and hospital with no problem. The private assessment was straight forward and easy to arrange. Everyone I met was very frendly and I was able to refuse some of the tasks as I didn't feel comfortable.

Thank you for your reply. Can i ask how you found the private route? Is your diagnosis accepted by your Gp? I been told some people who have been diagnosed privately that their  Gp would only accept a NHS one and therefore wouldn't refer them for support. 

Jay123,

If you are in need of support it will be a good idea to pursue a diagnosis, it can also make it easier to understand yourself.

I am not surprised that so many people are being born autistic, I am becoming more convinced like many scientists that autism is possibly the next step in human evolution. According to my studying genes can build upon top of themselves which does explain where the additional information from nature comes from. During the last 10 years autism diagnosis rate have increased from an estimation of 1% of the world’s population to 2% not including those who are not diagnosed. There’s nonautistic parents giving birth to autistic children. This increase of diagnosis can’t be because of an increase of awareness alone. The cause of autism is still unknown, so it is possible that the cause of autism is evolution supported by evolutionary psychology and other scientific research. 

So I am expecting more people to be born autistic generation after generation.

Hi Jay,

I was diagnosed last year at 21. I was also assigned female at birth, and we are often diagnosed later in life as compared to male assigned people. Previous diagnoses are also common with us, although this wasn’t the case for me. I had also had therapy before that point, and although one therapist did recognise traits in me, this may only have been because I bought a autism and spoke to them about which aspect I related to and which I didn’t. Remember that masking coming so ingrained but we’re often unaware of it ourselves, so may think we’re being authentic with a therapist in fact we are not, or we may be aware we are not being authentic but we are uncertain how to change that.

I hope that makes some kind of sense.

like other neuro divergent conditions, autism does run in families, so it’s definitely worth exploring. I hope that makes some kind of sense.

Happy to chat on this thread if you’d like to :))

it does run in the family apparently. so its a dead give away if one of your relatives is on the spectrum then all your family likely is, every single branch.

ah you had therapy? .... yeah i think therapist would have been able to recognise anything like that if you truly did open up enough to them and they truly did listen and do their job.... i think some of them have the ability to refer or diagnose too though dont they?

as for NHS diagnosis.... its a mess.... dont count on one, they will refer you then you will forever be in a que, or be forgotten, you will never hear back from it after they so call refer you. your therapist can probably refer you faster if you bring it up with them and see what they think as they would have enough personal info about you and your life now to make a judgement and possibly refer you if they have such powers and they will refer you faster if they can as the NHS gps just generally dont care enough.

I was diagnosed with things like PND, anxiety, social anxiety, and depression in the past. I didn’t know I was autistic then, so I didn’t know that all the other traits I had weren’t my personality, aside from the issues I was experiencing at the time, which led them to their ideas on what was wrong. I’m pretty sure I was depressed once, but not the other times. I feel with hindsight those were burnouts.

I realised I was autistic during the time my teen was being assessed. I however found it to be a shock, and I tried to bury it for a year. I went private and got my diagnosis is March, not  long before my 49th birthday.

Although I knew for a few years, seeing the diagnostic report was a shock. I had mixed emotions, but even these few months on, I feel so much better about myself.

Diagnosed at 59 years of age: Autism Spectrum Condition, Generalised Anxiety Disorder and social phobia.

I would ask your gp for an assessment. I’m half way through this process with the nhs and so far it hasn’t been that stressful - it’s not too bad. It’s better to know I think - and a diagnosis can be helpful in various ways. Good luck :) 

Hi. My son was diagnosed with autism two years ago. At that point I started to think that I had similar traits. I'm antisocial and will leave social events after becoming upset. I cant read faces and people love to talk at me about the issues in their lives because i don't react.

I self referred to our local NHS neurodevelopnental service which handles assessments. Found forms fairly easy to fill in. I was accepted for assessment on the NHS with a 3.5 year wait. In the end I went private and was diagnosed with autism a few months later.

I think it's worth knowing. It explains alot of issues in life but there isn't any ongoing support and benefits seem impossible to claim. In my case I just wanted it on my records for when I'm older as I'm a disabled adult.