Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi,
I am a 29 year old women and have been looking at the possibility that im autistic for a couple of years now. My niece was recently diagnosed with ADHD and autism and during that time my family and myself noticed a lot of similarities between my niece and how i was at the same age. As we researched autism in girls more the symptoms seems to familiar to me that i was surprised i has never been diagnosed when i was young; i have been diagnosed with OCD and general anxiety disorder and have been in and out of therapy since about 8 years old.
I have also taken a number of online autism test (unsure how accurate they are) and they have came up with a high likely hood that i am autistic. I guess i am just looking for advise on if i should pursue a diagnosis. Although i think i have a lot of the symptoms i am somewhat reluctant to seek this out because i would have thought if i was autistic it would have come up during my years in therapy? In autistic peoples experiences how often are you misdiagnosed or not diagnosed for whatever reasons?
I know that if i went through the process it would be quite stressful for me, however, after seeing how well my niece is now doing with the proper support and understanding i think it could be a good thing for me.
Please let me know if anyone has any experience of late diagnosis even after being in therapy and diagnosed with other things before.
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 :))
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.