Published on 12, July, 2020
Aged 60 without a diagnosis, but have always struggled to fit in, etc.. Recently retired earlier than I really wanted to as I couldn't adjust to constant changes to working environment.
Had an assessment for autism some years ago, but no positive diagnosis. Personally I think the jury is still out.
I know that I have constructed the person that I appear to be to others. So, for example, I make a positive effort to make eye contact in interview situations because I know it's "odd" not to. I've learned to make people laugh with my "odd" observational humour, so that, even if I'm not exactly accepted, at least I may be appreciated for that and not rejected outright. But for all my attempts to fit in, to me this all just highlights the difference to me. It feels fundamentally false: an elaborate lie, a constructed personality which allows me to simulate relationships. It's not really clear to me that I am a person that others can relate to in the conventional sense. It's obvious enough that people don't get out of me what they expect and my attempts to provide it cost me a lot. I and they get very little if anything lasting out of the exchange
On very rare occasions, a more genuine relationship may develop, but mostly I don't want that. My wife and child seem to "get" me most of the time and know that I need to be left alone a lot. I wouldn't be without them, but I think they know that I get on better with animals really!I'm not sure what life is going to be like for me without the routine of work. I relied a lot on that despite the problems of work relationships. Things aren't looking too good several months into retirement.
I feel similar. My wife (the only person I feel 100% comfortable being myself with) is encouraging me to mask less with others, but it's difficult.
Re: assessment, I was first assessed as not autistic. Fifteen years later, I managed to get a reassessment and was diagnosed autistic. It is possible!
Re: the work vacuum, have you considered voluntary work? I find it's like work without so much pressure.
Hello mirror....opps....I mean Ian.
You sound very dangerously like me. Accordingly, I am hardly surprised that retirement is not proving the best arrangement for you. I will never retire, but then again, I'm not really sure that you could call my work a job either - its just me being me.
I know that the following advice sounds ridiculously "standard", but in your case, I think it may be right on the money = get out of your house and do stuff. Get a routine of activity going again. Give yourself other things to think about and to talk about.
Dog walking. It will fill your time and conceivably raise you a few quid into the bargain if you were to choose to do it commercially (not something I would necessarily suggest) - but volunteer dog walking is a glorious thing to keep you busy in the company of sentience that will never burden you like bloody humans do. Find your local dog shelter or pound and volunteer your services.
Simialrly, helping on a farm or at stables.....horses, cows, pigs (pigs are b**stards by the way)....is another rewarding way to keep yourself busy. These days, such places are screaming out for all the help they can get.
I assume that neither of these suggested activities are akin to what your work was, but that is part of the beauty of retirement - you can reinvent yourself as something else - to keep yourself sane.
Animals are your key, chap. They will save the day and save your bacon. Don't languish and stare at your navel whilst loosing yourself in the deep mire of your own mind. Keep active at all costs - both mentally and physically. Wives and children can get you, until they don't....never take them nor your own mental health for granted.
Forgive this rather bullish response - not my usual modus operandi - but for some inexplicable reason, I believe it to be appropriate in this instance. You really do sound a lot like me (you poor old soul.) And for the avoidance of doubt, I do like pigs, but their similarity to humans make them one of my least favourite beasts.
From what you have written above, a diagnosis isn't really what you are longing for - but you fear being an "imposter" in this place. Do not worry yourself over such matters. You are very welcome here. You sound perfectly autistic enough to me - based on your writings above - and who are we to judge anyway. A very significant minority, if not majority of people on these pages, suffer from imposter syndrome, so you are in very good company here.
If I have entirely missed the mark above, I ask for your forgiveness. I intend only good things to flow from the above and apologise if it is all a little "too much in your face." I note below that you wrote to Shardovan that "I've not succeeded terribly well", but I must take issue with that. You are 60, you have retired, you have survived - bravo. Now just keep going !
Very best wishes from an uncharacteristically rambunctious, Number - and I hope you choose to stick around to see if we are "your type of people." I think we will be.
Inactive account said: I can accept that, at this remove, it may simply be impossible to make the diagnosis.
Not at all.
I received an NHS diagnosis last year at 60.
Inactive account said:They can't turn the clock back and observe me as a 4 year old, and I can't now give them the evidence of how I was then as I don't know that myself.
That won't matter.
My parents are no longer alive and I had no-one to act as a 'witness' to my childhood (although I have a good memory of it).
Part of my assessment was via tests.
Here's a link to a thread about this in case you would like to try one:
https://community.autism.org.uk/f/adults-on-the-autistic-spectrum/28699/raads-r-diagnostic-scale
I don't really have a problem with the verdict personally. I can accept that, at this remove, it may simply be impossible to make the diagnosis. They can't turn the clock back and observe me as a 4 year old, and I can't now give them the evidence of how I was then as I don't know that myself. There isn't an awful lot to go on and there are factors in my early development which may point to other causes (or not). I had problems early on, but there was no help in those days. Meltdowns were punished, so you have to work it out for yourself and eventually find your way in the world of others. I've not succeeded terribly well, but that's hardly surprising in the circumstances.
Some of the assessment stories I’ve heard on here have been appalling. Even very recent ones. ‘You can’t be autistic because you have a friend and you looked me in the eye there. Next!’ So you’re right to mistrust the inconclusive verdict.