Just didn't quite feel "normal"

I never feel like I fit in, all my life. The more I tried the worst it got. From a young age I remember being bullied always the person the joke was about, but that was I guess me not fitting in. I would have tantrums and was classed as a spoilt kid not getting her own way but I think it was frustration as I always felt different. I just thought I was shy but I hate going out, it doesn’t matter if I know the people or if I’m meeting new people it fills me with dread. I’m currently off work and when I seen my GP he has referred me for counselling because he thinks I’m stressed, anxious and depressed (which I do agree in part), but after seeing a programme on TV I think I’m autistic which as I’m struggling is causing the stress and anxiety. After mulling it over for a couple of weeks I have now booked an appointment to talk to him about maybe getting assessed more for me then anything else. So I know I’m not weird just quirky.

thats the way to explain how i feel perfectly......"like an outsider", thank you, i was looking for that

Quick answer here as feeling rubbish right now. My wife works with autistic children and noticed lots of traits in me (and my dad actually). My mum then told me she considered it when I was young. Now I’m trying to get an assessment after a few years of it being on my radar. 

It was an autistic friend of mine that mentioned it, and at the time I was seeing GPimhs for dealing with anxiety and depression. The practioner gave me the AQ-10 (and the ADHD one) to complete and I scored as suspected autism and it went from there. I finally had my assessment via Right to Choose on Tuesday and was diagnosed with autism and it explained so much of why I've always felt like an outsider, or never fitted in.

I had known all my life that I was' different', 'odd', 'strange' etc. Others have unkindly told me since infancy.

As a small child, from time to time I threw tantrums, especially when they tried to make me eat meat. Growing up, I never fitted in and always felt that I was on the outside looking in. It was lonely and confusing. Why was everyone else so different? Why was no-one like me?

Then, moving on a few decades.. difficult decades..  I discovered that stimming had a name;  I had been doing it my whole life, always in private,  and just didn't know that others did it. Following that,  I stumbled upon films of autistic children doing it,  and thought to myself, 'Oh! autistic folk do it too'. Then, after some rather uncomfortable thinking, I went to the library where I found a book by Gillan Drew "An Adult with an Autism Diagnosis" subtitled 'A guide for the Newly Diagnosed.'  Well, that was a significant find. I found parts of myself on so many pages. Gillan's biography had many similarities to my life story except, notably, that he had been diagnosed at 28.

As a result I sought help, and after nearly a lifetime of misdiagnoses ('anxiety disorder' etc ) I was diagnosed a few years ago.... in my mid sixties.

And then, better late than never... I began to understand and accept who I am....

I am Ben

I have met someone new who has a psychology degree.. we became friends and he kept saying remarks about AS after observing some of my behaviour and I dismissed them.. because "I would have known if I was autistic ofcourse and I am not THAT smart". But during one of my shutdowns, I decided to research AS to see the fuss as all I really knew of it before was stereotypes like "Rain man" or "Sheldon Cooper". I took some tests and read ALOT of information but soon the penny dropped and it just made so much sense!

Medical professionals wouldn't have known without my raising it because I internalise the impact and on the face of it, I lead a "normal" life.

I knew I was generally quirky, but didn't care that I was quirky. I just went about life my way.  Crunch came for me as it does for sadly too many when I crashed into that one problem that neither I nor anyone else understood and could not surmount and was in a place of significant distress - for me, medical and body phobia.  For others, it could be something different.

It's a shame I found out that way.  I might not have those issues to such a degree, had I known sooner in life.

I'm glad you are getting to your truth now.  Even in our 50s, it makes such a difference.

This morning I requested my medical/hospital records and so these, along with a diagnosis, might solve the mystery of why I've had the misfortune to be me.

So good to hear you had a positive experience discussing it with your GP.

I became aware that I'm autistic when I was discussing my niece who was about 5 at the time with a friend and how worried I was about her behaviour. My fried leant me a book about autism in girls (her daughter had recently been diagnosed) and when I was reading it I so strongly identified with so much of the traits and experiences described that I thought 'this is me'. I'll admit this was a devastating revelation and for some months after that I really struggled with the idea that I might be autistic because until then I had only seen negative representations and opinions of autism. I did quite a lot of research and slowly accepted that I was pretty much 100% confident that I am autistic. I went to my GP who told me 'we don't deal with mental health issues at this surgery' and told me to self refer to Mind for some CBT as I was also suffering from anxiety and suicidal thoughts at the time. It put me off pursuing an official diagnosis but I have recently requested referral again as I think it could be helpful in the future with requesting accommodations or adjustments etc more than to confirm what I already know to be true.

I first became aware of it in my late 20s, when a friend of mine was assessed after her son's diagnosis. She was also diagnosed, and after a conversation about how similar our social and sensory issues were she suggested that I look into whether I was autistic too. Unfortunately at that time I was dismissed rather harshly by the GP I saw about it and I tried to put it out of my head for the next few years.

I did think about it every so often, especially as I started to interact with other autistic adults (mostly online) but I was very wary of self-diagnosing or seeking assessment again. At the end of last year, I watched the TV programmes 'Wednesday' and 'Our Flag Means Death', and while I loved them both I found that they were quite hard on me emotionally, as the protagonists had social experiences so similar to my own that I wanted to curl up in a ball and roll away forever. When looking at fan content for those programmes online I kept seeing comments about these characters being interpreted as autistic and I began to seriously question (again) whether I too was autistic.

At that time I was working on a lot of trauma in therapy around getting bullied at school, and my therapist supported me in my theory that being autistic was a likely explanation for my experiences. So in December 2022 I started the assessment process, and next week I will know for sure- though the initial stages of assessment involving the questionnaires like the AQ made me confident enough of the eventual result to join this forum in the meantime.

Hi Siggy, I had just turned 54 when the flame was finally lit under me. The same as a lot write here, I just always knew I was different, no one else seemed to experience the world in the same way. Social occasions and having to interact with others was way beyond the norm.

I was working in my workshop on my own as I do everyday with the radio on. Two young ladies were being interviewed, they were both 18 and late diagnosed, apparently 18 is late. They spoke for 20 minutes about autism and how it affects their lives. At the end of the interview, I was in shock, they had just pretty much described my life. Two months later I approached my GP, it was the 10 minutes and only one item appointment but that was more than enough. I emailed the surgery after being sent the same questionnaires as you, was told to fill them in  without the GP, a few months later a more in-depth set arrived from the assessment unit. One piece of advice is, don’t try to process your entire life too quickly.

That’s great that you had that chat with your GP. I did the same about 18 months ago and got a private assessment afterwards at the age of 44. Confirmation was such a relief. 

I had that best man speech nightmare come up for me as well. It was months of near-constant dread and I had to get Valium from the GP before it which in the end barely took the edge off. I gave an awful speech and nobody is less suited to being a stand up comedian or the centre of attention than I am. I remember the last of my remaining hair on top falling out rapidly in the weeks beforehand. That didn’t help either! I obsessively researched what a BM speech was supposed to be like. On YouTube you can watch examples. I’d look at one that seemed good to me, but the comments underneath would be tho gs like ‘you ruined this couples big day, well done idiot’ and stuff. So the horror was just intensified. My brother meant well on asking me (and obviously one feels that declining is not an option) but I think he understands better now what that would have been like for me. I survived it but it was extremely stressful