Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all, just interested in finding out how you became aware of your Autism?
for me, it was very recently at the age of 53, i had been sat doing a bit of soul searching, sat there looking back through my life realising i havent had as many relationships as others my age, and realising i only have family and work colleague, not friends and that i have struggle throughout life to try to form any.
i find starting up conversations can be very difficult, and keeping them going more so, i have never felt comfortable in social settings, often trying to find a corner to slink off in to. Centre of attention is a big no, i had to give a best mans speech once, i didnt sleep well for 3 weeks, and on the big day had to have plenty of support from the wife and dutch courage from the bottle.
I thought i may have just been very insecure and shy but decided, although its too late in life to change whats past, i would have a chat with my GP, just to see if there was anything that could explain "me".
having completed the test she sent, it came back with the result of strong Autistic characteristics. i now have to wait to get a proper assessment, but this could help explain why i am the way i am
Siggy
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.