Awaiting assessment in 40's

Hi all,

I'm a newbie here, 45 yo married female. I've had a pre-assessment and am just waiting on the final appointment.  Apologies for the essay!  I joined the forum as it will be nice to read things by other people who 'get' me, and where we're known as the normal ones! Lol!  I'm an only child who has always felt like I'm pretending, my mum and dad (who never considered ASD back then) coached me through life to behave and react properly and politely and to do all the nice thoughtful things a person should do. So I learnt to act and speak about things I should and basically became so good at masking that I didn't even know that's what it was. I just figured everyone was the same. I got diagnosed with GAD in my teens and had bouts of depression through the years, so I've been treated for those (with SSRI's), and even hormone imbalance when I was about 16, when I was describing that I felt like I was caged inside myself trying to get out. At no point did anyone suggest it could be anything else. 

Fast forward to my 20's where I was introduced to someone who became a good friend. She eventually worked in the MH profession and somehow I could be more 'honest' in my behaviour with her. She at one point in later years joked that I reminded her sometimes of one of her autistic clients.

Fast forward to recent times and my GAD was getting so bad my husband insisted I get help. The time spent out of my own environment with other people was really taking it out of me, to the point of occasional panic attacks at home.  It was so much of an effort to pretend to care what other people said or thought, to go through my mental checklist of behavioural acceptance, to maintain the facade that other people saw, it just drained me.  After talking to the MH Nurse for ages though about the apparently wierd and unrelated thoughts and feelings, she simply asked......"do you think there could be anything behind all this, like an underlying cause, because I have some thoughts on it".  I mentioned my friend's comment and she said she agreed!  It's more than likely I'm experiencing burnout from all the years of faking it through life and my brain is saying 'enough!'.

To have this potential diagnosis is such a relief for me. I've always felt so fake and a horrible person for eg...not missing people when they're not around. Like my friend mentioned, who has moved to Devon....I didn't want her to leave, but I don't miss her.  We can go weeks without messaging, but it's like we've spoken the day before when we do and I enjoy her company when we meet up. I used to feel that I must be a horrible, thoughtless person but I now understand that I'm not. I'm just 'wired' differently and just not able to feel some things.

Thanks for reading if you've made it this far!