Published on 12, July, 2020
My daughter recently moved back in with us aged 31 and I’m 61. She had been working with autistic people and she said that she thought I was. I’ve always known I was different, but never realised why. I mentioned it to a couple of people and they said, yes, I know! How come I never even crossed my mind that I was autistic?
I’m in my early 50’s and have only recently accepted that I am autistic. When I was school age I was just perceived as weird and largely avoided by everyone else. That has pretty much carried on ever since.
When I was young people had barely heard of autism. So there was no question of me ever being referred for anything. As you are almost 10 years older than me, it is hardly surprising no one ever mentioned it. If you can ‘mask’ then it would never have occurred to anyone you may have an illness. You were probably just seen as odd.