Published on 12, July, 2020
I'm in my early 40s and was diagnosed with autism just two months ago, so I'm still getting to grips with how it's impacting me and how best to respond.
Hello
I'm also in my 40s (just about!) and new here too.
thanks. Do you mind if I ask what prompted you to get assessed? Please don't answer if you'd rather not. It was suggested to me by a therapist.
I was working with a counsellor who kept finding that her strategies for my anxiety weren't working. She suggested I might be autistic and recommended a counsellor who was more experienced with neurodivergence. I think both of those things really helped me- have you found your diagnosis productive for your mental health?
I'm unsure about that so far. Before autism came on my radar in 2019 I was focussed on my long term depth Gestalt psychotherapy.that I'd been in since November 2007. I was viewing it all as I would gradually 'get better' regarding my chronic mental ill health (diagnosis Dysthymia in 2010). Getting the autism diagnosis has altered+affected my view of it all i.e. I always was autistic and always will be. I do remember my Gestalt psychotherapist saying right near the beginning that we were working on me learning to manage what I've got rather than 'be cured' I think but I kind of ignored that and hoped/aimed for more of a 'cured' type outcome (and 'everything' would be going great i.e. a very idealistic type vision fantasy). This has now changed for me, a realization (probably maybe getting closer to reality than being more in fantasy illusion world) I suppose and has threw me (my world view etc) a lot. I decided to stop my psychotherapy in November 2022 for various reasons including that my view of eveything had changed gradually since my autism diagnosis in November 2021 (November keeps cropping up in all this and we're in November 2023 now too!). I'm ttherefore exploring autism slowly now e.g. became a paid up member of NAS this year+joining this forum chat service, trying some local autism groups and so on. I'm extremely unclear where I'm going with it all now (even more than I have been in the past). I might continue psychotherapy in the future in another location i.e. I'd like to 'move on' generally somehow somewhere
That's interesting, sounds like you have a GP who's quite well informed in terms of m/h issues. Do you think you've made progress with your general mental wellbeing as a result of your diagnosis?
Funnily enough, I had a couple of similar experiences.
In 2004 I was working as s teaching assistant when our new intake included 3 kids with ASD/aspergers diagnoses. I tried to find out a bit about it because I really didn't know anything but the internet was obviously very different because I had a bit of difficulty but I do remember reading one description that made me think 'that's a bit like me'. But then I thought 'don't be one of those "I'm a bit OCD" people, you don't know what you're talking about'. 20 years later it turns out I was right.
Like you, my wife had been saying she thought there was something different but wasn't sure what it was. I'm not great at noticing my moods or behaviour patterns so it's really useful to have her reading the assessment questions and saying 'that's exactly what you're like' or 'you do that all the time'.
Is there anything you've read that you would particularly recommend in terms of unserstanding yourself better?
I have had constant issues throughout my life with feeling overwhelmed in very social settings, schools, workplaces, episodes of burnout and depression. In my 30s it was suggested I was bipolar II but that never rang very true (nor did it ring true to my wife who works in mental health). My wife had been suggesting I take some online autism assessments for a few years but I'd always dismissed it because I didn't think that what I knew about autism fitted me particularly well. It turns out, I didn't know an awful lot about autism!
All of the tests suggested a strong likelihood of ASD so I thought I should investigate further. My mum developed Alzheimer's in later life and I thought if I do have autism it really should be on my medical records as it may impact my future care. I took my test results to the GP who referred me to the autism assessment people. I've been through the screening process and placed on the waiting list for assessment.
I've since read extensively about autism and the more I understand, the more it fits my own experience.
My GP prompted me to in summer 2019. Autism hadn't been on my radar hardly at all until then, I'd been focusing on mental ill health awareness and treatment particularly since around 2007. This year I've started to explore Autism more e.g. joining NAS and this forum community chat.