Hello, I’m new

You must be so relieved, Meeksworth! Thanks for the warm welcome x

Nice to meet you, Yellow tree x

Thanks, Sparkly x

Welcome and congratulations on self diagnosing! That's a big and positive step to take.  I self diagnosed a few years ago and now I have an official diagnosis which has brought me a lot of validation and peace.

Welcome to the autism forums!

Welcome to the Community, Snowcake.

Thanks for your reply, alcohol and antidepressants…..I found the alcohol made me more normal, or that’s how I viewed it. I originally thought I was depressed, then I really thought about it, I was depressed as a young child and I knew I functioned differently. The fact was I was struggling in a strange world. It was by total accident, I caught a radio interview with two autistic people, I couldn’t work for the rest of the day, they had pretty much described my life. That was the start of my journey. I was 10 minutes with my GP and he told me I was being referred for an autism assessment. Unfortunately the wait in my area is 2.5 years. I couldn’t afford going private but that time has allowed me to process my eventful life and learn more about autism, there’s things I’ve always done that I never knew were autistic traits.

Thanks for the welcome, Roy  Best of luck with your assessment 

Hi NAS91753

Thanks for the welcome. I’m a recovering alcoholic, also, and we have a serenity prayer. It’s helped me with many things in my life. I’m not religious at all, so I use the word God as an acronym; the power to Get Off Drink, which I believe we all have inside us. The prayer is:

God grant me the serenity,

To accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference

My life has been a total car crash, even in sobriety. I can’t change it. All I can do is my best, every day. That’s what I try to do. I don’t know if this will help, but it’s part of my routine. I love my daily routines!

Hello Snowcake,

I too am 67 and have all my life felt and am different from everyone else, a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. I've always been diagnosed with smi given anti-depressants etc but only recently been diagnosed with autism ....everything seems to clicked into place and reading your post makes a lot of sense...but what I can't get my head around is that I have lived my life a lie... your guidance is desperately needed please

Hi and welcome, I’m 56 and have my assessment soon, people of our generation had no chance of help, if autism had of been known about it would halve been treated as a mental illness that needed curing.

I’ve chosen to get a formal diagnosis, it’s not for everyone, many here self identify for many different reasons and all valid.I just need I suppose validation to stop my imposter syndrome and to answer a lot of questions through my life.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Sincere thanks to Rach91, Ben and Annmarie97 for the warm welcome

Hello Snowcake, welcome to our humble abode. Congrats on the self diagnosis! :) I hope you will feel welcome and validated here.

Hello Snowcake,

I was diagnosed three years ago at the age of 67, so you and I are from the same generation.  You're right when you say autism wasn't talked about when we were younger. I had many problems spanning the decades, and doctors didn't seem to consider autism at all, they just put it all down to anxiety and prescribed pills. Happily, times are changing.

Receiving my diagnosis has been most enlightening, my knowledge and understanding of the condition has slowly expanded, and it has changed the way I think about myself. My lifelong differences and difficulties have gradually made sense as I see things in a new light, helped in part by the rather diverse collection of folk I've met on this forum; it appears that more and more of us are discovering our autistic selves... at last.

Welcome to the forum, I hope you benefit from joining.

Ben

Hi snowcake welcome