Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi there . I’ve been researching autism since my gp suggested I might be as well as adhd as I’m a tad accident prone and have no real sense of direction . A friend sent me a link to a book about masking and being autistic and it was that lightbulb moment where everything written resonated with me .
my mother had issues and I think she was autistic with some serious mental health problems , my brother was diagnosed with autism at 73 which was a lightbulb moment for him and my daughter has finally had an official adhd diagnosis at nearly the age of 30.
so the odds are in my favour to make the set up. I am functioning but had a melt down a couple of years ago when I was off work for a while and have had depression on and off most of my life , anoerexic as a teenager and can have communication issues especially with my manager at work . He despairs of my sometimes inconsistency and that sometimes when I am trying to tell him of an event all the words come out total rubbish or in the wrong order . It’s a standing joke when I trip or walk through a door and leave a toe behind that I should live in bubble wrap and I can’t ride a bike to save my life and if expected to change gears I fall over .
it all makes sense and I’m learning how I have been masking for most of my 59 years on this planet .
sometimes I display an emotion on the outside but I don’t feel it inside almost like an auto response when I feel nothing and other times the opposite where I am crying inside but appear calm outside .
Hi Llamalady I'm new here too. I'm in my mid 30s, and in a similar boat - I started seeing a counsellor earlier in the year about some anxiety issues, and she suspects I am neurodivergent - possibly adhd and/or autistic. From the reading I have been doing, I feel like I can relate more to the descriptions of autism than to those of adhd. Though there are also parts I don't feel like I relate to so much as well. A couple of weeks ago, I had a screening assessment (with a psychologist, not just an online quiz) and the results were that I do show some signs of adhd traits, but unlikely to be enough for a diagnosis, but I scored high enough on the autism front to warrant seeking a diagnostic assessment if I decide I want to. I'm still very much in the middle of figuring things out. Anyway, its nice to find others who are on a similar journey.