Late diagnosis

Hi Sassetta

I am 49 and have just been diagnosed with ASD and probable ADHD. I have my assessment for that next month.

I used the right to choose pathway, so I only waited 6 months from sending in my pre assessment forms to getting my assessment and diagnosis.

Mt father was schizophrenic and one of my grandsons is diagnosed autistic … my daughter (his mum) is now putting her referral request through as she has traits of ASD and ADHD too. Looks like there’s a genetic link for sure!

I’ve spent a lifetime feeling different, broken and less than - my diagnosis is so validating as when I went down the rabbit hole of researching ASD, everything just made so much sense (combined with ADHD) In addition to the ASD traits, I have executive functioning problems and as an artist I am unable to stick to one medium…. Always finding a new thing to spark my creativity and buying all the equipment .. before moving onto the next thing a few weeks/months later! 

I do feel a bit disappointed that nobody (including myself) realised that all of my issues were related to ASD when I was younger. There were times that I am sure I would have sought support to do some of the things I gave up on due to having little self belief or paralysing anxiety. 

The worst thing about diagnosis is the ignorance of others. I work part time and when I was talking to my manager about my diagnosis, the guy who owns the company overheard part of the conversation - more relating to ADHD. He then went on a massive aggressive rant about how it was all a load of nonsense and that I was a perfectly normal person and he was sick of everyone ‘growing into’ the crap that was ADHD and being labelled when there nothing wrong with them! As you can imagine, that was extremely upsetting and I’d never felt so invalidated in my life! I did get an apology after I’d stormed off back to my office, crying and unable to speak (and after swearing at him for him grabbing my shoulder to try and stop me)

What was your diagnosis experience like? 

I was also 60 when I received my diagnosis. As you might imagine having gone through this yourself, I had a number of ah-hah moments as I reflected upon my life and realized how my autism had caused me to make the career and social decisons that I had. 

What really annoyed me was that after I told my family, one of my cousins said, "I aready suspsected that you were autistic. because I've had friends who were on the spectrum." I really wish that my cousin had thought to menton this some 30 years earlier.As it was, there was nothing I could do to change the past and yelling at him wouldn't have served any purpose. 

In terms of others, I was fortunate to have been a teacher for 32 years. I had no problem with telling my building administration that I was autistic. They even gave me some work related accommodatons. They excused me from attending noisy assemblies. While there was an unwritten expectation that teachers attend local sporting events, no such expectations were ever applied to me. 

On the flipside, after some of my students learned that I was autistic through social media, they conspired to drive me into a meltdown for nothing more than laughs and giggles. Some of them repeatedly touched me despite my asking them to stop. They took paper and pencil that I had made available for students to use as needed. They broke the pencils into pieces and threw them at me along with wads of paper when I wasn't looking. They also continually interrupted my lessons to ask questions that had nothing to do with the subject matter at hand.

"What kind of music do you like?"

"Do you ever wear crocs?"

"If you had a choice between crocs and sandals, which would you wear?"

Whenever I asked them to stop interrupting and to stay on point, they mockingly laughed at me.

Although they did not succeed in causing me to have a meltdown, I got so frustrated with them that I quit mid-semester of last year. 

This was not the way I had wanted to end my Culinary Arts teaching career but it is what it is. 

I was also 60 when I received my diagnosis. As you might imagine having gone through this yourself, I had a number of ah-hah moments as I reflected upon my life and realized how my autism had caused me to make the career and social decisons that I had. 

What really annoyed me was that after I told my family, one of my cousins said, "I aready suspsected that you were autistic. because I've had friends who were on the spectrum." I really wish that my cousin had thought to menton this some 30 years earlier.As it was, there was nothing I could do to change the past and yelling at him wouldn't have served any purpose. 

In terms of others, I was fortunate to have been a teacher for 32 years. I had no problem with telling my building administration that I was autistic. They even gave me some work related accommodatons. They excused me from attending noisy assemblies. While there was an unwritten expectation that teachers attend local sporting events, no such expectations were ever applied to me. 

On the flipside, after some of my students learned that I was autistic through social media, they conspired to drive me into a meltdown for nothing more than laughs and giggles. Some of them repeatedly touched me despite my asking them to stop. They took paper and pencil that I had made available for students to use as needed. They broke the pencils into pieces and threw them at me along with wads of paper when I wasn't looking. They also continually interrupted my lessons to ask questions that had nothing to do with the subject matter at hand.

"What kind of music do you like?"

"Do you ever wear crocs?"

"If you had a choice between crocs and sandals, which would you wear?"

Whenever I asked them to stop interrupting and to stay on point, they mockingly laughed at me.

Although they did not succeed in causing me to have a meltdown, I got so frustrated with them that I quit mid-semester of last year. 

This was not the way I had wanted to end my Culinary Arts teaching career but it is what it is. 

oh my goodness how awful for you. we have a long way to go if kids are behaving like that.