Hello,
I am a 45 year old, married father of two who has just realised he is autistic. I don't know why it took me this long and I have even been thinking about the possibility for the last seven or eight years without ever deciding. I have just listened to Pierre Novellie's book "Why can't I just enjoy things" and had the light bulb moment you hear about. Suddenly everything about me makes sense. My difficulty socialising, my problems with eye contact, my reaction to certain noises, rigid thinking etc etc. I love being on my own and have realised that this is because I can stop masking and be myself.
I run my own business so a diagnosis isn't going to make any difference to my work life and I feel that my wife does make a lot of allowances for me in our life together, in that she doesn't try and force me to socialise when I don't feel up to it like maybe she did in the past, but I think it will help us both understand where the other is coming from better and hopefully allow us to compromise more.
I do have rigid thinking on how things should be done but I have never imposed that on her, I am more likely to just stop engaging with her on something if I don't feel like she is listening to me, she then takes that as acceptance on my part and I lose the plot when she just goes ahead and does something. I am hopeful that it can help us find a way of communicating better with each other. I.e. me communicating at all and her just coming to me with half thought out brain dumps that confuse the hell out of me and make me want to just end the conversation immediately!
I haven't discussed this with my wife or anyone else yet but my realisation that I am sure I am autistic has already bought some comfort after years and years of feeling that there is something uniquely wrong with me and not knowing why or what it is.
I have also realised that my 13 yr old son is almost certainly autistic as well. It is less clear to me how to best proceed here as there are no major issues to be dealt with. He is very bright academically and is doing very well at school and has a good, small, group of friends. I worry about upsetting that and making him think there is something "wrong" with him, if that thing is not causing issues currently. However, I am aware that issues may come up later in life when he goes to university and then starts looking for a job. I am heartened that many workplaces (and presumably universities) now take neuro divergence seriously and I think that knowing this thing about himself when he's a bit older can only help. I just don't want him to view it as an impediment when I think that, in the right environment, he can really do well.
Any advice on that last bit, gratefully received.
