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52 year old possible autistic

mrdavidjk

Hi my name is david,


A while ago my daughters partner (a mental health nurse for kids) very gingerly informed me he thought i might be autistic and it got me thinking.
I looked round the internet (yes i know diagnosis from the internet) and found the aq-50 which i read through and saw a lot of similarities.  the results stated i was highly likely to be autistic but rather than being upset it kind of felt like a relief.

I have always felt odd, i struggle to talk to people beyond hello because i dont know what to say and often how to respond and i worry what they will think of me, i dont maintain eye contact and will actively go out of my way not to engage in social activities,
i am a world class procrastinator which i really hate because i dont know why i do this, and struggle to focus if there is more than one thing requiring my attention. there is more but this is what bothers me most.

Thinking about it now i wonder why i never considered it previously 

I have 2 grown children who are high functioning asd which i assumed was from my late wifes side as both her, her brother and father all have obvious traits  

I would like to get a formal diagnosis but i am so bad at getting what i want to say across to people because i just freeze, it doesn't occur to me or it takes hours to figure out what to say.
With the doctors being as busy as they are these days i wonder if anyone could help me prepare.
I tried to run the scenario through in my head and i get stuck at the first hurdle
I imagine telling the doctor i want to be screened for autism and he asks why and i freeze because i feel on the spot and cant answer or give a half answer which is what i usually do when i visit for something non urgent.

do you have any tips on dealing with the doctors because i imagine they will look at me and just say "well you have managed so far"

Also i was verry happy when after typing some of this up yesterday and then closing my browser and not posting it i came back today and all the text was still here. 

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  • mrdavidjk said:
    I have always felt odd, i struggle to talk to people beyond hello because i dont know what to say and often how to respond and i worry what they will think of me, i dont maintain eye contact and will actively go out of my way not to engage in social activities,
    i am a world class procrastinator which i really hate because i dont know why i do this, and struggle to focus if there is more than one thing requiring my attention. there is more but this is what bothers me most.

    Jeepers! You sound like my long lost clone! Are you about 6'5", athletic, with blond hair and a devilishly handsome and youthful face? No? Me neither. You're definitely my clone!

    Tip: Learn as much as you can. Write things down. Get a family member to go with you, or just to help you organise things.

    This forum seems to be packed with people who were diagnosed in their 50s or later. I think there is more awareness now that people have "managed so far", but can still be Autistic and/or ADHD, etc., so it will probably be unlikely you'll hear that. If someone feeds you that line, find someone else to deal with.

  • in reply to Damojo
    Damojo said:
    Write things down. Get a family member to go with you

    Great advice. I wish I would have done either of these two things when I got my assessment.

  • in reply to profdanger

    That’s exactly what I did, I knew I would freeze and not remember anything. I left a page open on my laptop and just added to it as more realisation came along. I did go on my own though, It all  just felt too personal to share with family.

  • in reply to Roy
    Roy said:
    I left a page open on my laptop and just added to it as more realisation came along.

    I have one too! I started with a list of Autism traits and then, over months, I've been expanding on the items with concrete examples as I notice them. This is more for my own benefit to detect masking/unmasking, but I could imagine someone presenting something like it to a doctor or psych.

    For example, under "Eye contact", I had nothing for a while, but then noticed that, at the dinner table, if someone is speaking, I look down at the table when I'm listening. If I look at the speaker's eyes, I feel startled and lose track of the words. It's more pronounced if there's music on in the background—then I tend to fiddle with something in my hand, like a bottle cork, which seems to help with filtering noise (which is a separate item in the list). So, me listening intently, looks like someone not listening at all.

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  • in reply to Roy
    Roy said:
    I left a page open on my laptop and just added to it as more realisation came along.

    I have one too! I started with a list of Autism traits and then, over months, I've been expanding on the items with concrete examples as I notice them. This is more for my own benefit to detect masking/unmasking, but I could imagine someone presenting something like it to a doctor or psych.

    For example, under "Eye contact", I had nothing for a while, but then noticed that, at the dinner table, if someone is speaking, I look down at the table when I'm listening. If I look at the speaker's eyes, I feel startled and lose track of the words. It's more pronounced if there's music on in the background—then I tend to fiddle with something in my hand, like a bottle cork, which seems to help with filtering noise (which is a separate item in the list). So, me listening intently, looks like someone not listening at all.

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