50 and diagnosed

Hi manofmann,

Welcome to the forum, I'm really pleased you have found us. Just wanted to point you in the direction of a couple of areas on the website which focus on adults with autism or Asperger syndrome, in case you've not seen them yet. I hope they are useful.

http://www.autism.org.uk/living-with-autism/adults-with-autism-or-asperger-syndrome.aspx

http://www.autism.org.uk/About-autism/All-about-diagnosis/Diagnosis-information-for-adults.aspx

Take care,

Adél, NAS moderator 

I must say i don't envy the psych's job trying to untangle all of the issues that some aspies have when we are so rubbish at communicating! Well done to the locum for decoding you!

Misdiagnosis with other issues (e.g manic depression and all sorts of other problems) is quite common for people on the spectrum so i hope you are getting a full reappraisal in the light of the latest diagnosis?

the other thing to say is that the condition causes lots of mental health issues. If you can get to understand the impact of the aspergers then you may be able to unpick some of your other problems.

really liked your different pair of glasses comparison, it seems just like that for me too.

I have been under the adult mental health service for over 15 years, with a personality disorder diagnosis.  I saw a locum, who asked me to take some tests and diagnosed me with Asperger's (when I had asked my main psychiatrist about it, he said I was not Autistic).

I am still trying to gather and understand about the condition (I was only diagnosed 6 days ago!).  I am using this website as a major resource, though so far a lot of the information seems to be about diagnosis of a child rather than an adult - so any pointers would be very helpful!

What I have discovered is that some of the things about me that have puzzled me in the past are beginning to make sense to me now.  The best analogy I can find is that it is like putting on a different pair of glasses - everything is still the same but things can appear different.

What happens next is pretty much up to you :-)

Firstly, you can start to relax. i was diagnosed 2 months ago at 56 and i have found that the world is a less stressy baffling place than it was before.

How much do you know about the condition? Have you understood that a diagnosis can be a really good thing? How did you get to the point where you had the diagnosis?