Hello. (I never know what to say after that, but I will try)
I was diagnosed after I was 60 and that was a few years ago now. Might have been prompted by one of my (three) children being diagnosed and by a training event at work about autism.
I guess I'm here (this online community) because I'm quite isolated and I don't know any people who are autistic (apart from my children) except in ways that are very different from my own experience (I think this is more upbringing and parents than anything).
From the outside I appear lucky to have had a job working in a university, but for me this is a current problem - feeling I ended up retiring without having really achieved much (although not struggling to the extent that I was ever at risk of losing my job either). The feeling that I was (and am still) capable of much more that I actually did. This can be said about a lot of my life.
I think I have ADHD as well and although I am lucky to be able to pay for an assessment I am completely paralysed when trying to figure out how to go about getting a reliable assessment and what to do after that. So nothing has happened for years.
The combination of ADHD with being autistic is interesting in the context of creative academic work. It seems to me that being autistic relates to being creative and having novel ideas and spotting unexpected connections, while at the same time preventing participation in the social communities that exist in academia. Being autistic can be exciting on the ideas front, but ADHD means it is almost impossible to stay focussed and work things out in detail.
I also make art (my academic job was in a science / engineering faculty, in the maths / computing area, not art at all) and am doing a postgraduate qualification in art. Not because I want the qualification but maybe because I can only function in an institutional setting where there is some imposed structure. I think some autistic people only survive in the army or in prison for similar reasons. A university is a kind of prison anyway. [being autistic, attempts at humour sometimes strike the wrong note]
I don't object to being categorized as male, but I say agender when given the opportunity. Like a lot of life, gender is beyond me. But i do realize for many people it is a key aspect of their identity and I don't have any problem at all with that.
I live on my own, with an increasingly aged cat.
