Senior and discovering.....

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I am 69 and finally enjoying 18 months of sobriety. I now know that my addiction to alcohol was only a mask so I didn't have to deal with reality. After becoming sober for six months, I found myself not really liking myself and was becoming very depressed. My doctor prescribed Citalopram for depression. I needed to start reading and finding out how and why I thought the way I did. To my surprise and luck, I stumbled across Adult Autism and Asperger Syndrome. Took a couple of the standard tests and discovered I was in the 95 percentile of being autistic.

I told my physician about my personal finding and he wasn't impressed with me self diagnosing. As he put it, I don't know what good it will do at this time since there is no cure. You would need to see a psychiatrist and have them diagnose me. Sad part is there aren't many people in my area of East Tennessee. Even if I found someone, what could we accomplish?

Now I have set my mind that I understand my limitations and how I could react and respond. And now I know that my AS has had a bad affect with my adult children...with our estranged relationship. I have always wondered why I didn't have any friends....but now I know why I have chased so many people away.

Welcome to WrongPlanet.

Sadly, your physician's reaction is all too common. You will come across many stories from people here who have spent decades seeking to find out why they never fitted in, but who were simply dismissed as temporarily depressed and sent away with a prescription (the meds can help many people, but without exploring the causes, how can we can never do anything preventative?) As far as the tests go, he might (but probably won't) be interested to know that the exact same tests are often administered as the first stage of a formal diagnosis - they are used for initial screening precisely because they have been shown to be clinically useful.

As for it "doing some good" to know. Well, I can vouch for how much talking with other people with similar conditions on forums like this one has helped me, if only to know that I'm not alone, but often so much more than that. It is certainly a good thing to finally have our eyes opened so that we can assess our past mistakes and misunderstandings with greater clarity, and maybe have the opportunity to put some of them right, or at least to not repeat them. I hope you find the same.

Welcome to Wrong Planet and congratulations on your sobriety.

I have always known something was different about me, or rather lots of things were different about me, but no one was talking about autism or other disabilities when I was growing up. I learned to cope as best I could and also learned to like myself the way I am. I don't like to socialize and I prefer being alone. Please don't be hard on yourself about "chasing others away." It really is a two way street. Others don't understand us either. Frequently people think they are being nice, when to me, as an aspie, they are driving me crazy. Also, they misinterpret our words and actions and can get angry when really, I was just thinking about something a little longer than you would, or I have to think a bit to know how I feel, or there is so much in my mind scrambling to get out at once, nothing comes out.

At any rate, I did not figure out this aspie stuff until about six months ago. I am 64 now. It has brought clarity and some measure of peace and "sensibleness" to my understanding of my life. It has been invaluable to me to read various posts in WP and think - Yeah! I recognize that. Or, what interesting people are here!. Generally, I don't find people very interesting, but there are LOTS of interesting minds posting on WP.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

I am 65 and have self-diagnosed from the extensive set of tests available on the net. I see no point in discussing this with the medical profession but it has given me an explanation for all of the things that I thought were odd about me and about others over the years. It has also given me a frame of reference for dealing with my wife who is NT and unsympathetic but that is a different story...

I was diagnosed 2 + years ago at about 62.

Though still struggling my therapist told
me I had learned a series of adaptation. Some were only good in the short term.
The so called instant gratification of use such as sarcasm or modeling after scripts.