NEW. And new to the concept of maybe being autistic

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So I’m 40, and since my late teens I’ve had mental health problems. Depression, anxiety, psychosis, delusional disorder, primary OCD, ADD... at various stages over the last 20 plus years I’ve had varying degrees of all of the above.

I found comfort by supplementing my various prescription meds with alcohol and cannabis, moving onto my girlfriends morphine (she has serious back problems). The common theme in my head seemed to be the constant pursuit of a level of contentment and relaxation I could never quite get naturally. Whilst I would appear super relaxed and laidback, and would quite confidently say I was, I only ever achieved this state by disconnecting and refusing to care about literally everything around me. My head would be off, like 60% of it, churning over thoughts from multiple angles, and I could only presume I found that comforting, as there was a great reluctance to stop and focus on my present surroundings.

I stopped smoking cannabis about 8 years ago as I just couldn’t cope with the intrusive thoughts it started to give me, and alcohol wise over the last 18 months I’ve really cut down to barely drinking.

I have moved into a new career, again about 18 months ago - my last 15 year career just practically burnt away from under me, as I fell out of love with it. I literally forced myself to keep turning up for financial reasons and after 3 years of this I could barely even operate in the role. So I was blessed to fall into a new career that used more of my brain.

As the alcohol has cleared from my life I’ve been a lot more aware of my mental short comings; horrendous executive function; almost no desire to ever visit one of my small group of friends; appearing to get bored or want the conversation to finish when speaking to my parents (this one upsets me); having to act when my girlfriend is upset, my reaction to it is a composite of 1,000 films and the theoretical model of how I should act. I get excruciating claustrophobic style reactions with a slight neck tic the more I try and put up with situations I can’t settle in. Daft things like my girlfriend taking ages on one isle of the grocery store, I’ll be walking around, back and forth, trying to reason with myself it shouldn’t be a hard thing to be patient for her, suppressing the anger building towards her, and feeling guilty I’m even being that selfish.

So thinking this may be ADD related, I went to see a new private consultant psychiatrist, and he has floated the idea of high functioning autism. Which came as a slight shock as it’s just never come up before, but taking a step back, I guess it has merit.

For 20 years I’ve tried to reconcile why I’ve felt just wrong, why I’ve never been able to see where my edges are, and whatever mental illness I have starts. Naturally this new bit of exciting (for my mind) info - the rough diagnosis - has resulted in the whole algorithm getting resubmitted with new variables, so I’ve found things tiring since the autism idea came up.

So now I’m deciding if I need to get the diagnosis confirmed, or not, and it might be weird but I hope it is autism. For decades my m/health has felt so bespoke and internal it’s become more and more frustrating, especially when I’m getting in s**t for things I’m pretty sure I’m not able to easily control, so knowing I’m actually not alone would, even at 40, be a comfort.

Anyway, onward! I’m still going to push on as hard as ever, it’s all I know how to do now

Oh I got an AQ score of 37. Which I’m not treating as a diagnosis, more an indication my persisting problems do align with some autistic traits.

To be honest, the consultant putting ASD out there has been a headfuck. I’ve literally dedicated half of my life to trying to think my way through issues that I might have no chance of changing. And I’ve been really hard on myself for not being able to change them.

I might seem a bit heavy going in what I’ve written, but I’m just brutally honest, and that can be to the detriment to my more chilled out side

Cheers all,
James

At your age, autism is just a label. Adults are unlikely to get services for childhood developmental disorders.
But, it is up to you whether the label is worth the cost.

Label or not, it may be possible is to reduce the stresses caused by not fitting in to your present environment.
This can be as simple as wearing high fidelity earplugs when you go to the movies. If you have autism it really makes a difference!

Yeah I totally get the label aspect, I also question what it will achieve.

I think because I’ve had such a variety of diagnoses over the years, to not complete this final step will really get under my skin. I can already sense it’s getting obsessional, my need to know what is wrong. I’m not saying that’s a good dynamic to slip into, it’s just being pragmatic about what will let me get off that roundabout. Chucking resources at my obsessional side (done a lot already) or get a diagnosis and hope that slows it down.

I’m just exhausted by it. I don’t know anyone with mental health problems, I never have really, and self managing and masking and forcing myself to cope in situations I’d rather avoid has been harder than I realised. Hence coming into this forum, I need to start getting things out of my head and into view. Clear the clutter

I'm new here too,as in in the last hour new I'm 45, got formally diagnosed at 31yo, though I'd known since I was about 17 and volunteering with children with learning disabilities.

For years I was told I couldn't be autistic because I'd be a lot less able, this in the 90s when the older psychs were still in control and knew zilch about able forms of autism, though it was beginning to be recognised more.

Donna Williams' books were a revelation for me - but the psychs diagnosed me with personality disorder instead, like so many women back then.

So really I'm just wanting to say I know something about where you're coming from. And that it *is* useful to get a formal diagnosis when older,for self understanding, exploring on forums like this, and explaining to other people in your life. And even for occasional accommodations, if you can find ways to ask for them that work for you.

If you need accommodations, it may be less hassle to just ask for them, without bringing autism into the picture, even if you have an official diagnosis. This is one place where "don't ask, don't tell" may make sense. Autism is too complicated for many people to understand, as it goes against the idea of putting a label on something and then being able to make reasonable assumptions based on the label.

Hey Hummingbird
I had a look at Donna Williams books earlier, is there one you’d recommend as a good first book of hers to read?

Yeah I’m firmly thinking in my circumstances I will get a formal diagnosis, or not! It might be I don’t have Autism.

BDBT - It’s funny as the suggestion by the consultant regarding ASD has opened up some really useful conversations between myself and my girlfriend, regarding both our accommodations.

I think I’m relaxing into the fact I’m 40 now, I’ve genuinely tried to always aim for NT ‘normal’ type behaviour, and come down hard on my present self hard for not achieving it.

It’s time to start accepting some things are just me

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

Re Donna Williams: her autobiographical books tend to make more sense than the textbook type ones.So maybe start with Nobody Nowhere and if you like it then try Somebody Somewhere, and so on. I can't remember if there are four or five autobiographical ones.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Cheers for the welcomes it’s appreciated.

And thanks for the pointer Tufted Titmouse (is that even a real thing?!) me and books have a strained dynamic, I love the idea, and picking them up, committing myself to reading them is hard though. Yet I devour info off the internet like I’m borderline obsessed

As I mentioned, I know literally no one with any mental health problems, but I can feel a need to be understood and understand, hence pulling up a chair here

You posted in my intro thread that you recognized a lot of what I said in yourself. Reading you here? Same, dude. You're not alone.

Let's see if we can figure out what exactly is 'wrong' with us. Like you, at this point, I just want to know and to have my label, however much I detest labels, you know? At least then maybe we'll have a framework to better understand ourselves.

I'll update my thread in the future as I learn more, and I'll be following your journey, too. Welcome to Wrong Planet.

Yeah I think I need the label. My head doesn’t trust it’s own judgement, I have no ability to be assess how calibrated I am to believe my amateur diagnostics, so it needs something of substance to anchor to. I can’t think of many reasons why I’d need the label other than for my own sanity. I’d been away on holiday with no worries and a clearer outlook but as I bolt my non-holiday life back on it starts to feel unwieldy again, 1,000s of things after my attention from the minute I wake up. And in reality I have stripped back my life to the bare minimum an ‘adult’ should have to cope with. But it’s still draining the f**k out of me haha...